Flexible or Faking It

I'd like to think that I'm a fairly flexible person. I am open-minded and open to trying different options and different ways of thinking about a problem. I think I'm especially flexible when it's something that I have never done before, or that I don't know as much about – I would prefer to defer to the experts, if you will, and take the advice of someone who has experience with the matter. For example, in my internship with my mentor teacher, I have been tasked with teaching a grammar unit to his Freshman English Essentials students (as I have mentioned before). He has left this pretty open for me to teach the unit as I choose but since this is all so new to me (planning and implementing a unit), I am very open to his suggestions for the unit, and flexible in how I plan and actually teach the unit. Last week, I went in, all set to go over this review worksheet that I had given them (sort of an open book test). I was going to have them just work on it with partners and we would discuss the more difficult questions as a class. But when I got in there, I could tell they would need something more interactive – so instead I split them into partners, assigned them each 2 sentences to work on together, and report back to the class about it. This ended up working out so much better, as we were able to discuss all of it as a class, I was able to see where everyone was at in their understanding, and it was just generally a more enjoyable lesson for everyone. This really showed me that sometimes I need to just be flexible with my plans for a lesson and see how the students are interacting that day, and sometimes just adjust my plans to fit that better.

However, when it comes to something I am fairly comfortable with, and have found my set way of doing, I can be less flexible. I'll change my ways, but with a bit of kicking and screaming along the way. This is evidenced at my day job – a Client Services Representative for Universal Background Screening. I have worked at this company for two and a half years, and in that time have found my specific way of handling issues that I come across on a daily basis – issues I have now become comfortable with since I've been doing it for so long. So when I'm asked to handle something differently, or give away a task that I normally do, it is somewhat difficult for me to be as flexible as I should be. I do it, but not happily. Thankfully, I'm pretty good at faking it, and most of the time, I am able to get used to the new way quickly and find the benefits of doing the task this other way. I just need to force myself to feel that way the first time I am asked to try a different way.