Natalie Peebles

How I've integrated learnings from Creativity + Entrepreneurship into my life.

[nataliepeebles]

Hello and welcome to my journey through Entrepreneurship + Creativity. I’m excited you’re here and I hope you are too. 

Are you ready for an adventure? Let’s go.

Table of Contents:

I loved my ESP 252 portfolio because it allowed me to put everything and anything I wanted into it. After submitting it, I realized that a physical book is tough to show other people even though I was very proud of it. For this reason, I decided to try something new with this portfolio: digital. I am not tech savvy, so this was a risk. Wasting time is always a huge risk for me. 

I first tried to make my own website, using Wix. After spending several hours exploring it and trying to figure out how it worked, I decided that it would be too complicated as a website for this project to showcase my work, so it made more sense to try a medium that is still digital but easier to use for this functionality. I landed on a Tumblr because it is mainly used for blogs and would allow me more freedom to easily include what I wanted to include, while still challenging me with a digital medium that I was unfamiliar to.

Everything I do is centered around growth, learning and my relationships. This portfolio was no different. You may notice some gaps as you go through. I am not trying to hide them. In fact, I am quite aware they exist and are the most prevalent within the process section. There are several heuristics we talked about that I still to this day have not practiced. It wasn’t that I didn’t care at all about them, but I chose what to prioritize and have instead focused my time on the work that I felt would benefit myself most at this point in time. This semester the most progress I have seen has been in bringing my brand to life more and integrating it into everything I do.

This has been a goal of mine from the beginning of the semester and I am so proud to say that I have worked really hard to meet this goal to the best of my abilities. I have also been much more aware of when I have been using the different mindsets lately. Take note of the mindsets within my hashtags used throughout each post. 

I have been trying to live by the quote that Friedman said in class one day: “Creativity is a lifestyle. It’s how you live and are comfortable being uncomfortable.” With that being said, please enjoy learning about my lifestyle.

[nataliepeebles]

Creative press is crucial. The three types of creative press are internal social  psychological press, physical press, and external social psychological press. After addressing all of these, I also included my bug list in this section. Press is all about the environment that a person operates in to create the creative product. At the end of the day it is all about putting yourself in the place of greatest potential. My place of greatest potential is always centered around learning, growth and relationship development. 

[nataliepeebles]

INTERNAL SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL PRESS

When it comes to internal social psychological press, as someone with an HBDI profile of 3111, the emotional side of myself matters in order to perform at my best. It is so easy to tell when I am not at my best internally, because I can’t focus and that’s most likely because I am having some kind of dilemma with a person in the above photo. 

This is my tribe. These are my core groups. At its roots these groups are from: AWE, my mom’s side of the family, my dad’s side of the family, my ADPi housemates and best friends, my band best friends from high school, and Student Government friends from high school. 

Yes, there is a chance that it could be from something else, but realistically if any of my best friends or family is having problems, I am too. I am known for taking on other people’s problems and not always good at letting others take on mine. That’s something I’ve been realizing this semester.

I’ve never struggled with depression, but I am starting to realize that I think I have anxiety about a lot of things. My mind is constantly racing and thoughts never seem to stop pouring in. I know for a fact that if I went to a doctor and told them about this they would realistically probably medicate me, but I also don’t feel like it has gotten bad enough to want to take meds everyday for it. Sometimes a little bit of anxiety keeps me on my toes. 

I have a huge tendency of taking on more than I am capable of. When this happens (and it happens often) I end up stressed out beyond belief. When I am overly stressed I can’t perform at my optimal level. When this happens I end up not sleeping much at all and sometimes I get very shaky. That’s when I know I need to rest.

I have an interesting relationship with rest. I love sleep, but it’s never been as much of a priority for me. I live by the mentality “I’ll sleep when I’m dead,” but acknowledge that no sleep leads to burnout much easier. I never plan to not sleep, it just ends up not happening. 

