Episode 8 — Set up my own rules and I made the plan

Random food for thought: Learn to excel from your mistakes

I hope you liked my little meme. It’s midterm season already (where’s my spring break at?), so I highly recommend creating memes to brighten up those dull study guides. Channel your inner creativity and humor, and study at the same time! 

But I digress. 

So, you decided you want to accomplish something. Awesome! Now, how do you work on your game plan? 

They’re gonna know… How will they know?

Let the world know what you want to achieve. By sharing your intentions, more often than not people will most likely guide you towards the resources that help make those milestones much more attainable. For example, if everyone you talked to at school knows you’d like to help work at a start-up company, one day you might get a connection to network with a couple of start-ups! Take advantage of network effects.    

There will be people you will meet in this world who will be jealous of how hard you worked to achieve what you want. They can suffer in drinking their own poisonous concoction of bad vibes. But don’t let that stop you from sharing your vision and objectives. For every salty person in this world there will always be an army behind you, motivating you to keep pushing for your dreams. Don’t lose sight of the light in a tunnel of darkness!

Shoot your shot! 

I am relatively bold with my thoughts. So, if something feels wrong to me, I call it out. If something is done right, I praise the heck out of the work and the artist. Let’s be honest; there are situations that maybe it would not have been ideal to have blurted out a really killer comeback. 

Wayne Gretzky said that “you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take,” so instead of falling for someone who might not be there next year, take that shot on starting your new goal! You might fall down on your bum or you might take the next foot forward in the goal! If you do fall down or face a hurdle at the first stage itself, cry. After you feel you have dried your eyes out, focus on writing what worked and what didn’t work when making that first leap. 

Maybe all you need to do is reroute the plan, not trash it immediately. Then again, if you do trash it, understand that you did not lose this shot! 

To become perpetually better… 

In a past column piece about goals, I said that it was the goals that were like the colorful splatter of paint in a blank canvas room that makes us want to live large, everyday. The best goals are those that are continuously worked on to improve your skills and mindset—goals should help you take on challenges with open arms and allow you to be your unapologetic, confident self. 

After making the next step forward in achieving your milestone, make sure to think about how the next leap you make will make you a better person. There are situations in our lives where we just wish that world and the people around us would listen to our advice. But, alas, that effort is futile. We can voice our concerns, but to bring the best of us forward, we need to know how we ourselves can get better. 

Score! Or, no score? 

Alas, after multitudinous efforts, it seems like your goals never seem to fruit. None of your networks seem to appreciate the idea that you want to work at a startup—go work at an investment bank like every other finance student that goes here, they tell you. 

It’s hard to cope with rejection. I had a fire Stute section idea. I made a leap with it, even had a whole plan laid out with a timeline. Everything in the plan made absolute sense to me! However, I had to reroute my plan as it didn’t seem like it would pane out well before Milestone #1.

Now, it might seem counterintuitive that after writing a whole article on how to take that leap of faith and make mini-goals that keep you on track of your accomplishment, I give my example of not sticking to a plan. 

Sometimes, a simple conversation disseminates transparent information amongst involved parties about a situation. Without a conversation between myself and our EIC, I would not have understood just how much more milestones I needed to add into what I thought was a foolproof plan. I would not have understood just where the gaps were that needed to be addressed. Again, this reinforces how important it is to let people know what your vision is.

With that said, my plan is quite in fruition but it found a new light to lead it in. Be on the lookout for an insightful piece in the near future…

Quarantine Times is an Opinion column written and created by Roshni Revankar ‘22 to discuss tips on dealing with life in quarantine, such as productivity and mental health.