Cheetah’s Awesome Website
 

Who are you?




The primary topic is your emerging self: What is your identity? Who do you want to be? Focus on the animal's traits and what you can learn from them: those that you would like to have more of yourself and those that you would like to see less of in yourself. It would be especially useful if you include traits that you need or don't need to be a better leader.


  1. -Cheetah

  2. -Professor Bump

  3. -English 603K

  4. -October 10, 2011


Citations

   1. Wikipedia, s.v. "Cheetah," accessed September 28, 2011, last modified 
September 20, 2011, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheetah.


   2. Steven D. Farmer, Power Animals: How to Connect with Your Animal Spirit 
Guide, 4th ed. (Carlsbad, California: Hay House, 2006), 4.


   3. "Cheetah (Speed : 80 - 100 kph)," BP myScience 2011 Challenge, accessed 
September 29, 2011, http://bpmyscience4smkpp.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/ 
cheetah2.jpg.


  4.  Kelly Redfield, Group on roof at mission trip, 2009, Kelly Redfield, Facebook, accessed October 10, 2011, http://www.facebook.com/ photo.php?fbid=71656801531&set=t.608608581&type=3&theater.


   5.  Ted Andrews, "Animal Speak," in Composition and World Literature Course 
Anthology Volume 1, comp. Jerome Bump (Austin, Texas: Jenn's Copies, 2011), 
page #s.

 
 

    Cheetahs have fascinated me since I was younger; however, now I have new reasons to revere them. Formerly the cheetah intrigued me because of its unnatural ability to run at speeds in excess of 70 miles per hour, so fast that it causes the cat’s body temperature to reach levels that limit its sprinting distance to just under a third of a mile.1 This strain on a cheetah’s body requires them to rest for sometimes over half an hour.1 The cheetah’s ability to produce that much speed from its body is still a source of wonderment for me today—but now that it is my spirit animal, I am more interested in the it’s unique behavioral traits and habits. Spirit animals are supposed to, “protect us, guide us, and provide us with encouragement and inspiration,” so it is my hope that my emerging new self will be able to absorb the cheetah’s great representation of focus and speed.2

    Throughout my life, I have struggled with reaching the lofty goals I set for myself (like graduating top ten percent of my class, or getting into an honors program in an excellent university), usually due to my penchant for procrastination. I never start projects in advance. Oftentimes I finish them with only minutes to spare. This usually results in subpar grades and a sense of regret knowing that I could have done so much better had it not been for my poor time management skills. The cheetah puts a great deal of time and careful consideration into stalking its prey—a process that usually lasts longer than the chase itself. I can learn from my spirit animal’s time management and preparation. Preparation gives you have a set path to follow and there is no confusion as to the next step, effectively expediting the process. With careful planning there is hardly any leeway for a project to produce a worse result than originally envisioned; since most people only take into account the drawbacks they may encounter, there is only potential for a better outcome. Yet, I cannot blame my lack of efficiency entirely on time management and poor preparation. Some of the blame must be placed on my meager work ethic and lack of focus and motivation.

    I can’t tell you how many times one single little distraction causes me to give up working on an assignment just because I don’t have a deadline staring me in the face forcing me to complete my work. Virtually every time I would sit down to work a friend would whisk me away, or Facebook would consume all my time, turning a simple assignment into a long drawn out ordeal. This is where the cheetah will guide me. The cheetah is unlike other large cats because it studies its prey before chasing it down, rather than other cats who pounce after stalking their meal. During these chases, the cheetah is supremely motivated to catch a meal, which allows it to bestow a great amount of focus on nothing else except the end result of a tasty meal. The intense focus of the cheetah allows it to accomplish its goal in the shortest possible time frame while still reaching the same outcome. In order to accomplish whatever goal I am pursuing in a timely fashion I need to study the colossal amount of focus the cheetah exerts to catch its prey. If I can learn how to harness this skill for myself, I will become more focused because part of becoming more focused involves becoming more organized.

    Organization is essential for focus. When cheetahs go on the hunt, they single out only one animal to take down and exert all of their energy into hunting this one animal instead of covering their bases and going for multiple targets. This actually increases their success rate because they are not distracted by other goals. This same tactic works with human projects; it is much easier to finish one project before moving on to another rather than trying to complete multiple projects at the same time. In the past, I have been too easily distracted by other projects to devote myself to one project enough to complete it according to my elevated ideals. Lack of attention also prevents me from taking on a leadership role in a group setting. It is a combination of the extraordinary behaviors of the cheetah—focus, organization, time management, and proper preparation—that I must learn in order to become an effective leader.

