I will always remember those conversations with my father that we had in the car after he was picking me up from school. In them we always talked about very profound and relevant topics, such as issues that close people had at the time, our problems or even where we saw the correct balance in life. My Dad always treated me as an adult and these conversations were no exception. In fact, he managed to teach me his method to solve problems: Drawing them. At first I laughed, maybe as you just did. However, I could have never imagined how momentous and influential the use of this method could have been for my future. I was proven wrong since that day because I have to admit that I base 90% of my decisions on this method and it has been the key for the biggest accomplishments of my life. In this blog I would like to share this method with all of you for your own benefit, but first I would like to introduce you to several concepts and practices that you should understand fully to be able to implement it. I have always enjoyed analyzing and understanding how the world works through mathematical concepts, these allow predictability and the ability to replicate them over and over. In a world where everyone works harder, wants to be happier, earn more money, have more fun, learn more, add more value, it is impossible to strive and keep achieving without a change in the rate in which tasks get done and the time they get. Being more productive is a well-known goal for personal development, however, the change in a rate is called exponentiality and it is a concept among many others that is already existing but is not being used by us, people that want to keep improving themselves over and over. The search for exponential phenomena in our lives can not only boost our development and growth, but also help us to get rid of exponential risks or consequences. We should want to be exponentially better because this will make a minimal effort result in massive results in every aspect. The technique of drawing a problem is based on plotting graphs or imaginary diagrams through the use of methods from different disciplines of science that allow us to relativise and look at a problem or decision from another angle, an angle that can be as accurate as mathematics but as broad as psychology at the same time. In case that the search for exponentiality has not yet started for you, I have brought you several examples of how this phenomena works, the benefits of understanding it and taking advantage of it, all centered around the most famous topic in the personal development industry: GIVING UP. Giving up is something that has happened to all of us throughout our lives, probably more than once. Even though it is obvious that not continuing will never bring you results, it is sometimes really hard to keep on track, since the difficulty is too high and the effort outweighs the potential outcome. Who has not been in that position? That time when all of your thoughts around a topic were negative and became more and more frequent, that time when the results did not match the effort behind them, that time when you really thought you had to give up. I have definitely been in that position and what I have learned is that the advice of keep believing in whatever you are doing is the most useful since life and projects are not linear, they are exponential. And giving up at one point may result in total regret since the next goal can be much closer, thanks to this phenomenon. To prove this I would like you to think about a time in which you have been successful and other time when you have failed and given up something that you completely controlled. Have the results come linearly, speaking in terms of time? Have the most important milestones come to you in set periods of time? I can assure you, the answer is no. Life and nature are exponential not linear, an example of this is when I go out to run, something that I do not enjoy at all and think about giving up all the time. If you measure the time that passes from the first to the second time that I think about giving up, it is very short and makes it very hard. However, if you measure the time that passes from one to the next, the thought of giving up once I’m more than half an hour in, the time has increased by thousands of times. Imagine that every point in the graph was one time, there is a clear tendency that we are not aware of, that also proves how giving up can be a terrible idea. Something really similar happens with results and effort, no matter how big your efforts are, the results will come exponentially, and I am pretty sure that this has happened to you sometime when lots of results came together while the effort was being constant or even less, for example at the end of the semester. Imagine that you have worked very hard and your results are very far apart from each other, just like the first points. However, if you keep working and don't give up, the results eventually come in shorter periods of time as the last points do, but if you give up and cut the graph before the results come in shorter periods of time, you will never discover the last parts of the graph with in this case (Inverse exponential) are the most interesting for development and growth. In summary, giving up is a very costly decision that we should think twice before taking according to the math behind the patterns results follow, taking the advice of believing in you and trusting the process is very valuable and not something we should not believe. However, there are points in which it is no longer worth continuing and this can turn out to be an exponentially better decision. Remember, if you have a problem or a decision to outweigh: Just DRAW it.
