The theater teacher/ department head at my school, had the fine arts team watch a video lecture/clinic. It was a lecture by a theatre director, Rick Garcia, who was speaking to fellow theatre students. He rallied for them to take risks, using the phrase, “Ready, fire, aim.” I found out later that it was a reference to a book by called “Ready, Fire, Aim: Zero to $100 in No Time Flat,” about taking risks in a business and entrepreneurial world. Immediately after, my co-worker looked at me and said, “you do that really well.”

That is my default setting. I do. I do, and then I read the directions. I skim directions, I do, mess up horribly, then read the directions more carefully. This has earned me, in some of my closest circles, a comparison to the character Dory, from the Pixar movies Finding Dory and Finding Nemo. 

Here is the problem. While I relish in taking risks, this practice and habit of doing first has caused stress and wasted time in my life. For instance, I do not take notes. I do not outline. When I had the idea of starting a YouTube book review channel, my husband suggested I storyboard it and he could help record and edit. I laughed, saying something like, “yeah, no.” 

Fast forward to today, when I have assignment due and I am struggling. I need to change. At first, I thought I would make my goal to take notes, make outlines and create a storyboard, but Nessa needs to start from the beginning. I need to read directions. Today, for instance, we have a piktochart due by 11:59pm that has all sorts of requirements. I’ve been working it all week, playing around with graphics, and reading articles, then piecing them together. At 2pm today, I re-read the directions and it turns out I did it on the wrong topic.

So, here I am, not panicking, but realizing there are many lessons to be learned from this experience. I will finish this homework, I will close my chrome book, inhale, exhale and start fresh as the student I know I can learn to be…tomorrow.