As many of my readers and myself included have now started school or are working for the foreseeable future as summer has come to a close I think it is important to remember to prioritize yourself.
As an engineering student, when I am in school, school seems to be all-encompassing. I used to focus so much on grades that I would spend nearly all my time doing schoolwork. I was losing myself in this study, and work method, leaving me feeling overwhelmed and unsatisfied in my life. I want you to know that you are more than your program or your job, there is always so much more to you, don’t lose yourself by only allowing yourself to be one thing at a time.
As I was losing myself in this cycle I found that I was sad, I started questioning the point of everything and stopped doing many things. I ended up connecting with a school counsellor to get some help, she help me with some strategies to help address when I was feeling overwhelmed. But when I connected with a life coach, Erika Eileen, and my pageant, Maria Giorlando I truly started to get back to loving my life. Now I do my best to Love It All, the good days, bad moments and everything in between.
I mention these two beautiful women because sometimes having someone else to support you, someone you can be completely honest with, is just as good as having a counsellor or maybe less intimidating than seeing a counsellor. These women also taught me the importance of joy and happiness, and how we can’t just be working.
Loving your life
Loving your life is not something that always comes naturally to some people. I feel like many of us have strong goals and forget to remember that the present is just as important. This one activity changed the way I viewed the world around me, and I recommend you take the time to do this yourself.
Set a timer for 10-15 minutes, on a piece of paper write out everything that you enjoy, everything you like. Anything from what you like to do, to your favourite drink or food, anything that makes you smile.
Here is a very short example that took me maybe 30 seconds
Dancing and singing
Dressing up
Coffee
Movie nights with friends
Dogs
Family
Tacos
Reading a good book
Showering
Summer
Now before you, you should have a list of all of your favourite things and things that make you happy. Your goal now is to see how much you get to experience these things in a week. Keep an eye out for these things, and purposely enjoy these moments.
Additionally, if you lead a busy life, and something that I have to do, is put these activities/things into your daily life. Every day you should do something that you enjoy, something for you.
Creating balance
I know firsthand that it is easy to say do something for you every day, but way harder to do. I don’t always accomplish this, but I feel even more lost without trying.
Here are some of the main strategies that I use.
1. Schedule your week
When I am able to schedule and plan out my week, I automatically feel more on top of things and find it easier to plan my breaks. I physically block off a time in my calendar to do things for me, to spend time focusing on what I want to do, or having a scheduled break completely different.
2. Have consistency/Book a class
I grouped these together, as I know for many of us although we may have scheduled time for ourselves, we might not actually use this time for ourselves. Getting swept up into something else. One thing that works the best for me is consistency, and having a dedicated thing to do every week. At the moment it's weekly Zumba, I used to do weekly dance classes too. I found just booking the class and paying for it, meant I was not going to miss this time. It was fantastic because even if I felt overwhelmed or like I should not be taking a break I would still have to take that break anyways. After the fact 90% of the time I would leave in a better mindset ready to keep going.
3. Get some support for this goal
Have someone who can keep you accountable, tell them your goal is to start adding more joy into your life and how you want to do it. I did this with a good friend and we sent each other snap chat stories of the things we were doing every day for a month. This helped initially with getting the habit going, and gave us a lot of fun memories.
You could even plan to do things together once a week, that way it takes the planning worry and you can hold each other accountable to take some time to enjoy.
4. Have a list of little things
We all get busy so some days taking an hour to focus on making yourself happy might be too much time. Have a list of maybe 5 - 10 things that you could do quickly to make your day better. For me, a shower with my favourite playlist, or cooking my favourite food gives me immense amounts of joy. These are simple things, but they make me feel so much happier at the moment and can make the whole day feel better.
5. Make things you have to do more enjoyable
We all have things we have to do. Try to find a way to make studying or working more enjoyable. Light a candle, where your favourite outfit, make your favourite drink and listen to music. I find when I feel overworked or overwhelmed with things to do, doing one of these things makes the work feel doable and even can help me concentrate more.
Challenges I face
Doing a combination of the strategies above has helped me to see the joy in life. I will be honest there are still times when I do not take my own advice, and I still am challenged to prioritize my happiness.
The biggest challenge I have is not taking dedicated breaks for enjoyment, I often take study breaks by playing on my phone or watching tv as many adults do. But I do this unintentionally and am not trying to get joy, often I get sucked into a rabbit hole. When I lose track of time doing one of these activities I put more added pressure on myself with a time crunch. Having more purposeful breaks or dedicated times for playing on my phone, is something I am trying going forwards.
I am not perfect at this, but I can tell you when I don’t try to do one thing each day that I enjoy I am lost. I find I lose a sense of myself, then lose my motivation. All work and no play is something we should not strive for.
End result
When I start noticing the little things I enjoy and start prioritizing my happiness I started being able to love my life, and now I can Love It All, the good the bad happy and sad.
That is what I wish for you, and for everyone to be able to Love It All as the bad will pass, and the light will come again.
Until next time hope you learn to Love It All
Tia Van Der Gulik
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