Month: September 2019

You Mean I Can’t Do It All?

I am so guilty. Guilty of trying to do everything on my own. Guilty of bottling all of my stress up and exploding eventually. Guilty of either being too scared or to prideful to ask for help. But I’m working on that. Last week, I went through one of the most stressful weeks of my life, and it humbled me.

Those that know me can attest to the fact that I am a perfectionist. I want to be the best. This trait has manifested itself in my life in many ways, but one of the most prominent is in school. Growing up, schoolwork came very naturally for me. Senior year things started to get a little bit harder, but I thought to myself, I got this. Freshman year of college had maybe, oh, a few challenging moments, but I got through it. I was fine. (My life motto should really be, “It’s fine, I’m fine.”) And here we are, sophomore year.

I was so excited coming into this year. I changed my major and am finally extremely passionate about what I’m going to do for the rest of my life. I came into this school year in several leadership positions, I was in a better and more positive mindset. I’m taking more hours, I’m planning events, I’m carving out time to do office hours for two different leadership positions, AND my room is clean. Well, all that is, until last week. My graceful handling of my life and juggling of all my extracurriculars was going just fine until my perfectionism began to catch up to me.

I had three week’s worth of homework assigned to me in one weekend with a test the first class period of that following week. In Microeconomics-which let’s just say, is not my strong subject. It really doesn’t sound that bad once I type it out, but for my brain, nothing was clicking. I was a mess. If I wasn’t in class, I was sitting at my desk attempting to talk myself through my homework, crying a few tears in frustration, and showing all the signs of a mental breakdown. I was at my breaking point.

AND I STILL DIDN’T ASK FOR HELP. Luckily for me, God blessed me with some amazing friends that I don’t deserve. They saw me struggling, although let’s be honest, it was obvious, and helped me. It wasn’t anything huge. But as soon as they did it, I calmed down. I started thinking things through. And I did it.

With the help of a cherry limeade. Sometimes, it’s the smallest things.

My point is, ASK FOR HELP before you get to the mental breakdown point. That’s something that I’m working on for myself. Personally, being the “nerd” growing up in school, I viewed asking for help as a weakness. I thought I should be able to figure everything out on my own. I’ve slowly been learning that God didn’t put us on this earth to do things alone. We were made to need God and other people. The older I get, the more I find myself needing more of those things. So ask for help. That can look like asking for help with homework or asking your friends to go do something because you need a break.

Believe me, I’m the first person to think I can do it all. And it won’t be the last time I have a mental breakdown because of that. But the truth is, we can’t do everything ourselves. We all need a little help sometimes.

We’re All in This Together

September is already here and classes are in full swing. Coming off of freshman year, sophomore year is a whole new ballgame. I am very involved this year again, being the Student Government Association secretary, a Resident Assistant, and a member of several clubs on campus. I stay very busy, but it’s a good busy.

As many know, I changed my major about two weeks before school started. I was a Business Administration major with a marketing concentration but have sinced decided that my passion is working with kids. For the past two summers, I have been blessed to babysit four wonderful kids and watching them learn and grow just over the summer is such a happy thing for me. As I was sitting at the kitchen counter with the youngest of these kids (3 years old at the time), we were working on sign language. I took a sign language class this summer and taught the kids I babysat a little of what I would learn every week. As I watched the youngest spell her name back to me in sign language, it hit me how fulfilling it is to help someone learn and be successful. That moment was the defining change in my mind.

I am not the only person who has an internal struggle about what they want to do with their lives. But last year, it seemed like I was. Everyone that I talked to had some moment in their lives that helped them decide that they were going down the right career path. I had never experienced that moment, and became very frustrated with the classes I was taking last year. But I didn’t change my major, because I wasn’t confident in what I would change to and didn’t want to lose what I had already started as far as business classes.

This summer, I had that moment. So I’m here to say to all of the high school seniors, the college freshmen, sophomores, or even juniors that you will have a moment at some point. I would say to be on the lookout for it, but mine hit me out of nowhere. When that moment comes, and you make the switch, you will know immediately if it was the right decision. For me, I was able to immediately enroll in a lower level education course. It’s already my favorite class. I come to class so excited and eager to learn. I leave barely able to contain the happiness I feel about choosing this career. And that’s how I know it was the right choice.

So if you’re anything like I was and you feel lost and unsure about if you’re making the right choice, maybe take a step back and evaluate not just with your head, but with your heart, if it’s what you want to do. Check yourself: do you feel that excitement when you think about it? Are you eager to start on it? If not, I encourage you to explore some other topics outside of the classroom to find things that are fulfilling to you and make you feel that excitement.

One last thing, talk to someone about the struggle. I talked to my friends constantly about how I felt taking the business classes. When I told them I thought I was going to switch to elementary education, they supported me 100% and were so encouraging. That was another reason I knew I had made the right choice. If you talk to people about it, they can help you figure out what things you enjoy doing and they can help guide you and encourage you when you need that reassurance. Remember, we all go through this.