I feel as though the habit that played the biggest role in my life this semester was embracing ambiguity. I have never been one to do well under limited constraints or vague instructions. I live and die by structure in everything I do in my life, I need to have a set schedule with everything planned out during my day so I follow it to a T and accomplish everything I need to. Also when it comes to an assignment or just a task I have to do in life I am person who needs to know the exact details of what needs to be done and in what why so I have clear idea of what is right or what’s wrong. It’s almost comparable to the design attitude vs. the decision attitude. In those the design attitude embraces all possible designs and avenues to choose from while decision is just about option 1 or 2. In my life I feel like I need option 1 or 2 and how to do each one and which one is right to seek that approval that I am on the right track. However, this semester has opened my eyes to the ability to embrace the unknown of what my final product will be and to realize that there is more than one avenue to take during an assignment. I have learned embrace ambiguity starting in the classroom, especially on the assignments such as mind maps and our creations with the tea lights and ultimately our final design project. I found myself trying to constantly email professor Allen or Smith or ask my classmates what they think was expected for the assignment because I couldn’t work without knowing if my final product was right. I eventually began to become more comfortable with becoming more creative and not worrying whether or not my creation was “right”. This let my creative outlet grow because I was able to start to produce some things that were out of the box like my in home gym and become okay with taking a different path than others knowing that it was just my creative path. ambiguity allowed me to break through the need for constraints in my life in general as well, allowing me to be more spontaneous with activities I did, and especially with my leadership on the football field. There isn’t one set manual on how to lead, so I thought I had to emulate leaders I saw before me. I learned that I don’t need to constrain myself to how they lead, I can learn how to lead on my own and the best way I see fit.
I would say failing forward comes most naturally to me because I have learned a lot from the mistakes in my life. I feel as though if you come from a sports background you are bound to have this property because it is just a part of any game to mess up at something and learn how to do it the right way to succeed. This has led me to embrace being wrong on an assignment in class better and taking the feedback given to improve my design on the next projects, especially with the mind maps. Failing never has put me down, it has always been a way for me to learn how to do things the right way. So it was pretty easy to accept that my designs weren’t perfect or my answers weren’t always right because I felt as thought it would help shape how to do things right for the rest of the class.
The habit I want to work on the most is my creative confidence. I have never considered myself a very creative person, especially in terms of artistic abilities. I feel as though my lack of artistic abilities hinders me from thinking that I can be creative when it comes to design processes because I have a fear in the back of my mind that someone will be better. It limits me to only creating very simple things that I believe will be “right” instead of trying to push the creative boundaries.Things like the brainstorming activity, mind maps, and creations didn’t come easily at all because I wasn’t confident enough to really step outside of the box and think of something interesting or improve on my idea,I just went for purpose and really getting the job done. A way I can practice growing in respect to this habit is by allowing myself to push the boundaries of creativity in everything that I do. I won’t stop at making just one and final version of creation, I will make two to three to really let my thoughts grow and figure different ways to improve besides what I think is “right”. I will also working trying to block out my inability of creating good art and realizing I can still be creative without doing so. I will practice finding different pathways and pushing myself to not just stop when I think I have “completed” something, yet constantly look to think outside the box and improve.
Lastly, building an innovative character for me is all about not holding myself and seeing things from multiple perspectives. This class has helped me step outside of my comfort zone on multiple occasions, especially with the inspiration posts. I feel as though I have felt myself grow from just a person who follows the rules and creates what should be done to figuring out what my best work looks like and having the freedom and confidence to make this happen. The different ways I’ve been pushed to this has helped me evolve into a person that is more innovative in aspects of life outside of school and has really shown me the multitude of different ways I can go about doing certain tasks. It will be crucial for me to grow on this quality and embrace this ambiguous world by lifting the constraints I am constantly putting on my life.
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