College is a time of self-discovery. Living on your own and becoming independent in the blink of an eye can be taxing on anyone. For young adults with complex hormones and demanding workloads, it can be even more challenging. As the semester reaches a point of high stress and activities become more demanding, it’s important to remind yourself and your friends of steps you can take when obligations start to harm your mental health.

Mindfulness is an important skill to learn and it can help while adjusting to independence. It is commonly associated with meditation, but there is no set way to meditate. The focus of mindfulness is checking in with your body, mind and surroundings. Adding two minutes to your morning to breathe and focus on what your body is feeling helps to center your mind and is a quick, straightforward way to prioritize your mental health.

Time management also plays a vital role in mental health. As frustrating as it can be to accept and put into practice, being proactive can positively influence your day and make your whole week run smoother. We always say “I’ll do it tonight” or “I’ll do it this weekend,” but that mindset causes work to pile up and can get very overwhelming. Being aware of how you are using your time can help alleviate some of the tasks weighing down on your mind. Instead of laying in bed right after dinner, do some mindless tasks that need to be done: take out the trash on your way to the bathroom, put your laundry away while watching a movie or even take a few minutes before bed to respond to that email you’ve been ignoring all day. To-do lists always look more intimidating than they actually are and if you take time to do smaller tasks as time allows, the stress of completing everything goes down substantially. 

When you feel your mental health is beginning to deplete, you should have a few coping strategies in your back pocket. Suppose you are in a situation where you feel yourself becoming anxious or feeling out of place. In that case, it is always okay to leave and take a walk or even go sit by yourself. There are also many creative outlets to blow off steam or bring some sunshine to your day. Singing in the car, doodling on your iPad and writing whatever comes to mind can all be great ways to relax. Some people even find solace in exercise by walking, running or lifting weights to work off any stressors of the day.

While there are many habits you can create and coping strategies you can use, it is never a bad thing to seek outside help. Friends are always a great resource and sometimes having someone who will listen makes all the difference. Counseling services are available on campus for students – sessions are less than an hour and can help with understanding your mental health. If you are interested in setting up a consultation, email the counseling services office at counselingservices@william.jewell.edu. 

Mental health is just as important as physical health. Taking the time to notice how you are doing and acting accordingly is a hard skill to develop but anything is possible with a bit of focus and prioritization. Take care of yourself – you’re doing your best.

At the end of my first year at William Jewell College, I wrote an advice piece for The Hilltop Monitor titled “Things I learned as a first-year.”  Two short, strange years later and I’m finishing my last year at Jewell. Here are some things I’ve learned this year. 

Quit stressing about “the plan” 

Even plans that seem concrete can go awry. My plan was to study at The University of Oxford my junior year and then spend my senior year at Jewell. Then, a global pandemic happened. I, instead, have spent my junior year completing all of my senior coursework in preparation for spending my senior year of college abroad. 

My plan to go to Oxford as a junior felt concrete at the time. However, no plan is permanent. This fact can be stressful, but it can also be liberating. 

If all plans can change, there’s no reason to stress about creating the perfect post-graduation career plan. There’s no reason to feel locked into decisions you’ve made for your life. The majority of decisions are reversible. The next time someone makes you feel insecure for not having life figured out, remember that it is impossible for anyone to have life figured out. Adaptability is a crucial life skill. 

There is no perfect college experience 

Sometimes, I feel like I only got three semesters of a real college experience. This feeling rests on a false assumption that the ideal college experience exists. 

Pandemic or not, every person’s experience at college will be unique to them. It is impossible to replicate someone else’s college experience. Just because you did not have the perfect internship or all in-person classes does not mean you didn’t have a valuable college experience. I learned that my years at Jewell were never going to be exactly what I expected, regardless of the pandemic. The best experiences are unexpected. 

Missed opportunities lead to unexpected ones 

While I was disappointed to not go to Oxford my junior year, missing out on this opportunity allowed me to have so many other wonderful experiences. 

I got to spend another year at Jewell with older friends who would have graduated by the time I came back to the United States. I spent a year playing tennis for Jewell, a chance I never thought I would have. I lived close to home for the first year of my nephew’s life. I took fascinating classes I never would have taken otherwise. 

While it’s easy to focus on the experiences we missed out on, it’s important to remember the experiences we gained. Over quarantine, I took the time to write a poem everyday, one of which got included in a community poem created by NPR. Despite the horrors of the pandemic, looking back I know I’ll never regret the time I spent with my immediate family when I lived at home over quarantine. I may not have been traveling the world, but I still made amazing memories. 

Take the time to enjoy the people around you 

My first year of college, I often confined myself to the silent floor of the Pryor Learning Commons to do homework. I had an excellent work ethic and would say no to hanging out with friends to finish assignments. This year, I refocused my priorities. 

School is important to me, but I’ve learned that relationships are more important. I might work better on the quiet floor of the PLC, but the benefits are not worth missing out on studying with friends. The time we get with the people we care about is limited. Don’t feel guilty for putting off an assignment to have a good conversation with a friend. Life gets its meaning from relationships. 

The effects of affirmation are short-lived

I have always been a good student. I tend to get positive feedback from my teachers and peers. The downside to this is that my self-esteem is a little too reliant on this reinforcement. I know many Jewell students are also achievement-driven.

