Introduction.
For the past 7 weeks, I have been in a personal and professional development program called Praxis. In those seven weeks, we have covered a variety of topics including: Career Vision and Discovery, Content Creation, Professional Performance, Personal Habits, Writing, Learning Effectively, and Personal Finance. We spent one week on each subject.
Those seven weeks are what make up the first section of the Praxis program. What they refer to as “boot camp”. Therefore, having completed this first step in my Praxis journey, it is fitting that one of my assignments this week was to spend some time reflecting on my experience so far. What I’ve learned and how I’ve grown.
Projects.
I’d like to begin by sharing a brief summary of the projects I have completed in the program so far…
I have created a personal website, created a video about myself, set up a weekly email newsletter, written four blog posts, learned and demonstrated the skill of using Linked In (along with a couple other programs) to create a sales lead list, calculated and organized my personal budget, and completed many reflection assignments to learn more about myself and what I want in life.
If you’d like to see some examples of my work, I will link three of my favorites below.
Books.
I have also read two books over the past 2 months. Mastery by Robert Greene and Atomic Habits by James Clear.
Mastery discussed the idea of finding your “Life’s Task” and how to achieve mastery of it most effectively. He believes that everyone is born with a specific vocational mission in life which he refers to as your life’s task. One of the main ideas in the book for reaching mastery was to work as an apprentice. You might think that idea sounds a bit antiquated or too simple for today’s society but as you read in Mr. Greene’s book, the evidence is quite to the contrary. It was an enjoyable read and was very insightful as I am currently in that stage of discovering my “Life’s Task”.
Atomic Habits by James Clear is the one stop guide to all things habit related. From building good ones to breaking bad ones, this is the book you need.
In it, he shares many practical methods to alter your current habits by implementing changes not only mentally but also physically and in your environment. He outlines the importance of learning to enjoy the process versus just focusing on the result as well as using his four laws of habit building: Make it obvious, make it attractive, make it easy, make it satisfying.
These four laws can also be inverted in order to break habits. I learned a great deal from this book and highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in truly taking control of their habits and consequently, their life.
Key Takeaways.
There was quite a bit of information that we went through over the past two months. However, there were three things that have stuck out to me particularly from the curriculum.
The first is that nobody else is going to create success for me. I have to do it. For me, it has always been really easy to slip into sort of a removed existence. I take time to set a goal for myself and start out with great drive and motivation. However, over time, my motivation fades and the monotony of daily life gets me down. After a while, I end up just going through the motions every day, with no real ambition and I lose sight of my goals.
This has been something that I have changed about my mindset over the past few months. Trying to take a much more active role in my own life by being careful to keep track of my goals daily and not let myself slip into that passive role anymore.
Another thing that I learned through the program is the importance of reflection for mental clarity and peace. Taking time daily or even just weekly to really think about where I’m at in life, what’s going on, where I want to be, and any other thoughts I have has been extremely helpful to me.
It helps me to feel more control in my life, keep track of important things that happen or thoughts that I would’ve otherwise forgotten, and it also just helps to clear my mind a bit and keep my thoughts organized which has been so nice. It has been especially helpful when dealing with tough decisions and hard times in my life.
The last thing that has really stuck with me is the effectiveness of creating daily “To-Do” lists when it comes to staying productive and making sure you are moving forward.
Near the end of the first month, I was having trouble getting everything done that I needed to. Between Praxis, work, my truck project, family, and friends, I felt like I was drowning in things to do when in reality I was just not staying organized enough.
My program mentor suggested creating a daily “To-Do” list and trying to plan better for everything and see where that left me. It really did help keep me on track to get all the important things done. Another surprising benefit was the simple act of crossing things off my list everyday made me feel so much more productive too which was awesome.
What’s Next?
The next section of the program is supposed to be the real meat of it. I will be completing 4 modules of work over the course of 4 months. The content of each module will be based on which modules I choose to do, out of their options.
The module I decided to start my first of the four months with is Copywriting. Copywriting in this context is the act of writing text for advertising and marketing purposes. The point of which is to increase brand awareness and ultimately entice a person or persons to take a particular action. It will also teach me how to write better and just communicate more effectively using the written word.
I feel that my writing is decent currently, but I would really like to take it to the next level. I think that knowing how to write well is one of the most important things you can learn. Communication is so important no matter what you are doing.
I asked my program mentor what he thought about choosing this module as my first and he agreed that it would be a great choice. He calls it a “super skill”. A talent that if I can master it will make me more valuable as an individual and will help me in whatever career I choose. I am really looking forward to starting this module and I hope I learn a lot.
Travis McCoy 
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