During my OSU experience freshman year, I fell into the cycle of being more and more introverted because I was stuck in my small dorm room constantly.  This cycle was not healthy for me, but this year it has been improved greatly.  I feel that doing service with A Kid Again has been the biggest factor to help with this.  I chose to volunteer at this non-profit by myself – which meant that I would not be going into this with my friends.  I was nervous at first because I wouldn’t know anyone else, but now I’ve volunteered for over 50 hours and it has been such a great journey.  Each time I volunteer, I am paired up with new people.  Although this challenged me to step out of my comfort zone, I am very grateful for this opportunity because I have made so many genuine friendships and connections.  Since A Kid Again gives back to families who have children with life-threatening conditions, I have found that most of the volunteers have such big hearts and genuinely love what they do.  This opportunity has also led me to connect with many occupational therapists which can greatly help me when I decide to shadow someone as I would like to be an occupational therapist.  I am so glad that I have chosen this opportunity and stepped out of my comfort zone.

Staying fit has always been a big part of my life.  Throughout my life, I have always been athletic (competing in gymnastics, basketball, volleyball, track, and golf), but I never put much focus into the training part of sports.  When I first started living on campus, I began exploring the gyms and participating in strength training with my friends.  I didn’t have much prior knowledge about weight training, but soon I realized that I really enjoyed strength training and set goals for myself each week.  At first, these goals were pretty small, but after a while, I started to gain muscle and set bigger goals for myself.  For example, when I first came on campus, I could only leg press 90 pounds.  By the end of the semester, I could confidently leg press 190 pounds (which is more than double the weight I started with).  Another example is shown in the following pictures:

This photo was taken the summer before living on OSU campus.

This photo was taken during winter break — after being on campus for about 4 months.

Clearly, there is a noticeable difference between my arm muscles between the two pictures.  This shows that my dedication to becoming more fit has paid off.  I started by going to the gym twice a week, but soon I was going five times a week because I felt so motivated when I saw results.  Sometimes I felt lazy and didn’t want to go to the gym, but I still went because I believe that I was able to persevere through the difficult moments to become successful.  Working out has taught me to find activities that I love and push myself to do the best I can at those activities.  My dad always told me this saying: “Do your best and forget the rest.”  This saying really motivates me every day.  I say it to myself when I am feeling down or sad.  When I remind myself of this quote, I get motivated to do something great.  Hopefully, those reading this can also use this simple but meaningful quote when they need more motivation.

With motivation, dedication, and commitment, anything can be achieved.

I chose my Clifton Strengths as my artifact because they have shown me which ways I best lead and have the most potential.  My strengths are includer, adaptability, positivity, woo, and  competition.  During Mount Seminar class, we have been talking about seeing our own strengths.  This is different for me because usually it is difficult to talk about myself.  I’ve found that finding what I’m best at can make me a stronger leader, person, and friend.  I learned my Clifton Strengths right before I went home to lead a retreat called Kairos from September 22,2020 to September 25,2020.

During this retreat, I was able to identify some of the strengths I use constantly and how I put them in action.  For example, includer was found to be my best strength, and throughout the week of leading a small group, I was able to see that strength being used.  I made sure that everyone in my small group felt welcome and included in our small group discussions.  I always try to make the environment as welcoming as possible so that all people feel welcome.  There was one girl in my small group who was very introverted and quiet.  At first, she only said a couple of sentences to the group, but by the end of the week she was open and shared with us.  I believe that my strength of being an includer helped this happen.

The other main strength I used throughout the retreat was adaptability.  I actually didn’t find out that I was going to lead this retreat until about a week and a half before it began.  As you can imagine, I was not completely prepared coming into the retreat.  I led another Kairos retreat last year, but this one was very different — being that there was a small preparation time and covid-19 rules.  There were also times where my co-leader had to leave the small group room to take her classes.  This left me alone to lead the group by myself which I had never experienced.  It was definitely different, but I actually really enjoyed leading a small group by myself.  Although this experience may seem a bit chaotic and stressful, I am always calm in these types of situations.  This retreat was definitely not like the past time I led, but I was open to change and everything fell into place.

Lastly, my strength of positivity came in to play many times throughout the retreat.  As I mentioned before, some things did not go as planned, but I had to keep my head up.  For example, one thing we always do after someone gives a talk is every single person goes up to the speaker and hugs him or her.  Due to covid, we obviously couldn’t do this during the retreat.  Since I tried to stay positive about the situation, I told my small group that we should make up a motion that meant “I care for you” and we would do that motion after each talk was given.  Another example was that the leaders couldn’t make hot chocolate at night for the retreatants, so instead we brought each of them a cookie and they were really happy about it.

Overall, I believe that my ability to acknowledge my CliftonStrengths helped me in my process of leading a retreat.  These strengths are really important to me because they show me how I can become a better person.  I will continue to focus on these strengths so that I can become a stronger leader in the future.