Luis D
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For as long as I can remember, I’ve always felt as if the people around me in my life had things they expected from me. Whether it was school, sports, or extracurricular activities I always got the sense that I needed to go above and beyond the norm to show them who I was and my potential as a person. I still feel like this sometimes now. Being the second born child of 2 immigrants who came from poor backgrounds made these feelings of having to reach expectations even stronger, because if they successfully settled here with no more than 100$ dollars in their pockets 20 years ago then why shouldn’t I do something outstanding considering the platform they’ve given me from birth? Watching my older sister make my parents proud by achieving things in multiple areas in her life amplified the amount of effort I put in so that I could be at the same level as her. I played many sports like swimming, soccer and dance. I played the violin in an orchestra, took music theory lessons, joined school clubs, programs and anything else that I thought would meet other people's expectations. Doing all of these things for most of my childhood burned me out, I'm not going to lie. I enjoyed it, don't get me wrong but it was definitely a lot. But my coaches saw my effort in sports and praised me for it, my music teachers told me how talented of a musician I was, and my teachers at school would congratulate me on going above and beyond academically. What made me the happiest of all was when my parents would tell their family and friends back in their home country all of the things I was accomplishing here. They would tell my parents about how much they wished their kids could be able to do the things I was doing. This made me happy, because it made my parents proud of me as their daughter. I fully believed for so long that all of the things I was doing were expected of me, and that if I didn't do them I would leave others disappointed. Not until only around a year ago, I realized that I was doing so many things in my life for the approval of others and to meet high expectations that I thought would prove who I am as a person. I was faced with self conflict , because I didn't want to let my guard down and start to do some things in life for myself. I thought that it would make me look like a failure and a disappointment to those around me who thought I would continue this way forever. My parents always made sure to assure me that their number one wish was for me to be happy, and that everything else came second. I started to think about those words and changed a few things in my life that I knew would make a difference. I decided to start recognizing the things I was doing in life solely to gain the approval of others and drop them. It took some time of course because the structure of my life was essentially changing, but compared to a year ago I can confidently say I've progressed. I still do sports and activities I enjoy such as swimming and playing the violin, but the difference is that I do them for myself now. I’m not sure how many people can relate specifically to my blog, but if there’s one thing that I think whoever is reading this should take away, that would be to live life for yourself. Do things because you like doing them. Once you do, they will become all the more enjoyable. Aleyna K Have you ever wondered why some of your classmates get As and some get Cs even though they take the same class? That's because every individual understands, remembers and stores their memories differently. Learning and storing information is probably one of the most crucial steps in studying. This is why it will help your grades if you can find out the best way for you to store the information for a long period of time. Sleeping, linking the information together, self-testing, and writing it out can help you store memory for a long time. I personally use the writing-it-out method so I can recall it like muscle memory. One exception, however, is photographic memory. This is a lucky skill when it comes to studying for a test. People with photographic memory unknowingly take mental photos of a textbook, for example, and can recall it perfectly during a test. On the other hand, I have aphantasia, which is the opposite of photographic memory. One way to explain what that means is that I am unable to visualize and cannot create any pictures of familiar objects, people, or places in my head. It is basically impossible for me to picture my mom's face even though I see her every day. When I try to picture something, my mind goes black and I can feel the presence of an image somewhere in my head but can’t quite reach it. It's almost like the picture is locked up in a translucent box. Eventually, not being able to link information to an image in my head causes memory loss, which is why I rely on what I can use. I use my phone to manage my schedule and store memories by taking photos or videos. What my head can’t do, I try to make up for it by writing a word down several times for my muscle to remember, or using an external source that could store memories more accurately than my head will.
In conclusion, it is important to know what you are or aren’t capable of and use that to find the best way for you to learn, remember, and store that information. Sunsia Y. When I was younger and living in Dubai, I had a few weird experiences with people not treating us right because we were a little different from them but I never really thought about it much because well, I was a child. I moved back and forth from Dubai to Mumbai a few times during those years but I never really noticed much because it wasnt to a high extent. Then we ended up coming to Canada and moving here. The first few months I was here I didn't really get out of the house much and I would just stay indoors and have fun in my little bubble that I had created. I was sad and just missed my family too much but as I went into school and started actually meeting people it was great, amazing even but then I noticed it and as I started going out more it just kept getting worse. I didn't expect to go through something like racism in such an developed and forward country. When I would walk down the street kids would come out of their car windows just to scream dumb things like indian or asian (It was worse than that). This happened to me 4 times in the span of 3 weeks. I was devastated. Not just that but being treated differently even when I would talk to someone. I had people enunciate words to me and speak in a slower tone because they just assumed I couldn’t speak english. One day I sat down with some friends and family and my mom started telling everyone a story about a bus driver who treated her differently because she was brown. Everyone else joined her and we all shared stories about things that have happened to us because we were Indian. It broke my heart to see that so many people were going through the same things I was. I absolutely love the culture that I grew up in. We have so many different types of traditions and practices and I adore them all. I wish for a life of peace and kindness for not just me but everyone. I hope that people accept everyone as time goes by and that we come to a point where everyone is seen as an equal.
‘’In a racist society it is not enough to be non-racist. We must be anti-racist.’’ - Angela Davis Gurleen S |
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