Let’s face it: I haven’t had the most brilliant start to the new year.
After the achievements and success that made 2018 the best year of my life, I was very excited about what 2019 had in store for me. And don’t get me wrong, I still am and things aren’t actually going all that bad: I would go as far as to say that I’m already reaping the results from last year’s work and dedication. But, my mental health is in shreds and I can hardly stay on top of things at the moment.
I find a lot of relief in admitting that here: yes guys, things aren’t always going great! I might be preaching here about self-improvement, motivation and productivity three times a week, but I’m human, too! I have a limited amount of emotional resources, and they sometimes run out like for anybody else! Maintaining a platform and building a reputation for oneself comes with its price. It turned out that I was more anxious about admitting that I was struggling here, in my little corner of the internet, than about the struggling itself.
And I think the main reason why I’m stuck in a bit of a rut as of currently is because, well, it’s the start of a new year. And just like with any fresh beginning, a lot of perceived responsibility comes in. Pressures around getting things right the first time, not failing, building positive habits, hustling, fulfilling those resolutions before due time. A suitable metaphor would be all the people who start going to the gym as part of their goals for the year that’s just started. A lot of them will miss a day of working out at some point, and then give up completely because they missed that day and it feels as though there is no point in trying any further.
Well, that mentality is wrong. But despite knowing that, I am susceptible to it like anybody else. I genuinely think that’s what went wrong with the beginning of 2019 for me: I had a horrible cold that stopped me from getting on with my life like usually. I had to take a massive break from everything else that I had to do, and the energy that I did have was put into exam revision. Now that my exam is over with (successfully!) and I have other things coming my way, I feel unprepared.
The only thing I’m really anxious about is the beginning of 2019, but I cannot waste any more time on that. January is more than halfway through, would you believe that?! If you relate to some of the things that I said above, it might so happen that you share my anxiety around fresh starts. And because you’re reading this blog, you also share my belief that emotions must be worked with rather than lingered on. Yes, there is something we can do about it!
I usually have a plan for every post that I write, but this one was completely unplanned so everything that we’re doing, we’re doing on the go. The suggestions that I make here aren’t a set method, so your input is invaluable! Feel free to engage in this experiment with me and feed back on how you’ve enjoyed it and what you think needs improvement.
We usually are afraid of new beginnings because we feel as though we don’t have what it takes to do what we decided to begin. With the start of 2019, maybe we have several things that we wanted to begin: regular working out, more effort put into school and university, more time spent with our loved ones. A lot of things can happen in our lives all at once, and overwhelm is a completely natural feeling. In this regard, we ought to start with…
Brain dumping.
I propose this technique in several previous posts, including the ones on goal setting and efficient revision for exams, and that’s because it works wonders! It is a fast and efficient method of putting down your thoughts and releasing your brain from under the pressure of initial stress and anxiety, by giving your worries a physical form that makes them feel more manageable.
Get a piece of paper or a notebook, or open up a Word document and just brain dump. Think of everything you have to do and write it down, in whatever wording or form it comes to you. Don’t think about cosmetics, style or order; list everything as you go. Ideally, give yourself a limited amount of time to do that: brain dumping can be tempting as in it prompts you to include things that are not necessarily of importance or priority in your life, but you will want to write down to liberate your mind a bit more even though they don’t really weight down on it.
At the end of this exercise, you will have a big bulk of text that more or less describes the challenges you face in your life at the moment. Some of the things more important than others. So now, it’s time to work with that.
Prioritise.
This is another thing I keep on waffling about on the blog but good golly, prioritisation is the key to staying an emotionally stable adult. Prioritisation is also one of the aspects I still struggle to believe, because I like doing a whole bunch of things too much for me to let go of activities that are not as important as the things that stay at the forefront of my mind, like my final year project or applying for postgraduate programmes or jobs.
Take another piece of paper, flick your notebook to another page or open up a new Word document. This time around, you will be dividing your exercise page into four sections: IMPORTANT/URGENT, IMPORTANT/NOT URGENT, URGENT/NOT IMPORTANT, NOT URGENT/NOT IMPORTANT. You will then be taking every single element from your brain dump and putting it under one of these four titles based on its level of importance and urgency.
(I must first say before we carry on: I’m not entirely sure who devised this technique! I found it suggested by YouTuber Hannah Witton in her video about organisation, which you can watch by clicking here. Go show her some love, she’s amazing!)
This is a quick and effective way of prioritising different things happening in your life, especially if you don’t exactly understand how prioritisation works. Everything that goes under the NOT URGENT/NOT IMPORTANT heading will be scrapped; it’s not important to you personally or to the current make-up of your life, so why use your time and resources on it? Urgent tasks like say, paying a bill or submitting an upcoming assignment, will be prioritised first and foremost, and important tasks that don’t have to be completed for the near future can be equally distributed throughout time.
Remember that you also can’t have everything, or most of the things under the IMPORTANT/URGENT and the IMPORTANT/NOT URGENT headings: that defies the purpose of the exercise! This is your chance to push aside everything that doesn’t serve you and focus entirely on the things that matter and determine the quality of your life as of now.
And finally…
Maintain a balance.
This is another big trope I like bringing up on the blog on a weekly basis, but I’ve got to, okay? Balance is important, our lives would go bananas without it. Balance makes everything goes smoothly, and prevents the things that we do from collapsing over us when times get hard. I am a strong believer that balance is needed for good performance in any field, could it be academic, professional and creative. And of course, for physical and mental wellness if and especially when one decides to juggle all three.
So now that we sort of have an idea of what’s going on in our lives, it is time for a mutual promise that we will keep a balance between work and life. Between urgent tasks and tasks of personal importance. Between our professional activity and our passions and hobbies. Between productivity and self-care.
We will also promise that despite everything that we have deemed either urgent or important just earlier, we will, first of all, prioritise health and happiness. Our physical and emotional well-being, the health of our habits, lifestyle and relationships with others. We will make it a priority to go to bed every single night satisfied with the progress we have done, and wake up every morning pumped to do it all over again, maybe push it even further if we feel like it.
Finally, we will promise to never forget that everything that we do is a process. Physical and mental recovery, a piece of coursework for uni, a project at work or a creative endeavour of sorts, they all take time to become a reality. Nobody ever snapped their fingers to get things right, so why should we be able to do that? We will promise to understand and accept our rhythm as it is. We will promise to never rush carelessly or work against time.
And with all of this taken into consideration, a new beginning shouldn’t feel so scary after all.
I’d like to think people with different ages and backgrounds come here to read what I have to say. But me, I’m only 21. I’m half a year away from finishing my uni degree. And I find it bloody bewildering how anyone has the audacity to expect me – or anyone, for that matter – to have their life figured out. Picture perfect and successful, and guided by a set of precise desires that ought to stay unchanged for the entirety of my lifetime. Because everything that I learned from life so far has taught me that this just isn’t how life works.
Life has ups and downs, life sometimes goes wrong. Minds and personalities change, it shouldn’t be the end of the world when that happens. I shouldn’t have to sacrifice my health, physical or mental, for things to be done the way people are supposed to. I shouldn’t have to burn out at such a young age. I’m not a child, yes, but I am so young still. More than anything, I shouldn’t have to burn out at such a young age.
I hope that you have found this post helpful or insightful in any way. Regardless of what you think about it, don’t hesitate to let me know in the comments section below! Any suggestions and feedback are more than welcomed! Also, make sure you stick around because posts are coming up again as usually starting this week.
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