Have you ever been so stressed
that it's hard to maintain focus on important goals?
It's hard to see sometimes what lies directly in front of you.
it's hard to juggle the many things that life is throwing your way.
I remember at one point,
I was juggling the pressures of doing everything right at a new job
making sure my wife was happy
making sure my children had everything they needed.
Prioritizing the many projects that I had going on at one time
moving from one house to another
Preparing for my third child to be born
and trying to maintain focus on my schoolwork so that I don't fall behind.
I heard the rapper Eminem once say “on the surface he looks calm and ready”
and you see that's exactly how I appeared to be to people
I appeared to be very cool, very calm, very collected
I appeared to have everything under control
People used to tell me all the time
“wow, you're-you're able to handle things so effortlessly”
or they would say things like “how do you do it Torian?”
And I would simply smile and say quietly to myself
“If they only knew“
So it was obvious to those people
that I appeared to handle all of the stress and the demands of life
that life presented me with.
But little did they know
that I was plunging under the pressure
that I was sinking in the sea of stress
that I was dehydrated from being in the desert of demands.
There were nights when I didn't sleep a wink
not because I chose to stay up and study
but because there were so many things on my mind that I could not find myself sleep.
I don't know if you've ever been that stressed
but I’m talking about a level of stress
that in an attempt to remove something from my plate, school became an instant thought
It was too much
there were too many exams, there were too many assignments, there were too many demands
and there was too little time to complete it all in.
I felt like rather than growing I was diminishing
simply fading away and it seemed that no one cared enough to dig deeper
than the basic question of “how do you handle it?”
At one point, I felt like school was pointless
there was nothing there for me, it was too difficult to maintain good grades
I felt like I could simply rely on my personality and my charm to score a high paying job.
A job that I could get right then
and not have to complete multiple years of school to get it.
I began to feel entitled
that the world owes me something
and that they should take it easy on me, if I decided to drop out of school.
But then I realized something
I realized that the world didn't care about me
that everyone in the world was too busy chasing their own dreams
and chasing their own success to care enough to see if I needed help with mine.
I realized that while there are some genuine caring people in this world
everything you go through is a situation you have to deal with
not mom, not dad, not someone from the street or anyone.
It’s about how you deal with the stress and the demands that life gives you
and in that moment my life changed completely.
I wasn't relying on anyone to do anything that was mine to do.
I stayed up late, I studied, I read, I wrote, I sacrificed
I did everything that I was supposed to do.
I was no longer entitled.
Quitting never entered my mind at that point
I was on a mission
not just to show the world that I can do it, but to prove to me that I can do it.
listen to me
I went from being academically dismissed my freshman year in college
to being months away from achieving my PHD.
Listen, let me give it to you again
I went from being in the bottom 3% of my college to the top 3% nationwide
with a prestigious research degree.
Now I don't say this to brag to you
What I’m telling you is that
when you make up in your mind that your success is more important than your cell phone
when you make up in your mind that your success is more important than sleep
when you make up in your mind that your success is more important than watching TV
Then there is nothing in this world that can stand in the way of your success.
Not one thing can stop you
I heard someone once say that
it is impossible to stop a man or a woman that refuses to quit.
So throw me in the ring with Mike Tyson
throw me in the ring with Floyd 'Money' Mayweather
Someone with more experience than me
someone stronger than me, someone with more skills than me
but if I refuse to quit then there's no way they can beat me
I can only defeat myself.
Now that's the same mindset you have to have
when it comes to the stress and the demands of school.
Look school square in the eyes and tell it
you may be tougher than me, you may be smarter than me, you may be bigger than me
but I refuse to quit and therefore you will not beat me.
And so let me give you a few things
just a couple of things to consider when it comes to dealing with being in stress
or stressful situations and the demands of life
let me just give you a few things to think about
the first thing is to take time for yourself.
Now, what I mean here is that you are the number one priority in your world.
If you don't take care of yourself
then you won't be well enough to take care of the things that you have to do.
Think about
think about a vehicle.
The job of a vehicle is to get you from point A to point B
However, if you don't take care of that vehicle by adding fuel
by checking the oil levels, by changing the tires and etc
then I promise you, eventually it will stop.
And that is how your body and your brain works
you got to take care of yourself.
Huffington Post writes that
“Taking time to pause from the relentless pace of everyday life
and enjoy creative activities that keep you from dwelling on
or stressing over school pressures can go far in decreasing your stress levels.”
The second thing that I need you to understand, watch this
Learn to change your thinking.
A philosopher once said that
“You cannot get stressed out unless you believe your thoughts”
He says “all stress is precipitated by stressful thinking”
In other words he's saying
if you constantly think about being stressed
then naturally you're going to become stressed.
The moment you begin to stress about not finishing the project or an assignment on time
then your mind will begin to visualize what could or will happen
which can what? Create unnecessary stress.
So how do you handle this?
Well, by thinking of specific examples that can counter those stressful thoughts
think of ways that you can create the time needed to finish that project
instead of thinking that you'll never have enough time.
Because if you change your thinking, watch this
your ways will follow
The mind is one of the most powerful things known to man
that's why you've heard the phrase “Mind over Matter.”
Now the third thing that I need you to understand is this
Learn to eat your elephant one bite at a time.
What I mean is…
Learn to chunk up your work into smaller manageable bite-sized portions
This way, you'll feel less overwhelmed, less stressed
and have less demands placed on you.
The best way to do this is by listing the things you have going on
as well as listing the estimated time each one of those things will take.
Now once you're done
What you're left with is a lot of small easy manageable tasks
instead of one large daunting task.
So learn to eat your elephant one bite at a time.
Now, the fourth thing, the last thing that I need you to understand is this
Lower your goals
All right, now stay with me
Lower your goals, now what I mean is
I don't want you to become a slacker
or I don't want you to decide that you're not willing to push yourself.
What I mean when I say lower your goals is
if you lower your goals you'll achieve more, so as an example watch this
let's say you are a D average student
that has the desire to pull up your grades to an A.
Now shooting for A is great
but think about how stressful that is going to be for you
to go from a D all the way to an A.
Lowering your goals simply means
instead of shooting for the A right now go from a D to a C.
This is a much more realistic goal
now once you earn that C then go from a C to a B.
And then work yourself up to the A
Kris Carr was once quoted by saying
“if you don't think your anxiety, depression, sadness and stress impact your physical health, think again
all of these emotions trigger chemical reactions in your body
which can lead to inflammation and a weakened immune system”
So in other words, he says
“learn how to cope because there will always be dark days”
So don't allow stress to get the best of you
but instead work hard to beat stress.
Always, number one, take time for yourself.
Number two, learn how to change your thinking.
Number three, eat that elephant one bite at a time.
And number four
learn to lower your goals just slightly.
This is how you can manage
and deal with the stress
of being a student
and having a lot on your plate.