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Draft of Final Paper Kristin Elam California State University, Chico

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Every person is made up of hundreds of different habits. We have so many that come naturally, we would never even think to call it that. Even though here may be numerous habits, only eight of those can lead to success. As we grow up, we learn which habits matter and which ones we could probably live without. The three that have the most impact in a persons life are responsibility, flexibility, and creativity. When was the last time you saw someone get a job lacking authority? How are you supposed to deal with unexpected problems if you refuse to change yourself? Can you really get far in life if all you can think about are the simple things? These are the questions that should always be asked when we go on with our everyday lives. The way we act defines who we are. Who do you want to be? I guarantee the word successful, or words closely related to that, popped into your head. To be successful today, a person must have the ability to strive for the best. And these three habits are the answers to all of these questions. College is a very difficult time in a young adults life. All of the new experiences, changes, and people can be very intimidating. Luckily, we are blessed with the skills of having or learning to obtain many helpful habits. Throughout this paper, I will be expressing the importance of these habits and how they have affected my life personally. Im not perfect. I know for a fact I dont possess all of these habits flawlessly. Just like every single person, I have habits I need to work on as well. Before I get into the most successful habits, Ill explain all of the other ones I could improve later on in my life. Curiosity has been in the back of our minds ever since we could crawl. Im sure I wasnt the only little kid who would run into things and do the strangest things because I was full of questions. I dont think curiosity is a bad thing necessarily. If it werent for our curious ways, there would never be any discoveries made in the world today. Its only natural to want to know how things work; its how we as humans are wired. We only have these wants because we can

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acknowledge that there are gaps in our understandings of the world (Loewenstein, 1994). Sometimes, the wants our curiosity creates are not always going to end in a happy matter. When a person is curious, they will investigate. Over half the time, you will discover something you didnt want to see. I am definitely a victim of curiosity. I have ruined relationships in my past by asking too many questions. Ive also destroyed some studying opportunities a few times because I wanted to experience the night life of Chico. Sometimes, I wish I hadnt been so curious. The need for curiosity will ultimately lead to a new discovery or theory, rather that success itself. Getting someone to come out from under their shell could possibly be one of the most difficult things. Luckily, one of the habits to success is openness. Being able to open up to your peers will really help you later on in life. I was actually very surprised how open I felt with my assigned English group this semester. When we had to travel for our video project and spend hours together trying to create a video, it was very fun. Being open with my peers really helped me accomplish group work with them. Openness helps with making connections, feeling more comfortable about yourself, and being more aware of your surroundings. Im not saying these traits dont lead to success, because they most definitely do. The fact is; how open a person is really depends on their own personal traits. Openness as a fundamental dimension of personality (McCrae, Costa Jr., Hogan, Johnson, and Briggs, 1997). This quotation clearly explains the openness of a person can only be determined on their personality. Even though openness does help when trying to be successful, it isnt the most dominate habit to have. When the word engagement comes to mind, you probably think of a wedding. When someone becomes engaged, they are making the decision of devoting their whole life to be with one person. This doesnt just have to fall under being in love. Being engaged, to or about anything, is a huge commitment. Throughout the semester, we all had to maintain our own blog.

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No, we didnt just write about our troubles and feelings. We would submit our write-ups onto them. This is something I really need to work on. I get distracted so easily and it really starts to affect my grades if it gets bad enough. When we were assigned to do an annotated bibliography, I did not engage myself well enough at all. I didnt have the desire to research what was needed in one, and I was marked down for it. Ill be honest here. This semester, my group and I really struggled on our persistence. I swear, we could never stay focused on anything for longer than fifteen minutes. Every now and then, I would harass my group members to do their work. They probably though I was nagging them like a mother, but we needed to complete our assignments. Even if as a whole we werent persistent with our work, I was definitely persistent when it came to deadlines. Thats something that I really like about myself. When I know a deadline is coming up, I make sure to meet it on time. Having this habit is something that will make me successful later on in like when I can master it. For now, I really need to work on how well and often I deal with my problems. I can guarantee the habit I need to work the most on is metacognition. My understanding on this habit is limited. According to the article Metacognition: An Overview, the author states Metacognition enables us to be successful learners, and has been associated with intelligence (Livingston, 1997). From this quotation, we see that this way of thinking can make us be successful when were learning. But what happens after we learn? My problem with this is that when I learn something new, all of my focus needs to put into that one certain aspect. Then, when I think Ive finally mastered it, my focus starts to weaken. I dont think about it as often and soon Im doing it wrong again. This happened when we had to write a love letter to one of our trees. We werent allowed to use the word love at any point throughout that letter. After I was done writing it, I had to go back and erase the world love a few times. I would stop thinking