Part of this might be that as a college student my body can handle this grind  lifestyle, but I really do need to start changing my ways in order to maximize my productiveness internally. I do my best when I am comfortable in every area: mentally, physically, and emotionally in all aspects of my life. I have trouble compartmentalizing and if I have a serious problem with any of these areas, I tend to struggle through that week in general.

After thinking about this some more, a few best practices for myself: 

1. REST. Seriously, sit down and take a break every so often. Naps are incredible and take advantage of the difference that they can make. 

2. Exercise. Go for a run. Outside. If it is cold, just wear gloves and ear-warmers and you’ll be fine. Something about running outside in any weather and blasting music allows me to clear my mind. I have to focus on my breathing rather than all of the stresses I feel.

3. For the love, eat a meal. When I am stressed out I have no appetite. I swear I have lost weight this semester because if I am stressed out I simply do not get hungry. Eat even if you aren’t hungry. This will help even if the food doesn’t slap as much as it usually does.

4. Go rant to someone. A housemate, a friend, a sister. When I was little, someone told me that I was a volcano because I just bottled up everyone’s problems until I erupted. I am no longer this bad, but still not always good at sharing everything. If I am stressed I have a tendency of going to grind at the library rather than taking a few extra minutes to call my mom and talk about my day. Ranting works for me. 

[nataliepeebles]

PHYSICAL PRESS

When it comes to physical press, there is a matter of setting yourself up for success. 

In order to put myself in the place of greatest potential, I need to take my creative press kit everywhere I go. And luckily, I almost always do. 

Here is why I chose each item:

- Water: I like to stay hydrated. I function better when I am constantly drinking water.

- Burt’s Bees Wax chapstick: yes I am very particular and it must be this brand. Chapped lips kills me, so I always carry it just in case I need it. 

-Tic Tacs: I have an addiction to Tic Tacs. I am not addicted to many things but I am constantly sucking on them (never chew because that is disgusting). I carry my Tic Tacs just like I carry my wallet. If I have to change bags, the tic tacs always make the cut. You just never know when your mouth will feel gross.

- Trident Gum: every so often the Tic Tacs get old and I want a fresh taste in my mouth. I think gum and Tic Tacs both keep me focused.

-A red pen, blue pen, and black pen: I am secretly an obsessive compulsive color coder. I change pens as I change moods sometimes and I always have a ton of pens with me because I am prepared for most situations. 

-Snacks: today I had M&Ms on me, but I always have something. I get hungry every hour on the hour so I’d rather be safe than sorry. Sometimes I also have to reward myself for getting my shit done.

-Design your Life sack with post-its: Honestly whenever I see this it reminds me of my j-term class and how many badass women inspired me so I just combined it to also hold post-its and now it’s double duty useful as inspiration and I already carry those post-it notes with me at all times in case I need to write something down. A huge pet peeve of mine is when post-it notes get messed up so this also protects that from happening. 

Glasses + case: I am not blind, but they definitely help when I need to read any and all boards in classes. 

Hair band: My hair distracts me so I need to always be ready to put it up.

What I forgot to include: my phone, my phone charger, and headphones: I took the photo on my phone so I wasn’t able to include it. I am constantly making little notes in my phone to do things and think about new things. My phone is probably the most frequently used item. I couldn’t use my phone without carrying a charger wherever I go. Most importantly, my headphones are everything to me. I get to choose my mood based on my headphone music. This is really an opportunity for me to tune out the noise that exists everywhere I go and focus on whatever I need to focus on that day. You would think that I might enjoy walking to class with other people, but I would actually much prefer walking with headphones in bumping to whatever the mood of the day is: Hozier, Tones & I, Forrest. Each day it changes. I have a terrible day if I forget my headphones at home because it really helps to orient me and set me up for the place of greatest potential.

Once I have prepared to take on the day with my creative press kit in hand, I get to think about the physical press I need to be successful.

