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Page 7 • Wednesday, September 19, 2012
How to become the person you always wanted to be I wish I was “blank.” You know what goes in the blank; you have been saying this to yourself for most of your life. Well, you can be and there is no time like the present to get started. Sounds impossible? I assure you it isn’t, you just have to know what to do and you too could be all you can be. Cathy The first step is to decide what your real goals are. For example, you Trout might have filled in the blank with Dear “prettier” but do you really desire to be more aesthetically attractive or do Cathy you just desire more offers to go on dates? You need to examine yourself and your desires to see what it is that you would change about yourself if you could. Once you have decided on some changes, you need to decide which one you are going to focus on first. Choose the one goal that you believe would make you happiest and change your life immeasurably for the better. Then break that huge goal into smaller, more manageable steps. For instance, if your major goal is to lose twenty pounds, some smaller goals to achieve this might include drink more water, eat less food and exercise regularly. Pick the easiest goal, say, drink more water. Clarify this goal with parameters. For example, I will drink only water between meals or I will drink 5 glasses of water every day. Then put this one plan into
action. Set yourself up to succeed by making initial small goals slightly out of your comfort zone, yet easily attainable. If you are shy and reserved by nature but would like to be more out-going, don’t promise yourself to get up and sing karaoke next time you are dragged to the bar by your buds. Try setting a more easily achieved goal such as inviting an interesting classmate for coffee or lunch in the commons. If that also seems too frightening, start with an even easier goal like saying “hello” to three people every day. The key is to succeed. It doesn’t matter how small your steps are as long as you are expanding your comfort zone and moving towards your ultimate goal. As long as you don’t give up, you will eventually improve in the area you are working on. And why would you give up something you are repeatedly successful at? When you master the initial goal and make it habitual, comfortable behavior, you will be ready to begin work on the next goal. The Old Wife Saying that “it takes six weeks to learn a good habit and two weeks to learn a bad habit” may never have been proven scientifically but it echoes an inconvenient truth. When trying to change ingrained habits, you have to focus on meeting your goals diligently and daily. This is hard work and you should reward yourself at the end of the week for a job well done if you have succeeded at meeting your set goal for the week. Rewards should be included in your original plan. Give yourself small weekly rewards for
achieving your current or minor goal and celebrate with a large reward when all those small steps add up to accomplishing a major goal. You will probably slip up and not achieve your entire goal once in a while. That’s ok, it happens. The kindest response is to forgive your-self and move forward. As long as you keep moving in the right direction, you will get there eventually. However, if you are the type of person who will view this mistake as a failure, be discouraged from continuing, and possibly give up, you can include a safeguard to counteract this. For example, if your ultimate goal is to lose twenty pounds and your current goal towards this is to not eat dessert except on Sunday, but you pigged out Wednesday night, you could either do extra running to work off the calories sometime that week or forego your Sunday dessert to “make it up.” In this way, the safeguard negates the mistake and turns the incident from a failure to a success. In conclusion, the key is to define your real goals, choose the most important one and make a plan of small steps to achieve that goal with rewards and safeguards. As long as you keep focused and keep going in the right direction, you are bound to achieve your ultimate goals and become the person you would like to be. You are goal orientated and used to succeeding or you wouldn’t be here at Indiana State University. You can use those skills to succeed at life, as well as at academics. Best wishes and good luck.
With liberty and justice... for all? What makes freedom free? Is it because of how we define it? Is it who dies for it? What is Justice? How is it different from vengeance, and what makes it just? There are so many questions we have and yet still don’t use our time to seek the answers to. Better yet, how often do we as Americans go throughout our Jon day without acknowledging just how Stephens free we are? We have the freedoms to affect so much change, and yet we Think strive to do so little. About One of these freedoms we often take for granted is speech. It An article on renewamerica.com states, “Freedom of speech is perhaps one of the most abused freedoms we have. From profanity to nudity, these moral destroyers are acceptable and protected, and yet the freedoms associated with religion are met with disdain, and attempts to suppress those of faith is gaining momentum.” If the freedom of speech really is free, then perhaps we as a society should be the first among many to give diversity a chance and abstain from being crude
or crass to someone, whether they are homosexual or heterosexual, Christian or Atheist. For the first time in decades, perhaps we should acknowledge our rights and seek to be active about something. In recent news, a U.S. ambassador and two diplomats were murdered at the United States embassy in Libya in reaction to a movie produced in California depicting the prophet Mohammed and Muslims as bigots and Mohammed as a pedophiliac womanizer. Those who practice the Islamic faith in Libya felt the need to speak out, but did so in a harsh manner to the point of costing a man his life. In Egypt, Muslims who had heard of the movie or had seen the trailer of it on YouTube protested against it, took down the American flag at the U.S. embassy, burned it and replaced it with a black banner emblazoned with the Muslim hardline: “There is no God but Allah and Mohammed His Messenger.” These countries cannot exercise their freedom of speech in the way that we Americans do. When the movie “The Passion of the Christ” came out, many Jewish people had a negative reaction to it, while those of protestant and Catholic faiths praised Mel Gibson and his “masterpiece.” Here in America, one could blatantly and publicly say, “that movie sucked” or “I hate that movie.” In other countries, disrespecting things
produced by media and/or the government could cost you your life. So let’s respect the freedom granted to us by our founding fathers. Let us also defend this right with justice, and prevent the abuse of our rights that is becoming so prevalent in today’s age. For instance, enough of the “I claim insanity” garbage so many use to weasel their way out of crimes. Many of these people are clearly not insane, yet can walk away from manslaughter without a second thought. Take the case of Casey Anthony. The woman killed her own child and walked away without having to face any harsh judgment, receiving only four years in prison. In Middle Eastern countries, stealing is punishable by the loss of hands, whereas here the punishment is nowhere near as severe. And that is not always a good thing. If we as a nation, or even as a campus, want to see change happen it has to start with us and with how we view our world and ourselves. Respecting diversity, freedom and justice can only happen if we respect ourselves. Life is full of limitless possibilities, and there are many paths to success. But first, find the path to honor and acknowledge the responsibility you have to fight for the freedoms you possess, the freedoms our ancestors gave their lives fighting for.