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about it and then I would end up writing it. Dont get me wrong, I think that metacognition can help someone be very successful. Its just a habit this is very hard to master properly. All of these habits listed above can indeed lead to a very successful life. Personally, they did not lead me to success in this class, or in my life in general. These next three habits have made this class more successful for me. Throughout the whole year, we have gone deeper and deeper into writing about nature and places. Not just how it makes us feel and all that other sentimental nonsense. We really had to be careful with what we wrote and exactly how we would interpret it. This is where the habit of flexibility came in. All of high school, I was forced to write a certain way or only keep things at a certain length. Then when I came to college, my writing seemed to gain for freedom than I did. Having this habit has only helped me improve with my writing. At the beginning of the semester I had a very concrete way of writing. Luckily, my ability of having flexibility in my work only benefitted me. I was able to change my writing style easily, and able to adapt to a new style also. This has really helped my success from a creative writing standpoint. To be successful, you have to be creative. You cant expect to get far in life if you continue to be dull and stay with the crowd. My whole life Ive always gone a little above and beyond or did things differently than everyone else. I have my own personal standards, so this called for some creativity. Even though this was not on my specific blog, it was on my groups tree project blog. On one of my trees, the Tam Juniper, I had to do a creative writing. It was actually quite fun trying to write as someone, or better yet something else. Even a little mite needs to sit back, relax, and enjoy some tea from a Tam Juniper (Elam, 2013, October 27th). In this writing, I wrote about insects that lived in this shrub, but it was actually their favorite coffee shop. Its relaxing just being able to let my mind wander; letting it create all of these new things

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for me to write, paint, or design. Being creative makes you different than everyone else and being different will lead you to success. When we were younger, Im sure all of our parents had yelled at us some point in our lives about being responsible. This is because they want us to be successful later on in our lives. During the whole semester, especially in this class, I had to be very responsible when it came to group projects and turning in assignments on time. Looking back on my blog now, Im very happy with how much work and time I put into it. My first post on my website seemed more like a diary entry rather than a college level assignment. My more recent postings are much more thought out because I finally understood that I needed to apply myself if I wanted to succeed in this class. A lot of people could argue that being successful is bossing employees around, having tons of money, or even earning the best grades. All of these are just myths. Success is not defined about what you have accomplished, its how you got there in the first place. Flexibility, creativity, and responsibility are the habits that help you get to success the most efficiently. Of course the other five habits play a huge role in becoming successful as well. Either way, every single one of these habits will lead you to success. They help, or will help as a work towards them, on making me more successful as a student.

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References Elam, K. C. (2013, October 27). Tam juniper. English Group #5. Retrieved from [Link] Livingston, J. A. (1997). Metacognition: An Overview. Metacognition: An Overview. Retrieved from [Link] Loewenstein, G. (1994). The psychology of curiosity: A review and reinterpretation. [Abstract]. Psychological Bulletin, 116(1), 75-98. Retrieved from [Link] McCrae, R. R., Costa Jr., P. T., Hogan, R., Johnson, J. A., & Briggs, S. R. (1997). Conceptions and correlates of openness to experience [Abstract]. Handbook of Personality Psychology, 24, 825847. Retrieved from [Link]

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