Modus Operandi: 

Time of day: morning.

Location: near a big window on a comfortable chair or couch.

Squeaky clean or squalor: clean (or else I can’t focus).

Solo or surrounded: depends on the work I am trying to accomplish. Sometimes solo I accidentally fall asleep, but other times surrounded by people I get annoyed by noise.

Directionality: in the direction of the light and windows.

Sound: movie soundtracks with no words such as Interstellar, Inception, or Braveheart. Any Hans Zimmer soundtracks I could listen to all day.

Light: tons of it. I want all natural with lots of windows. 

Routine/spontaneous: routine: I am such a routine person in general.

Long periods or short bursts: depends what I am focused on. I personally am good at long periods even though I don’t always enjoy them. I can stay focused for a very long time. 

Breaks: to check phone every hour.

Mindset practices that fuel creation: reminding myself that I am exactly where I am supposed to be at this point in time and God has a plan for my life. 

Movement practices that fuel creation: turn phone on do not disturb.

What fuels you: eating breakfast and deadlines approaching.

Leaded or unleaded: leaded if at night, unleaded in the morning

Clothes: comfy and warm. If I could wear leggings everyday I would. 

Clean or dirty: always clean. 

Carry something to capture ideas on the fly: my phone always.

Digital or analogue: digital (for efficiency of transfer).

Other: candles - cotton or apple cinnamon 

My favorite place to work is at Kidd Coffee in Mason, Ohio. It is a simple little coffee shop, but every time I go there, it calms me down and lets me focus. There is so much natural light that they don’t need to keep regular lights on. There is soft music playing, but it doesn’t matter because I always play my own anyways. It’s never too busy. There are plenty of comfy chairs to sit in and get to work. I haven’t had a chance to go there in a while since I’ve been at school, but I am excited to get to go back soon. When I am in Oxford, my favorite place to go to work at my best is at Kofenya but only early in the morning. The photo below is at Kofenya with my Discipler. Last semester we met at 8am every Friday. Most people are not willing or wanting to get up that early especially on a Friday, but it is when I often feel and do my best work.

[nataliepeebles]

EXTERNAL SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL PRESS

External social psychological press matters. When it comes to assessing climate dimensions in certain manners, 1 is always the weakest while 10 is the strongest association possible.

Although the “perfect” idea would be to get tens in every section that is completely unrealistic. After thinking for a while about this, I view my optimal individual climate dimensions as:

- Challenge: 10

- Freedom: 6

- Idea time: 8

- Dynamism: 8

- Idea Support: 10

- Trust + Openness: 11

- Playfulness: 8

- Conflict: 2

- Debate: 6

- Risk-taking: 7

As a whole, I love to be challenged. It doesn’t make me scared, I need it to be as successful as possible. When it comes to freedom, it is good, but it is not the most important thing for me personally. I love ideation and thinking of unique ideas. I could spent as long as I want brainstorming, because I don’t tend to know when to stop if I am having fun. I enjoy dynamism and the eventfulness of life in the climate. Idea support is a must for me. I care way more about having support than I do about the idea itself. Trust and openness is so important to any and every situation. If there is no trust then there is no foundation to build relationships or learnings on. 

I happen to think playfulness is really important, however there is a disconnect from being able to actually incorporate this into my life completely. I clearly am not a fan of conflict. I simply don’t work well with it to be successful. A bit of debate on the other hand can be really helpful and goes along with my interest in being challenged. I rated risk-taking a 7 because I value it, however I tend to take calculated risks when going about things. After I learned about my individual climate dimensions I transitioned into my group. For each of these, we averaged all of our individual climate dimensions together. 