The problem with being reliant on positive affirmation is that it forces us to set  unachievable standards for ourselves. It is good to want to always better yourself but you can’t base your whole identity on markers of success. College taught me that even after you win an award or get a good grade, you don’t feel any different. The happiness from achieving something wears off quicker each time. 

Instead, it’s important to find confidence internally, rather than externally. Just because others are not validating the work you are doing does not mean it is bad work – and doing good work does not have to be your ultimate goal. Find confidence in your strength, your adaptability and your compassion. 

Intelligence is fake 

My first year of college, I did not believe I was smart enough for a lot of my classes. I felt like I had fooled my professors into giving me good grades – maybe out of pity, maybe just because I was good at faking intelligence. What I was actually experiencing was imposter syndrome, which disproportionately affects women and makes people falsely believe they are not qualified enough for an opportunity. 

In my last year of college, I became convinced that intelligence is not as important as I once thought. I no longer believe that people are significantly smarter or less smart than I am. We all have had different opportunities to learn about different research, ideas and skills. Our brains might process information in a variety of ways, but that does not mean one brain is superior to another. 

College has made me confident that I can learn anything. If you would have told my first-year self that I would be able to take an exam that required me to write ten pages over six texts in four hours without any notes, I would have been shocked. Now, I’ve completed seven of those exams. With the right instruction and enough motivation, you could too. 

If I can drive on I-35, you can do anything 

In my advice column I wrote as a first-year, I mentioned that I was still trying to learn how to drive in downtown Kansas City. I used to add an extra fifteen minutes to my drive home by avoiding I-35 because of one bad experience.  I am happy to say that I now feel confident driving downtown.

While driving downtown may feel insignificant to some people, it was scary for me. There may be things that scare you that other people conquer easily. Don’t let others’ ideas of what is hard and what is easy invalidate your fears – and don’t let your fears stop you from trying new experiences. Do a meditation, say a prayer if you’re the praying type and buckle your seatbelt. No matter what the future has in store, you can handle it. 

Considering this column is about self-exploration, it’s probably ironically perfect that I have no idea how to articulate or offer advice for listening to oneself. Nothing, at least, beyond the obvious.

My therapist advises me to wait and see, to let things surface when they surface.

However, I get caught up around the thought of being complacent, of assuming that things simply will surface when I need them to or when I am best able to deal with it. If I metaphorically stare at an issue, will it be enough to startle some growth out of it?

Mindfulness is something that feels good. Mindfulness generally is key to me functioning and is done with the help of medication. But I worry that being aware and in the moment isn’t enough. That waiting for myself to unfold presumes a waiting for myself to be whole and well, when I know I will never get there.

This also presumes that I am simply watching and waiting for myself to grow into a healthier person, when truthfully, I’m not even doing that.

I’m just looking for results I can easily label good or bad – healthy or unhealthy.

I like acting like I’m comfortable in gray areas. It’s not even a full lie. I love analyzing complex texts and ideas. I like analyzing myself in my gray areas – I think those are where I like myself best.

It’s not the full picture, though. Truthfully, I’m obsessed with doing things “right.” I can’t even be in an area of self-analyzation without worrying about doing it wrong. I don’t really even know what doing it wrong constitutes, but I’m terrified of it nonetheless.

I don’t even like calling myself a perfectionist, specifically because I think it holds an underlying assumption that the person themselves comes close to perfecting things.

I guess I’m afraid of getting things wrong, of having bad things happen or of hurting those I care about. Logically I know and believe that there is value even in failure, that getting things wrong isn’t the worst possible outcome – or even one without learning.

But I cling to the desperate need to be right, to be doing the best things and using my time wisely regardless.

I’m sorry, readers, that there’s not inherent wisdom even in this realization. My therapist noticed it lightyears before I did, and now that I’m more aware of it, I leap to the next step: Doing Something About It.

And I slam into the following question: how do I do anything about it?

This realization that I am a perfectionist, that I care too much and too deeply for good versus bad, right versus wrong and always placing myself on the positive and healthy sides of these dichotomies is probably something I do need to sit with.

I don’t know how to sit with this. It feels like a simple sentence: I am a perfectionist. I am obsessed with dividing things cleanly into right and wrong. I want there to be layers of subtext to this so badly – though the issue isn’t whether or not it’s complicated.

I have to force myself to sit with this. I have to force myself away from wanting to fix it immediately. I have to even considered the implications of what it means to fix this issue. In doing so I find myself comforted, even in this avalanche of thought, that the waiting is filled with analyzing.

Which is good and fine, as long as I remember that I can rest and breathe, that I don’t have to be on high alert all the time. And that really has been my issue for so long, I think, that I run myself ragged – I really don’t know how to fill empty spaces.

Sometimes, empty spaces don’t need to be filled.

I’m reminded, when thinking of empty spaces, of old sermons the old pastor at my old church used to give us – spewing half-eaten meals down our throats like a mother bird for her children. He would rant and rave over the spaces within us that exist to be filled by God.

I wonder whether there are supposed to be empty spaces within us, spaces that aren’t meant to be occupied. I wonder what harm comes from the notion that we must be constantly looking to complete ourselves.