If there’s one thing that keeps me motivated, it would have to be knowing my success. Through my success I am able to find inspiration to keep going and moving closer to achieving my goal. When I am stuck and see myself being challenged, I think about past experiences in which I was challenged, and remember that I got through it and succeeded. I remember the feeling of being successful and how proud of myself I was. Whether it be raising my grade, or getting an A on a paper or a test, going through and studying and spending hours on my rough draft paid off. Knowing and understanding that I have gotten though certain situations makes me want to keep pushing myself to experience these moments. Another aspect of my life that keeps me motivated is my family. My family is my foundation. They are the ones who keep my standing strong. They support me in everything I do, and are always willing to help me stay on my feet.

“I am changing my thoughts to change my world. I change my world to change the world. I am, yours truly.”

People go through experiences which help learn more about themselves and help benefit their futures. Though I haven’t done anything big, I have experienced roles of leadership throughout my high school career and even today. For starters, let’s start with me discussing my role of leadership in high school. I wanted to be involved in my school and decided to join Link Crew, which gave me the opportunity to help out the incoming Freshman. I was a leader of a group of freshman and gave them advice on how to better their social lives and be able to manage school, sports, and outside activities. In addition, I was captain of the Cross Country team and was sure to always be supportive of my teammates and always made sure that each of them were motivated to keep pushing. Being president of the art club was another experience I was able to encounter, which helped me discover something about myself. I realized that I was passionate about art, and being able to be a leader of the club and show others that they can express themselves made me want to further pursue this passion. This lead me to being the website designer for my parents restaurant. As new owners, they weren’t sure how to further advertise their restaurant, so I suggested a modern looking website to attract a younger crowd. I was able to design the website so that it would be able to be viewed both with mobile devices and on computer devices. My parents restaurant has been a success and I am always thinking of new and creative ways to help them out, and they do appreciate my creative side. After experiences these small roles of leadership, I am not shy to take charge or afraid to take on new experiences. Today, I am a mentor to a Freshman this year as I am participating in IMPACT. I was a mentee last year and found it really helpful. I wanted to have the chance to change a freshman’s experience, and make sure that she is aware of all the sources the University of Oregon offers so that they can get one step closet to achieving their goals.

Receiving a piece of advice whether it be big or small, can change your life. My freshman year or college was amazing. I made so many friends and memories that I know I will cherish for the rest of my life, however, if there was one thing someone told me my freshman year, it would have to be to stay focused. I felt that my first year in college would be a time for leisure and the possibility of learning different things. School is something that does not come easy to be. I was a bit distracted from all the excitement of living on my own and in the dorms where it was easy to skip an hour of studying and use that hour to socialize and hangout with friends. Hanging out with friends is an important aspect in ones college experience, however balancing out school and a social life is where it matters. A piece of advice I would give a new student is to stay focused and balance out your academics and social life. There will always be time to hangout and have a good time. In fact, you could even feel more accomplished and enjoy your free time once to exceed in your classes. I know for me, even though it was just a year ago, I have grown so much and learned how to accept challenges. I believe that ever challenge has a solution hidden in it, and if one stays focused and determined, they can overcome the challenge and get one step closer to making your dreams come true.

Goals are the baby steps people take to get to achieve a dream they have. Thinking about my goals can sometimes me challenging especially when I am uncertain of who and what I am going to be in my future, however when thinking about goals especially long terms goals, I came to a realization that the more I think about it goal and the more I say the goal it becomes more realistic. My short term goal is get into the business school and graduate with a business degree and have a concentration in marketing. My midterm goal is to work in the fashion industry and do market for certain fashion industries, and my longterm goal is have my own business. I want to have my own store and clothing line. I want it to be a worldwide known brand. Even though these goal may change over time, it is good to know that I have these goals in mind so that I can keep working though the smallest goals to achieve my bigger goals. Not everything is easy to do, but with baby steps, I am sure that I will achieve every goal I make. This term, I hope to experience new ways to present myself and think more in depth about what I want to do with my future. I realized that the more I practiced saying my goals, they became so real. I hope that I can find more inspiration to keep my going. I hope that I can listen to all the guest speakers and push myself to be like them; to be successful and to live my life knowing that I worked hard to make my dreams come true.

