With about one more week to go, I can say these vacations have been rather productive in accomplishing my goals. As mentioned before, the habit I posed for myself was to practice a new sport a few times a week, and I can say the habit has been made. I have been going to gymnastics classes three times a week since I got home from Florida. I can truly feel my body changing in aspects of flexibility, which makes me want to keep it going! Even though the vacations are about to be over, and I have no actual obligation to proceed, have found true passion in this sport and want to continue practicing through the rest of the year. 

Through the course of the making of the habit I encountered some issues, for example I was delayed in the making of this routine since I left Lima for a week. Still, I managed to continue thoroughly when I got back. Besides this slight layback, I was able to cultivate this habit and make this activity grow within me. All the time spent saying I wasn't made for sports, I was wrong. It wasn't that sports weren't  in my nature, It was the fact that my fixed mindset didn't allow me to pursue a passion for these activities, therefore I can now say if I put myself to accomplish something, with effort I will achieve it.

Last Wednesday I arrived here in Sunny Isles, Florida, where I would spend a week in a hotel to meet with my brother who had been gone for fourteen days to a camp in UCLA. I got here with the expectations of being surrounded mainly by an environment of shopaholics trapped inside the walls of a mall, which come to think of it, isn't something that bad... However I was quickly proven wrong. I did in fact spend my days shopping, however it was the perfect time to bond with my mother, and in the afternoons, while my parents went downstairs to the beach, I had time alone to lay back, relax and reflect on my day overlooking the marvellous view of an amazing sunset. After my brother arrived, when my parents went to sleep, we had time to chat together, something we hadn't done since he left for Los Angeles two weeks ago. This trip, I also had the chance to open my mind to things I would never have done before, I watched three soccer matches, and realised I actually liked it, I advanced my reading on mindset and learned reading is not so bad after all. Even though this wasn't your 'typical' family vacation, I found this trip to be one of the most enriching. This will be our last journey together as a family until my brother leaves for university, and even though I had my doubts, I actually came to enjoy it a lot, and will cherish this memory forever.

Making habits is no hard thing, however takes a lot of initiative and discipline to begin with. A habit is something a person does often in a regular and repeated way. After the habit has been made, the activity will take little to no effort to be completed, and even transmit a sense of guilt when activity is not followed as the usual. These winter vacations I have set myself up towards the goal of creating a new habit that will benefit myself, and I have decided to make that habit based upon my health and changing my fixed mindset. I have the incorrect belief that I am no good at sports, and that there's nothing I am able to do to change that. Well, this winter break I am to prove myself wrong, by trying out a sport I haven't recently tried before. This will be useful for my growth as a learner, to show myself that if I commit to something, I can achieve it, and will also serve towards my well-being, since there is nothing healthier than sports.

After giving it a while to think, I have decided to begin practicing the sport of gymnastics. As a kid I used to enjoy a lot doing this sport, however I was forced to stop because it wasn't good for my physical growth. Now that I have stopped growing, I am free to do as much of gymnastics as I please, and am happy to say I will be beginning classes next week.   

After reading the first fifty pages of Mindset by Carol Dweck, I came to a realisation. I have a fixed mindset. I constantly say thinks like: "I can't do this"  or "I can't do that" , when actually, if I work towards it, I could in fact accomplish it. I remember wining when I was younger about how I wasn't born to be good in math, or I wasn't made for sports, and I carried that belief all through my life, something I can now see that has stopped me from improving and expanding my learning. I now wonder, what would have happened if I had said no to those thoughts, if I would have had a growth mindset at that age, then maybe I would be a totally different person today. Thankfully, it's not to late yet, I still have the chance to change and grow as a learner. Modify those beliefs I had as a kid to become a better student. My goal these vacations is to begin the journey into changing my fixed mindset, and expanding my horizons into the path towards learning, because we are not born with a certain intelligence, we have the power of making it grow.