Week 7

We are at the end of week 7 now. It feels good to be half way through and I am finally starting to feel competent in some of my other classes. This week in B 183 I finished reading Mastery. I thought this was a good book. The way that he described different people (the dabbler, obsessive and hacker) was intresting and I can see myself spending time in each of those areas in my life. Hopefully I will be better prepared moving forward to become a master. The thing that I keep thinking about this week after everything that we read and watched is the step 3 of the 7 habits of highly effective people "Put first things first". His descriptions of the 4 different types of activities has made me examine each activity I do and see where it fits. Thinking about these categories helps me to better analyze myself and how I am spending my time. Is what I am doing urgent but not important? Is it neither urgent nor important? If I keep this in mind going forward it will help me to use my time more wisely and hopefully I will be able to transition more of my time into category 2 and work on things that are important but not urgent. I also really loved the talk from President Hinckley this week. He sure had a way of showing his love and understanding when he spoke. The section where he spoke about us being children of God stood out to me. "You are in very deed a child of God ...He is your Eternal Father. He loves you. You can go to Him in prayer. He has invited you to do so. Every one of you knows this, and what a wonderful thing this is. He is the Greatest of All. He is the Creator and Governor of the universe. And yet He will listen to your prayer!" This is such a comforting statement to me. God is the Creator but He will still listen to my prayers. Overall, this has been a great week and I hope that I can remember the things that I learned moving forward.

Week 6

It is the end of week 6 of this semester. Almost halfway through the semester. I feel like I have stretched myself with the classes that I have taken so far and I am pleased with my growth and progress. This week the video "Locality to God and Family" by Jan Newman really stood out to me. I found it profound the way he described how we use our time. There is a time in our lives when we really only have two things that occupy our time. These two things are school and free time. As we get older more things occupy our time and we will squeeze some of those things to make time for things we want to do. He warns against "squeezing" the wrong things. God and family shouldn't be "squeezed". The last thing that he said really stood out to me. He said, "a thousand years from now no one is going to ask you what company you ran, how much money you made. Your greatest legacy will be your family, and your service in the kingdom of God. Never forget that!" I will try to heed that council and always remember what is truly important and when I "squeeze" time it will be time that would have been spent on things that are less important.

Week 5

This week was very hectic in my other classes. I was grateful for the time that I was able to spend in B 183 as it allowed me to have time for some self-reflection. I really enjoyed the talks given by President Faust and by Jeff Sandefer. Perseverance is difficult when times are tough and getting a reminder about the importance of perseverance was very helpful to me especially due to the difficulties I have been having with school this week. Jeff Sandefer's talk was very thought provoking. The three questions that those over 60 are concerned with were very telling. I have thought deeply this week about who do I love and who loves me. As I think about that it becomes easier to step back from my stress and really examine why I am doing the things that I am doing and the need for perseverance through adversity. I also really enjoyed the video "How do you find your passion and how do you pursue it?". I had never thought about it but, it is much more difficult to choose between multiple right answers. I feel like there should be a definite right and wrong answer to all of life's questions but it doesn't seem to work like that. There are multiple right answers, the hard part is choosing which door to walk through. I think most people are scared about those 9 doors closing when you walk through the 10th but there will always be more opportunities ahead if we step through a door. If we don't make a decision we will never move forward.

Week 4

This week I wanted to focus on the thing that I found the most profound in the learning. I really enjoyed the video, "Do what you love" by Tom Kelly. The diagram that he showed in the video was very profound. Many people of my generation don't seem to understand that you can't just "do what you love, and the money will follow". You have to do what you love that has value to others. I also thought the idea of keeping a lab notebook of all the times when you felt you were at your best is a wonderful idea. This is a practice that I will try in my own life moving forward so that I can better understand what activities put me at my best. I also really appreciate the square around the circle for "who". Even if you have the most amazing job in the world that you love it might not be right for you because the people you work with might not be who you want to spend your time with. More importantly, you should make sure you are not that person for someone else. Don't hurt someone's dream by being the wrong kind of square around their diagram so to speak. These are great things to keep in mind as I continue to move forward with this class and throughout my life.