My VISTA journey is almost done and something wonderful has happened. I have finally completed one of my primary goals of my VISTA year. It is a simple thing, a website update, but it has pushed me far beyond what I expected when I began as a VISTA last August. I was not a technical person. I knew virtually nothing about websites, Facebook, videos, blogs, Photoshop. I am a storyteller, though, and this was a new medium for me to explore. I was game for it.

And so I kept learning, figuring things out, making slow progress. Every webinar that seemed to apply, I was on it. Every Google link that might provide useful information, I went there. I kept what Carol Dweck, in her book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, calls a growth mindset (as opposed to a fixed mindset). I understood that success would be built on lots of failures as part of the learning experience, but eventually I would become technically savvy. With each new thing I accomplished, I amazed my kids… How did Mom do that? I am not a wizard at any of this to be sure. Often I resort to muddling through, but I want so much to tell the story of volunteering and service that I’ve kept going. (more…)