Back in what I like to call my hay days (nothing mattered but doing stupid stuff and having fun), my life consisted of going to the skatepark, videogames, graffiti art, and mucking around. Typical 13yo to 15yo stuff. Scootering and graffiti art were my passions, and they were basically all I spent my time doing. Going to the skatepark every weekend, you certainly meet some weird people. It is not a good mix when you are between the impressionable ages of 13 and 15. This obviously got me walking down a path of some bad habits. The older I got, the more I felt that I didn't fit in with this crowd. I decided to join a gym. On this self-improvement journey, I wanted to start completely new. I cut off everyone at the skatepark, made a couple awesome friends with a similar mindset, went to the gym consistently nearly every day for the past 2 years (probably a bit excessive), and essentially became a whole new human. Reflecting on it now, this was the best decision I have ever made. It completely changed my life and created who I am today. The gym has not only been a journey with my physicality; it has also been my outlet, built my mindset, and got me involved in a community that I love.
My friends who have stuck with me have been awesome. We all push each other to be better and strive for success. My friends have influenced my values and identity in a way where they give me confidence that my values and morals aren't out of the ballpark, as they share similar ones with me.
My strengths are my focus, determination, and commitment. These strengths are some that I will certainly apply to Dev Academy as I continue to learn. They will help when times inevitably get rough on this course and when I just need to tough out a piece of work.
My limitations can be my time management, which I hope to improve on during this course. I sometimes underestimate the amount of work needed to be put into an assignment or piece of work, which can lead to me getting stressed and anxious when trying to hit a deadline.
An example of a time when I was trying to work productively with others but there was resistance or tension would be when I started my business, Bored Graffiti. One of my good friends thought it was an awesome idea and bought in. It went splendidly for a while until my business partner decided that he got bored (no pun intended) and stopped working efficiently, which inevitably resulted in the downfall of the company. This caused me a lot of stress as he didn't tell me anything; he just waited until it was too late, and I found out the hard way. I tried to negotiate a way for him to do the work he said he would do, but in reality, you can't just change someone's mind if they don't want their mind changed. I had to keep my cool the whole time and accept that it was not going to work in the business's favor. Negotiating was not effective, but the thing I found most effective in a situation like this one was projecting myself as calm and collected. I didn’t say ‘being’; I said ‘projecting’. I found that as long as I seemed to be calm and collected, a lot of things ran a lot smoother and set the tone for any conversations we had. This is the strategy I have continued to use to this day when stressful situations arise working in groups, and it has failed to let me down once.