Group Climate Dimensions:

- Challenge: 8

- Freedom: 9

- Idea time: 7

- Dynamism: 8

- Idea Support: 9

- Trust + Openness: 10

- Playfulness: 8

- Conflict: 2

- Debate: 6

- Risk-taking: 8

I noticed that other people don’t always like to be challenged as much as I do. Other people need more freedom than I personally care about. Lastly, my group mates tend to enjoy taking slightly bigger risks than I enjoy. All of the other dimensions appeared to be very similar to my individual dimensions. I am actually surprised how similar a lot of our dimensions ended up being, making our group press easy for me enjoy since it will tend to be relatively similar to my individual press.

I can honestly say that the closest I’ve come to finding where my optimal scores are met for Goan Ekvall’s dimensions was working at OCEAN this summer. There was so much encouragement, grace, and teamwork that challenged me to present my best work while I was there has continued to stand out. I keep coming back to this, but finding a work setting that meets your optimal dimensions is the best case scenario and something that we should all strive to do when it comes to career paths. 

[nataliepeebles]

Bug List

A bug list does not have to be all about press. Mine is not, but I will say that bug lists definitely have the potential to affect your press.

Here’s what I came up with:

-neurobics: I am not patient enough to enjoy and see the longterm benefits of doing these such as brushing my teeth right handed or various types of puzzles

-when anyone wastes my time

-professors that treat me like I’m stupid

-white socks and black shoes

-when people’s hoods are inside out

-when my hair gets greasy looking in less than 24 hours

-having to go to the grocery store

-having to clean off my car when it is icy

-how long it takes for my car to heat up when it is cold

-how my ears feel like they are about to freeze off when the rest of my body is fine

-shaving my legs

-shaving my armpits

-applying to jobs

-when boys are stupid

-when boys don’t plan

-when boys text me and expect an urgent response but never text me back if I text them

-when people expect me to do everything because they think that is the kind of person I am

-when people misjudge me

-cleaning my dishes because I have no dishwasher

-how expensive going out to eat is

-how quickly my phone dies

-when professors expect us to understand material immediately

-when professors do not communicate their expectations in advance

-when there is awkward silences with strangers

-when people are on their phones texting while eating a meal with me

-when people shove their political opinions in my face

-when people shove their religious views in my face

-when people wear shades that are close but don’t match (honestly, it is so rude, like I’d rather you completely mismatch in this case)

-when people are fake

-when I get bored at work

-when people lie

-when people only have their way. not the highway

-when the washing machine breaks

-when my roommate expects me to be the one to clean the counter every time

-when people are overly dramatic

-when people complain about all the shit going on, when you know in your head that you have way more, but you’re not going to just one up them so you have to listen to them rant and act like what they’re saying is important but really it is just annoying.

-when people expect me to be the first to apologize

-when people expect me to be the one to move on the sidewalk, why can’t they move too?

-hot heads are the worst

-when guys are attractive, but know they are attractive, so then they’re just annoying

-when people send me snapchats with no words

-when I have to act like I don’t know someone in public

-when I don’t know how to act around people I am unsure of

-half full bags of chips

-crushed chips

-people who waste food

-people who take me for granted

-people who take their lives for granted

-people who prioritize going out over classes (especially when we see them walking uptown while we are working on a group project)

-people who don’t believe in climate change

-men with napoleon complexes

-when people make judgements about me before truly knowing me

-people who waste paper

-people who don’t work hard yet expect to be rewarded by other people’s efforts

-when someone mansplains

-when people think the pay gap does not exist

-making my lunch

-when people act like they’re listening but really they aren’t

-going to the grocery store

-negative people

-being excluded

-passive aggressive people

-aggressive people

-people who don’t drink from the tap water

-when my hair takes effort

-when my hair won’t straighten all the way

-when my hair has one part I forgot to curl

-when my face breaks out

-when people expect me to text them back constantly

-when my friends don’t text me for a while

-when it rains and my hair looked good that day

-when people don’t take me seriously

-when I sound like I am going to cry even though I am not (the inflections in my voice in general)

It’s pretty easy for me to think about things that bother me, or are quite literally poison ivy for me. These things are good to acknowledge since they can without a doubt affect my press. 

