I’ve had the opportunity to create so many different things during Praxis, from this website to the weekly newsletter, and more. Getting thrown right in, in week two I made my personal website. I was scared at first that I would be totally inept at it, but just starting was probably the hardest part. That is the consensus for most of the work I finished, starting was the hardest part. I did a lot of writing these past couple of months, including a case study on Chef Joshua Weisman, an opinion piece, and a weekly newsletter. Overcoming my mental block towards putting my opinions online has been rewarding, and I’ve learned so much from the other things that I’ve created.
The About Me video was probably the hardest project for me, so far. I truly don’t like how I sound on video, so editing that minute-long summary of my potential was difficult. In the end, I am proud of how it turned out. Spending hours editing and filming the clips for it was probably the most time-consuming part, but I enjoyed the process itself.
Here are a couple of my favorite creations from the past couple of months:
One of the assignments we accomplished during Praxis was finishing two books. The first one we read was The Concise Mastery by Robert Greene. From it, I learned that anyone can be a master of anything if they have the passion and drive to succeed. By finding a master and learning under them, you can accelerate your own learning, but at some point, you’ll need to find your own voice. Mastery is about finding your calling. This book taught me so much about what calling actually is, how to discover it, and how to follow through with it.
The second book was James Clear’s Atomic Habits. Your habits make or break you. By making minuscule changes to your routine, asking yourself, is this who I want to be, and making good habits easy to do and bad habits hard, you can quickly master life-altering habits. The ideas from this book that I specifically found helpful were habit stacking and the two-minute rule. When you stack habits, essentially you take a habit you already have and add a habit that you want to it as part of your routine. The two-minute rule states that while you are trying to build a habit, such as exercising, only do it for two minutes at first. You will build the habit, then you can expand on it.
My main takeaways from the program so far are regarding my work style, and how you can effectively reach your goals. My work style is very blocky. I don’t like splitting up my hours into different activities and working on multiple things in a day. Instead, I’ll spend a couple of hours in the morning working on just one thing, then I might switch tasks in the afternoon and after supper have some downtime. Splitting my day into thirds mentally has also been helpful. If I fail in my morning third, I still have the afternoon and evening to succeed. The idea of never failing twice in a row has also been helpful. To reach my goals, I’ve invested time in learning about how I work best. If I can tap into my learning potential, I will succeed.
As phase one comes to a close, I’ve chosen the four courses that I will be completing over the next four months. I will be going through the content marketing course first. Content marketing teaches how to create a valuable product, and how to get it out into the world. I will develop my this skill for my own content, such as my Instagram, and hone the skill as a possible career path. Sales go hand in hand with marketing, which is why I’ll do it next. This teaches how businesses work and succeed. Everyone sells all the time, whether they’re aware of it or not. It might not involve an exchange of money, but if you can sell well, you can do almost anything.
After I finish those two courses, I will solidify the last two. Right now I have content creation and marketing analytics as my final months of work. Content creation is a way to employ the information that I’ll have gained during the first two months. It will help me with my own content creation goals, and make me valuable to companies that use content creation to market. As for marketing analytics, this is a continuation of content marketing, which will dive deeper into the nuts and bolts of what a company uses for marketing.
Overall, I have gotten so much out of these past couple of months. Besides all of the projects that I’ve completed, I’ve also made connections with other highly talented individuals. The environment of personal growth and drive to complete your goals has been super encouraging for me. In Atomic Habits we learned that building a habit can be as easy as joining a group of people with a similar goal. I am excited for the months of work to come, and while I know I will be challenged, I also know I will be that one step closer to achieving my goals.
Genuine Gwyn 
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