It’s 11:43 pm on a school night. Instead of sleeping, you may find yourself doom-scrolling on TikTok because this is the “only time of the day that you have to yourself.” You won’t let yourself rest without doing the assignment that you missed in fifth period, since you were too tired to go to class. Your Snap AI isn’t working, leading you to try and find anything on the internet that’ll get your homework out of the way. No website has what you need, so you eventually just let yourself get some sleep. You’ll do it all again tomorrow. Because we’re all just trying our best to get through the day, right?
In reality, these experiences train your brain to rely on survival mode, confirming to your prefrontal cortex that you’re able to live with a dysregulated nervous system if you have something that can distract you from time to time. This constant cycle of stress, distraction, and exhaustion begins to shape how we define success in the first place. When you’re always trying to keep up, success stops being about fulfillment.
Redefine your idea of success- Society has increasingly emphasized the importance of visible successes- obtaining a degree, maintaining social lives. We often get distracted with all these standards of ‘keeping busy’ and winning a game that doesn’t really exist. You don’t need to be actively improving at all times. Investing so much energy into worrying about others’ judgment makes it hard to keep up with the only perspective that’ll ever matter, which is your own. Every day, you wake up with the same heart and the same face. Give yourself the grace to grow at your own pace, try new things, and make mistakes in the faith of self-forgiveness. Learn to live in a way that lasts well, not a way that merely looks well. Consider what matters to you?
Come back to your own senses- When your mind is constantly racing between responsibilities and expectations, naturally, it’ll be so easy to lose track of the present moment. Your body might be sitting in class, in your room, or with friends, but your thoughts are somewhere else. Coming back to your senses is one of the simplest ways to remind your nervous system that you are safe and present. Sometimes, all you need is a moment of noticing where you are and allowing yourself to exist there without judgment. We never needed to escape our whole life in order to feel okay within it. When you begin to reconnect with the present moment, you build back some conscious awareness that could have gotten lost along the way. That very awareness leads to the next step: intention.
Be intentional, every day- Generally, if you go to sleep and wake up in the morning with no real sense of what the day will hold, you’re giving yourself the message that daily life is some sort of battle. Life vs you. Are you really going to let your nervous system control your whole day? I want you to take a look at the things you do every day. What helps you live, rather than just survive? What pushes you forward? Let me be clear, it’s normal to have not-so-great coping mechanisms (substances, toxic relations, etc). There’s nothing wrong with the human feeling of needing something to cope. But, coping becomes the only strategy/habitual so quickly. You can’t feed off your hardships. I’m not saying become the most productive person ever and plan out your whole day, but I am saying that making decisions with awareness of what it will do for you and your body that day is the key to a stable life. Intentions/goals without action will create a spiral. These little habits of intention will create a big sense of stability over time for you. Your brain begins to realize that life isn’t something against you, it’s something you are participating in. Life comes from within you, not at you.
Stop treating busy like a badge of honor- I know that you liked the feeling of getting a compliment on how you got through that busy week. Everyone, including me, likes their efforts to be acknowledged. You’re really just burning yourself out, and then you’ll need time to recover from a pace that was never sustainable in the first place! When we’re always thinking about what we can do to better ourselves, we begin to put effort and worthiness into the same category. The more overwhelmed we feel, the more proof we have that we are trying and doing something right. There is a difference between working hard and constantly pushing yourself past your personal speed limits. So stop running on E all the time! Eventually, your body will need that time back that was stolen by your neuropath’s need for chaos.’
At the end of the day, life was never supposed to be something that you simply survive. You are not here to prove what you have, answer text messages, or keep up with your appearance. Your life is actually happening in between all of that. So, as you move through tomorrow and the day after that, please just try to slow down and ask yourself, “What life would I like to create for myself?” Rather than “What do I need to do/prove today?” You don’t need to perfect your answer, just make sure it’s yours! 🙂