[nataliepeebles]

The creative process is the procedure for how to go about developing creative products. There are so many tools that I could have talked about, but it didn’t personally make sense for me to touch on all of them right now. I am in a time in my life where I have to choose what matters. It’s not that a lot of these tools don’t matter, but more so that I found other parts of this portfolio, such as the personal development and branding work to be much more beneficial at this point in time for me to focus my time on. 

I could have mentioned all of the heuristics we have mentioned in class: 100 questions, brainstorming, C4, problem statement, word dance, 6 hats, assumption listing, bug list, journey map, empathy map, observation, empathy conversation, fractionation, idea box, random entry, reverse brainstorm, provocation, forced connection, prototyping, VOJ/GAIL, Immersion, Stimuli, and SCAMPER. 

I needed to find what works best for myself and do those things. For that reason, I focused this section on: creatives anonymous, empathy, journey map, 6 hats, assumption listing, 100 questions, intentionality + questioning and not a stick. I personally don’t struggle to get out of the area familiarity when it comes to ideating so I didn’t feel like exploring some of them more than I already explored them for 252, but I do go into more heuristics further down.

[nataliepeebles]

I realized after Friedback that I had been slacking off on actually doing things on the daily. I have had my head focused on so many other things, so I decided to make this class a bigger priority again. In order to get into this mindset of embracing creativity daily, and having accountability buddies, a few friends from my MMG (Turner, Lauren, and I) have started a "Creatives Anonymous" group or CA for short because this accountability idea reminded me of AA meetings. 

I decided to do the X-effect. My goal has been to practice at least one creative or professional thing each day to keep testing myself as well as advancing myself. Small things add up over time. Accountability buddies really help with reminders. As examples of some of my daily tasks, they have been to do at least one heuristic per a day. Another day I focused on continuing to develop my failure log. Another day I very intentionally asked my friends deeper questions to see what the outcome would be. 

My biggest learning so far is that I tend to stress myself out by taking on too much (I know, this is a revolutionary concept) so started and have continued to say no everyday to at least one thing and my group has been holding me more accountable than I would naturally hold myself. This is not to say that it works perfectly, because it is far from it but it definitely helps with this process of thinking about it more frequently and getting reminders from friends. 

[nataliepeebles]

Empathy is all about asking rather than assuming. Empathy is about evoking stories and digging deeper into why people feel the way that they feel.  It’s about letting the conversation go where it needs to go and reading both body language and the conversation itself. It’s about getting people to tell you more. 

The empathy map above is what I did before we chatted about this topic more in class. I know that Friedman wants us to use post-it notes, but sometimes I like things to look cleaner and typing them out is how I get to that point. I would never have learned all about Linda, the stranger at the computer next to me, had I not asked her and struck up a conversation. She was going through so much more than what I had assumed when she sat down and I am so glad that I decided to talk with her. 

Empathy is what it takes to win the client challenge. We are no where near done yet. I am not including more of my empathy work in here because I am excited to showcase that in our client challenge process document. Anyways, from our empathetic interviews thus far, we have established a few insights. We’ve learned:

1. As an African student I want to not feel the pressure of representing my whole race because I’m the only one in the room who is African, but I can’t because this school is predominantly white.

2. As an African student I want to share my culture because its an important part of my identity, but I can’t because people have made fun of me for it.

3. As an African student I want to be taught by African professors because it’s important to learn about my heritage from the people who came before me, but I can’t because Miami only employs a few African professors. 

There is no way that we would have learned any of these things without having real and vulnerable conversations with people one on one as well as with the help of some observations. 

Empathy is something I’ve been trying to lean into. It is so easy for me to assume people feel certain ways. I’ve been really focusing on asking people how they feel lately and letting them speak without jumping right in. A big part of empathy for me lately has just been letting people completely finish their thoughts. I need to be patient and not rush anyone. I really understand the idea that you have to “choose to turn on your empathy” in our society. Empathy is without a doubt a work in progress, but if you can’t understand a person then there is no way you will ever be able to solve their problems or help them. There is more to come on this soon. 

