Take a deeeep breath. Go ahead. Now let it go. Do that a couple more times. Now, it’s time for me to ruin your relaxation. Welcome to midterm season. It’s the second semester, and for some reason, it feels like there is so much more going on compared to the first one. With clubs, activities, and just life, it can be a lot to manage. While any logical person would ease up some burden by dropping out of a few activities, I struggle because I suffer from Never-Wanting-To-Let-Anything-Go Syndrome. It can be hard when you feel like you are giving up by detaching yourself from activities or situations that you think you committed to. So instead of listening to all the psychological and philosophical podcasts, you distract yourself from reality and drown yourself in work. (Maybe there is an underlying problem here).
It is easier for first-year students to get carried away with extracurriculars and academics because we don’t really have internship opportunities or programs that we need to focus on. So what else do we do in our free time? (Is the concept of having “free time” only applicable to business majors?) For me, that time is filled up with overthinking which eventually leads me to start panicking about what I am going to do with my career. And don’t even get me started on fluctuating emotions because of relationships. So, instead of taking a deep dive into my feelings and thoughts, I tend to fill them up with work. At around midterms though, the threshold starts to wither, but I have come up with a few tricks to help me that might help you too.
First, create a schedule. Sit down for about 10-15 minutes and lay out everything you need to accomplish with due dates next to each item. Then prioritize each task based on those due dates. This way, you can get everything that is due sooner done first. The key part of creating a list comes when you finish each task. Humans tend to get a small dopamine boost when we finish something and having the satisfaction of checking off or crossing out each completed task accentuates that.
Second, listen to Nike and just do it. The hardest part of every task is to actually get started. Once you do though, you don’t want to stop until you finish it. This thought is probably the most challenging of any writing process. If you are struggling, I suggest starting with an outline. Outlines aren’t as daunting as writing an essay, but once you have that, it’s easy to start typing words.
Lastly, breathe. I feel like we tend to take our breathing for granted. As weird as that sounds, breathing has a tremendous effect on how we feel and our emotions. So, if you are feeling anxious or overwhelmed, take a deep breath and tell yourself “all is well” (if you get the reference, I am proud). Take a few minutes to close your eyes and simply focus on your deep breaths. This will help ease any tension and allow you to start working again with a fresh mind.
While I have yet to learn how to completely let go of things, it is definitely something I am working on. Learning how to be okay with prioritizing your mental well-being and freeing yourself from situations can be liberating, which is something I believe a lot of first-years need.