    Many times I have found myself in a subordinate position at the start of a group project or an organization, but by the end of our time together as a unit I am usually doing more administrative work than the actual leader. It always starts the same way: everything goes fine until the group begins to lag behind in our work. Unless we have a particularly strong leader, he or she will not take the necessary actions to remedy the situation. This is where I step in; I am not afraid to be the bad guy as long as it produces the desired outcome. People that are not innately strong leaders shy away from confrontation rather than meeting it head on. By shying away they end up doing a disservice to their organization or group. I am not one to avoid confrontation; in fact, I embrace it. I will do what needs to be done without worrying about what people think of me, or whether or not I hurt somebody’s feelings. Sometimes it is necessary to offend people in order to motivate them to complete their responsibilities to the group. My problem is that I know I am innately a strong leader, because I always feel the need to take charge of situations where those in charge are not getting the job done. For example, within my own pledge class in my fraternity we are having trouble getting our projects done and gathering up the necessary funds for parties because some of those in charge are afraid to be forceful leaders. Eventually the situation came down to me yelling at my pledge brothers to do their jobs instead of slacking off; the projects were completed just before the deadline. People need motivation, and strong leaders know how to effectively motivate people. In my opinion, Captain Kirk (of Star Trek fame) was one of the greatest leaders of all time. He knew how to inspire people to preform their duties effectively, even under great stress. Even though I was able to provoke my pledge brothers into completing their tasks, hopefully one day I will be able to do so without resorting to yelling.

    Unfortunately, I never get to fully show off my leadership abilities because I hardly ever become a leader through conventional channels. Almost every time there is an election or a request for a leader to step up, I do not make a move because I don’t want to hassle with the work accompanying a leadership role. This stems from my lack of work ethic and organization; if I were more organized and thereby more focused, I would feel confident in my abilities to take on the added task of leading my peers. Before I can become a great leader, I must first arrange my life so that I am able to focus on being the best leader that I can be to prevent me from letting anybody down. If I were a leader and not as organized and focused as possible, I would feel like I was letting my team down just as much as the leaders who are paralyzed by fear in critical times. This concern for others has prevented me from seeking leadership positions in my past. Therefore, it is by my own inaction that I am left frustrated by my subordinate position in most group settings. It is in moments like these when I choose the easy way out—be it turning down a leadership position or procrastinating—that I most need my cheetah to guide me toward the enlightened path of success. I rejected the role of a go-getter because I was more comfortable sitting on the sidelines watching other people do the hard work, rather than stepping up and creating something better for the greater good. The only time I ever stepped up to be a leader was when I became the vice-president of the Highland Park Business Club, a club I co-created so I could have a leadership position on my resume.

    My inadequacies are the few regrets I have of high school. If I could do it all over again I would request that my spirit animal accompany me through the times where I made such mistakes to ensure that I would not commit them again. My sophomore year singlehandedly caused me to not graduate summa cum laude: I didn’t have the motivation to make as good of grades that I did freshman year and this blatant apathy toward school this blatant apathy toward school work stayed with me through the rest of high school. Every time something came up that would have made me more of an outstanding person and student I ignored it because it was time consuming and all I wanted to focus on was soccer and friends. This is where my cheetah could have inspired me; I needed cheetah medicine to give me clarity and strength to overcome my procrastination and behavioral inadequacies. There are so many opportunities that I missed because I did not want to search my soul and find the cheetah within me. Now that I have found the cheetah, I want to accept it and its traits into my life so that I can become who I am truly meant to be. As I stated earlier, I work better with a looming deadline is because it acts an authority figure standing over me, ordering me to do my work. I am not saying this is what I want my spirit animal to become; rather I wish to utilize its aid when I am in need of a guide. Through our spirit animals, we are able to connect with, “the collective unconscious—the inherited part of our unconscious mind…that holds the memories, experience, and wisdom of the entire human race.”6 This is what I want my cheetah to connect me to, so that I may access this collective wisdom that can advise me on how to correct the errors of my ways.

    It is clear to me now why I was so fascinated with cheetahs as a child; they are a part of my soul and my mentors and my protectors. I have seen a cheetah before, in a zoo, but now I wish to see a wild cheetah in all its majesty. I want to see a cheetah go on the hunt so that I can witness firsthand its speed and focus, the traits that I will inherit from it over time. I know that if I truly accept the cheetah and maintain consistent contact with it, I will undoubtedly become a more successful and powerful leader as well as a more productive human being. For now, I am weak—but slowly, and with great effort—I will become like the cheetah and live the life I am meant to live.


Word Count: 1,988 with quotes. 1,955 without quotes.



Illustrations: (counterclockwise from top)

1.    This cheetah is traveling at a speed around 60 miles per hour. 3

2.    This picture was taken on a mission trip I went on, and it is one of the few times where I actually did any leading. As evidence by the fact that I am in charge of the shovel—thus proving me to be the leader—I motivated my peers to finish work on our house so quickly that I was able to go help out some of the younger groups by cutting wood for them.

3.    Captain Kirk, one of the greatest leaders and motivators of all time.

The Cheetah and Meetah