[nataliepeebles]

JOURNEY MAPS

I’ve learned that when it comes to journey maps, the more steps you include, the more opportunities to innovate there are. These journey maps are not all inclusive. I am not trying to act like they are. I could have spent more time on them if I wanted, but I didn’t see them as being a focus of my semester and what I needed to learn. I already learned how to do them in ESP 103 as well as 252, so I am showing you these to show you that I understand them, but have chosen to prioritize more branding work. 

[nataliepeebles]

6 HATS

My team decided to spend one of our meetings trying out the 6 hats. We also had just started talking about creative press so it made perfect sense to think about unique meeting opportunities and what we could enjoy doing as a group together. 

As a recap on the 6 hats meanings:

Blue = Process

White = Facts

Red = Feelings

Green = Creative Ideation

Yellow = Positive

Black = Negative

We decided for this session we would spend 2 minutes doing blue hat, then 30 seconds doing yellow hat, then 3 minutes doing a green hat, then 30 seconds doing a red hat and finally 30 seconds doing a blue hat. 

Once I established how we were going to go about this process, we did yellow hat about what we were most excited for when it came to team press. After that, we discussed and shared ideas. Then we went into actual ideation on the topic of what we would enjoy doing as a team and how what press would be best for us as a group. After ideating for 3 minutes, we talked about our ideas, then grouped and themed as shown above. I understand that it appears messy, but that tends to be how it actually looks in real life. You use whatever wall is available and go with it. We were able to understand it as we went and that’s the most important part. We converged by asking what would we enjoy doing most? We also chose not to converge down to one idea. We wanted to leave multiple ideas because the thought was that we could try out multiple presses for ourselves at future meetings and see what we enjoyed the most. 

Here were the ideas that remained: meet at crazy times, meet in a car, drinks and snacks, swings + hammocks, funny, take collective risks, food with meetings (share dinner), mini fridge with white claws at a meeting, alcohol, laughing, try wine night, bonfire, moving white board for post-its, traditions, cook together, turn class into a drinking game, game night, change of location (fun outing such as Jungle Jim’s). 

After that we did a red hat and talked about our feelings about what we had just done and finally did another blue had to figure out next steps in the process and wrap things up. We left on the note that we would be trying these at future meetings. At the next meeting we decided to play Secret Hitler and Red Flags to get the mood changed up a bit and we met at Skippers. I swear board games help you get to know people so much better. This was such a fun meeting and we all enjoyed it. One of our more wild idea that we all liked was to play a drinking game in class. While this would change up the mood and atmosphere of class, I am sad to say that we haven’t tried this one yet. We want to go to Jungle Jim’s as a group sometime and an easy one that we have now accomplished is having a meeting at Books and Brews, which is also a vibe. I’m glad we went through the 6 hats to get to this point. I found it beneficial to run through this as a group and also to start thinking more about our group creative press.

[nataliepeebles]

ASSUMPTION LISTING

Assumptions are dangerous to have if they go unacknowledged. Everyone makes assumptions, so as long as you admit them it is easier to not let them hold you back. This is why as part of the client project, my group decided to list out all of our assumptions. Moving forward we need to test some of these assumptions because if your assumptions are wrong and they are important, then there is no way to still be successful. Assumption listing is worth taking the time to do.  

[nataliepeebles]

100 QUESTIONS

This was the first time I went about the 100 questions tool. I didn’t fully understand the purpose of the tool at first, but had no trouble coming up with 100 important questions to ask and then grouping and theming them. This tool has taken some time to understand the full value behind, but I am glad that I have invested the time into figuring it out and now being able to use it more frequently. 

