Tackling the Fear of a New Year
Hello!
Welcome back to All in Your Head! I'm saying this purely because I am back in an academic schedule and I feel like I'm going to be back to my usual two blogs per week. I started third year classes today which was pretty scary, especially given my assignment schedule for this semester (yikes). Scary as third year is, I've come up with a Plan of Action for the year to keep my anxiety down to a minimum. Old timers will know that I've spoken about the plan of action method before but I will link that in the related posts section if anyone hasn't read it. So, without further ado, I'm going to walk you through my plan and try my best to make it accessible to everyone and not just university students.
*insert zen picture here* How do you fashion bloggers integrate unrelated photos so well??
1. Work out a rough idea of the things you've got on.
So this first step is really very simple. This is literally looking at every activity you do without thinking about all the layers that flesh it out and make things stressful.
For me I have 3 sociology courses, EUMS chorus, Renaissance Singers, Renaissance Singers Social Secretary, and Trampolining.
This may seem like a really pointless step but it'll help to compartmentalise stress - a sort of stress categorisation if you will.
2. Find out the big jobs in each of these areas.
For some of your activities, you won't have that many big jobs/events so you can just let those keep rumbling on as normal. In fact, I'm going to set a rule that if an activity does not have a big task/job to it, I'm not allowed to stress about it. For me, that's Music society chorus, and trampolining. Yes, they have concerts and competitions but they don't have a huge amount of significance to them in the grand scheme of things therefore, not a worry.
In terms of sociology, I have 3 small assignments and 3 alarmingly large assignments before Christmas. In previous years, I've kind of refused to think about assignments because they would cause me to panic a bit but this year, I'm deliberately analysing them. At this point, I know that I have 3 3000-4000 word essays due in early December so instead of getting really worried about those, I know that I can focus on one of those in November, and get an extension on another one. I know now that that's not weak, it's just sensible to stay sane. And knowing that I can do that now is going to take the pressure off.
Early planning is going to reduce panic whatever you're doing.
Now, I do have jobs in Renaissance Singers but I'm going to blend that into the next point.
3. Recognise that some of the big tasks are pressured by yourself.
As social secretary for Renaissance Singers, I don't actually get told what socials and events I have to plan. However, I set myself a standard for what needs to be done, and this can get stressful at times.
With activities that are self run, it's important to recognise that sometimes, you need to take a step back. I'm writing this more for me at this point: I don't have to be amazing all the time.
4. Early Panic Prevention
Even with all this forward planning, I know that there's every chance I could crash and panic at any point. So, with this in mind, I've scheduled in two mindfulness sessions a week: one on Tuesday, and one on Thursday. Tuesday is going to be a one on one session with university associate chaplain Geoffrey Baines and Thursday is going to be a group mindfulness meditation session. For me, these sessions are a priority and I'm forcing myself to spend these two hours focussing on my mental wellbeing.
I would recommend doing something like this yourself, be it mindfulness, yoga, or whatever else you find relaxing. You can't be all systems go all the time!
5. Work free evenings
This is an old one for me but I'm sticking to not working in the evening. It's just not needed and it's exhausting both physically and mentally.
I think that's it for now and I'm definitely feeling more positive about the coming year now this is all written down. I hope some of you found this helpful.
As always, feel free to like, message me, or share!
Lots of Love,
Sarah xxx