Determined, passionate, and inspired. These three words help me define who I am, and what my story is. Now, how is it that these three simple words define me and an entire person? I’ll get to that question after I begin to describe that these words relate to things I have experienced throughout my life. Let’s start with the word determined. According to Google, it means having a firm decision, and being resolved not to change it. This is an accurate definition, and it is exactly what I am, but how? 21 days. That’s how. It takes 21 days to break or form a habit. Over the summer I wanted to adjust who I was as a person, and I was determined to do so. It took me 21 days to be positive, get back in shape and be as happy as possible with myself. I counted down the days, and realized that each day was more difficult than the other. I had my good days and I had my bad, but even though I had bad days, I was not

going to let it stand in my way of achieving my goals. It was day 21, and I saw a difference in myself. Positive, and on my way to being back in shape. It’s now 4 months later, and I have never been happier with myself than I am today. And now to passionate. I could not be any more passionate about writing than ever. I remember keeping journals and writing down everything I felt as a little girl. The funny thing is that I still keep journals. In my journals are my hopes, dreams, and every aspect of me; the people in my life, the people who’ve doubled my joys, the people who’ve hurt me. I write down everything experience that impacts my life which influences my passion for writing. Writing takes me to a different place, and enlightens my talents and who I am. Finally, inspired. For me, everything in life is like a Cross Country race. After running Cross Country in high school for 4 years, I have realized that you have to always move forward and never look back. This doesn’t only work for Cross Country because it works for my life.

 I can’t keep looking back at my past, and dwell on the mistakes I have made, instead I keep running towards the finish line. I push myself harder each day to get to where I want to me. I am inspired by the sport and everything it has done for me. The fact that I am able to use my experiences helps me move on with life. The race may be long, but I enjoy every minute of it.

After receiving the comments from my peers, I realize that my strengths and abilities when working in groups shows immensely as I agreed with the comments of my peers. Especially knowing what kind of person I am when it comes to doing group projects…aka a closer. Being a close has helped me work in groups. I now can see how I have developed. When one person wanted to jump right into the process, I was always the one to say, “Hey lets take a step back and think about it.” I could tell it wasn’t something the others wanted to do, but after explaining to them that by taking a step back, we could succeed in the long run, they liked the idea and the planners helped us plan what we wanted to do. Although it was hard working with those who wanted to just start working on our event, it made me realize that I cannot always think. There has to be some action. In order for something to become completed there must be an action that goes forth. As my blind spot is to procrastinate, I know that sometimes I shouldn’t think too much as over thinking would not get me anywhere. It was good to see how others work so that I can overcome the challenges of procrastinating.

I am apart of the sales team, there are five people in my group and having to divide jobs for each of my members was kind of a struggle. Why? Because each of us had different Leadership Styles. Me being a closer, I was kind of slow to the process. While some in my group wanted to jump into the process I still wanted to think about whether or not what we were about to do was the perfect decision. For example, the second time my group met, one of my team members wanted to create a Facebook page for the event to invite people. Though this was a great idea, I had to step in and say that it was not going to be up to us to do this job. I informed my team mate that we had to touch base with the marketing team to make sure that they were advertising our event while we made it more known to others. Because there were sometimes disagreements between each of my group members, this caused me to stress out a bit especially since we did not have anything finalized and the event occurring so soon. I did my very best to make sure that my team members and I would not get into any altercations, and tried to compromise each of our ideas. By having our minds on the same page, we all agreed that talking to the marketing group would be best especially since they had already made flyers. We talked to them about a Facebook page, and they liked the idea and they created one making it so that others can invite others. As soon as we got the flyers, my sales team and I went through the dorms making our event as known as possible. We invited as many people as we could to the Facebook event page hopping we would reach, or even exceed the number of people we wanted to have at our event.

Last class we were put into our groups for the project. We did a little brainstorming to see what options there were to succeed in making the project happen. Our groups job is to make others aware of the event, and actually get people to attend the event. By Friday we planned to put flyers around and create social media pages. During Friday’s class, we also plan to coordinate with marketing to see what ideas they have in mind and combine what they have to have others attend the event. We plan to have a solid list of at least thirty people. We want the news to be spread throughout the university. We hope that enough flyers and attention from social media can spread to others and the news will come out through word of mouth by the twenty-second of February. We plan to finalize the details by March 1st and be ready to roll by the time the event occurs!

Considering the fact that I am someone who thinks and reflects on things, I’m pretty sure that I am able to contribute my skills to the CEO Cohort Group Project. Well, I mean all are capable of doing so, however being a closer, allows me to look to see what others have in mind, and consider the all the ideas others may have. Especially if there are disagreements. For example, if someone is really enthusiastic about an idea they came up with, and shared it with others, some may agree with the fantastic idea as well. However, not everyone is going to agree with it, and try to go against it, hence the disagreement. Now, this is where me, the closer, comes in. I can consider both ideas and find a way to make it a win, win situation. I can compromise, making both people satisfied. I can also help by evaluating the many ideas of others. Sometimes others may find that too many ideas are overwhelming, but I can help by narrowing down the ideas by analyzing certain ones that may be crucially important. After looking over what I think may be important, it will be easy to break down each idea and apply it to the group project. Being a closer may seem like an easy job, but let me tell you, all that thinking will make my head hurt…(but the good kind of hurt!)