[nataliepeebles]

100 QUESTIONS

Here’s some of the work I did in regards to asking 100 questions about my future career. I have so many questions. I did the work and grouped and themed and then I just kind of sat there and did nothing about actually seeking out answers to some of my questions, which made this a bit unhelpful. I didn’t immediately realize that you are supposed to converge and so there has been a bit of a learning curve to this for actually cutting down because there was a disconnect, but I now realize the importance of doing this and not stopping here after doing a few versions of asking 100 questions for different purposes.

[nataliepeebles]

500 QUESTIONS

This looks like a lot because it is a lot. One thing that as a group we wanted to do was 100 questions about the challenge that we had so far. We each asked 100 questions and then suddenly had 500 questions! So we grouped and themed and are clearly still in the middle of finishing this part up, but just from taking the time to sit down and see what questions we had, we realized that there is a lot that we don’t currently know and need to learn or talk to more knowledgable people than ourselves moving forward. I think the 100 questions activity is often a great place to start if you need direction. It gets the discussion going to see which of the questions are crucial enough that you do need to answer based on how dangerous and risky it would be not to answer certain questions. I also liked doing this as a team because it allowed me to see how many completely different questions we were each able to ask with only given one topic to brainstorm on. 

[nataliepeebles]

100 Questions Practice: LIFE Edition. 

I love brainstorming questions, but what is even cooler is when you actually do something with them. We used this method for a student organization that I am part of to stop asking such surface level questions and dig deeper as a get to know you activity. I’m glad because this was the start of a much more important conversation that I got to take part in because of the ability to go beyond the surface after 30 basic introductory questions. I am excited to keep using this tool moving forward as it challenges me to ask more questions and find ones that matter.

[nataliepeebles]

Your intentions matter. Your intentions have the ability to determine many things in life. I keep saying that this is my year for being more intentional. I will quit doing things that I do not find value in. So I quit AAUW, my feminist club. It wasted my time and I dreaded going to meetings. I also quit Cru. I felt like I needed to go in order to be a “good Christian” but I also hated going. I love going to Crossroads with my friends on Sundays, but after people in Cru were so rude to my friend, Molly, I decided it was time to officially stop going. I’m glad that I am starting to make more intentional choices.

There is something to be said about the importance of pruning out the bad in order to grow new healthy vines.

Time is the one thing that we will always lack. With this being said, it seems like there is still never enough time in a day to do everything that I would like, hence why my checklist goes on for weeks and not only a day. 

When I thought more about this, I decided that I was going to challenge myself to say no to one thing every day. It sounds easy, but some day it isn’t. Whether it is saying no to dinner with a friend or a run or a homework assignment, I am doing this with the idea in mind that saying no to less important things will allow me to say yes to the things I need to say yes to. It allows me a bit more flexibility in my day to day. 

I’m really glad I challenge myself to this. It is not easy, and I definitely don’t see a reward every single day, but it has overtime allowed me to see some of the benefits such as caring for friends that need to be cared for and loving on people that just need a little bit of extra love that day. 

QUESTIONING

The other thing about intentionality is that it comes with questions that you ask. Why don’t you ask more intentional questions every day? You’re capable of it and it leads to better conversations so there is really no excuse other than laziness. When it came to the 3 questions assignment to email of things you want to find out from Friedman, a classmate and the entire class, I asked:

To the class as a whole: To those who know me well and barely know me at all - how fitting is the brand of ivy to me and how could I refine it moving forward?

To Ireland: Who are 3 people you think I would benefit from meeting and can you introduce me to them?

To Friedman: You know me well and you know my interests and passions with events moving forward. Who are 3 people that you think I would benefit from meeting and can you introduce me to them?

The more I thought about these the more questions I started to ask myself. Why didn’t I ask riskier questions? Why haven’t I already asked these exact questions? What would my life look like if I started asking these questions every single day? What if I started questioning everything... 

So I did. Here are 5 questions per day I asked for two weeks.

Monday, September 9

Why is the culture of farmer so competitive?

What if getting a job were simple and easy?

What if getting a job weren’t stressful?

What if I found a perfect culture fit?

Why can’t more non-corporate companies come to career fair?

Tuesday, September 10

Why is career fair so early this year?

What if students didn’t stress out about career fair?

What if eating healthy were fun and easy

What if cooking weren’t super time consuming?

What if I weren’t constantly sleep deprived?

Wednesday, September 11

Why do all students dress the same at career fair?

Why am I so tired all of the time?

Why doesn’t the mess on our front porch bother anyone else enough to clean it?

Why can’t Clifton be safer?

What are other ways to get my car load of things back to Mason without stopping in Clifton on Saturday?

Thursday, September 12

How might I better encourage my roommates to clean up after themselves?

How might we address the spider problem in our house?

What can I do to understand any of the readings for my women’s studies class when I am forced to “read 60 pages” of complete jargon?

Why haven’t I taken the time to learn to cook?

Why hasn’t Meera responded to me?

Friday, September 13

Why isn’t Andrew picking up on my signals that I am not in the slightest bit interested in him?

Will it be worth waking up super early tomorrow to watch the UC vs. Miami game?

What is another way to see my mom since she is too busy to see me on Saturday when I am home?

Will I actually be able to train enough for the half marathon coming up in a few months?

Why haven’t I taken the time to learn to dance? 

Saturday, September 14

Why is drinking such a social thing?

Why do people feel like they need to drink in order to fit in at college?

Why is Miami so bad at football?

What makes music so powerful that it can make me cry?

How beneficial will asking these questions each day actually be?

Sunday, September 15

Why can’t people just be nice to each other and not make it awkward?

Why do I always leave my homework to be done on Sunday when I have an entire weekend?

Why does ADPi make me go to these horribly long retreats every semester?

Have you actually been more present this semester by being more conscious of it?

Why don’t I make more of a conscious effort to keep up with my friends from years ago?

Monday, September 16

Why is everyone already getting sick? 

Why do I have so little motivation right now?

Why do I always seem thirsty?

How might I better prepare for my daily runs?

How might I better be motivated to run for longer periods of time?

Tuesday, September 17

How might I cook more efficient, yet healthy dinners?

How might I get to know my neighbors better?

How might I feel less tired all of the time?

How might I get a better night’s rest?

How might I feel more motivated to take on senior year?

Wednesday, September 18

How might I spend less money but still get the same value in food?

How might I figure out the best option for my future career?

How might I feel motivated to enjoy reading again?

How might I make working at the law firm more fun?

How might I interview better for phone interviews?

Thursday, September 19

How might I find better music suggestions?

How might I most efficiently navigate the work that 351 requires of me?

How might I feel more confident and comfortable with my stomach and arms?

How might I creatively approach the PJ&J C4 assignment?

How might I approach the PB&J assignment in the most efficient way possible?

Friday, September 20

Why can’t I feel motivated to do any work on Fridays?

What if I started listening to rap music and seeing how it made me feel differently?

Why do I hate country music so much?

Why do some people love country music so much?

What if I explored how some different types of music changed my creative press and how productive I was able to be?

Saturday, September 21

What if I confronted Reed? 

What is the worst that could happen?

What is the best that could happen?

What if I asked Conger?

Why do we have 4 stickers in that class - is there an actual reason behind that number?

Sunday, September 22

What is the most important part of fall break - people or place or expenses?

What if we could make fall break as cheap as possible and still have a good time?

How might we please all 15 people interested in going on fall break?

How might we best handle meals while on fall break?

How might we maximize our time in Nashville?

Questioning is such a simple tool. What if I not only had these thoughts but started acting on them too? How much could asking 5 simple questions each day potentially change my life? Intentions matter. Ask more dangerous questions and seek answers. Curiosity can get you to new place you never imagined.