Tag Archives: motivation

Identifying Areas of Strength and Motivation

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In general, I think we tend to think about what we like and don’t like in terms of subjects. But we often don’t consider why we like certain tasks and topics.  Why do we gravitate towards some activities over others?  I think a lot of it has to do with our strengths and what we are motivated by.  Sometimes it’s hard to talk about our strengths, I know it is for me.  But recognizing what you’re good at is important because it can help you find direction in your path or reaffirm your decision to embark on the path you’ve chosen.

Whenever I am talking with people, especially during introductions, I always like to ask first what they do, what their field of study is, or their favorite subject.  It’s a question that is usually easy for people to answer because the answer is something they feel confident in.  I then like to ask why they like what they do and I find the answer tends to elicit responses that reveal a lot about a person.  It reveals their strengths and intrinsic motivations.  Do they love creating tangible things or discovering fundamental truths about the world?  Do they like to create order in out of chaos or disrupt previous ways of thinking?

For example my answer to this question is first I am interested in film development and arts administration.  I am interested in this field because it blends things I love: the arts and creating exciting experiences for audiences.  I also like mentoring people and bringing talented people together to create big, wonderful things.  I love fostering others creativity and I am good at organizing large projects.  Knowing these things about myself helps me clarify and refine my career goals.  If you are lost or looking for direction, I would always suggesting going back to the things in life that make you really excited and then asking yourself why you like these things.  Finding a career that contains elements of activities that you really enjoy will help you love it day in and day out.

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Mid-Semester Slumps

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So far, studying abroad has been so much fun. I have met so many new people from all over the world, many of whom I hope to stay in contact with when we all return to our respective universities back home in the states.This past weekend, I got to visit one of my very best friends at Oxford University, where she is studying for the year. We explored London the first day that I arrived, then traveled to Oxford where I stayed with her and got to explore the town and campus. It was so much fun to see where she is studying and to walk around a campus that is hundreds of years old.Often, after traveling, it can feel like a let down to return home, where all of your responsibilities are there waiting for you. Although I was happy to return to Dublin after my time visiting my friend, I definitely felt this way, finding myself with a long list of things to accomplish and little motivation to get them done. At some point in the middle of the semester, most students at the 5C’s, and on campuses all across the globe (including Trinity!), feel a sort of slump, where a lack of motivation takes hold and is hard to reignite.

I have tried to reconcile this and have come up with a few reasons that I think the middle of the semester is particularly difficult. First, you are no longer excited by all the new opportunities that the new semester brings. You have settled into a routine on campus, you’ve seen your friends after being apart for three months, and you classes are in full swing. Second, you are still far enough away from the end of the semester that, if you do start looking towards that date in December, you might just make yourself feel more hopeless than before (see Michael Scott’s face below). 

I’ve come up with a list of a few things that may help get you motivated and push through this sluggish time in the semester. 

  1. Get enough sleep. This is the most important, in my opinion, because sleep determines so much of how we feel and how well our day goes. I can almost always make a direct correlation between the amount of sleep I get and how productive, focused, and overall feeling of wellbeing during the day. If you don’t get enough sleep, you are likely to get less work done, in addition to it being of lesser quality, at least, that’s been my experience in many cases.
  2. Engage with the texts and homework assigned to you! If you don’t understand something, ask! Try to find things that interest you in the text or note particular concepts that excite you. If you can actively engage with your work, you are more likely to stay motivated and finish your work. 
  3. Know your study habits and know when to call it a day. There are often times when I find myself pushing to finish a chapter or a set of notes, when I should really just press pause and come back to it later. It these times when eyelids are heavy and focus is wavering that it often pays to just come back to it later, whether you decide to go to bed or simply take a break.

Hope everyone is enjoying the sunshine in Claremont and continuing to push through this sluggish time in the semester!

Being Your Own Cheerleader

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“Cool means being able to hang with yourself. All you have to ask yourself is ‘Is there anybody I`m afraid of? Is there anybody who if I walked into a room and saw, I’d get nervous?’ If not, then you’re cool.” — Prince

With nearly less than three weeks before graduation, it has become more surreal that I will soon be leaving Scripps. After finishing my senior recital last weekend, I had a moment of static happiness and joy for something that I had put so much time and effort into. What my audience may not have known about was the callouses on my left fingers, the self-doubt of walking on staging and crashing despite the 2-5 hours I spent practicing daily, the inner reflections that emerged out of isolation in a practice room. But through this preparation, reframing the self-undermining uncertainty into positive self-talk, I have been able to become more comfortable with myself and confident in working on areas of personal growth.

Senior year has taught me a very important lesson in being my own cheerleader, striving to relentlessly love myself through hard times and celebrate myself after completing amazing (big or small) feats. My support network has been nothing but compassionate, caring, and always there when I called upon them. At the end of the day, all the advice, guidance, mentoring, suggestions, and affirmations that I was told by others, could only do so much. All these words, while important and I am immensely blessed for, would only push me to take initiative if I believed them fully and truly, telling them to myself as well. I have always been a huge self-critic. This semester, my inner cheerleader has really had its challenges, through numerous job rejections, unanswered phone calls and emails, feeling isolated from people I love the most simply because we are not in the same situations.

As I prepare to move across the country, I have been reflecting about this transitional period, this crossroads of my life. I am lucky to have arranged an apartment, two temporary and part-time jobs, and a support system in DC. But this has all been an immensely circuitous process, for many reasons out of my control, despite having done all I could do in the proper moment and time. Never have I ever felt so much hard work without any payback or relief of it all “being worth it.” One of the most difficult things has been to talk to my inner critic by also being my biggest cheerleader, especially when I needed to withhold my feelings inside myself for fear of them not being received fully by another person. To anyone who is in limbo about a summer internship, post-graduate opportunity, or simply feeling the flux and vitality of a changing environment during this busy time; You are not alone, your thoughts and feelings are valid, and you are strong.

Congratulations, seniors, on turning in thesis and rounding the final lap of our college careers. The future isn’t just bright, it’s blinding, and I hope whatever the next steps are, you are wildly excited, celebrating yourself, and being your own cheerleader.

 

A Call to Arms: Finals Edition

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As the daylight dwindles down and as the holiday season revs up, college students begin to understand the true meaning of panic.

Panic! I am a freshman! Panic! We are approaching the end of first semester! Panic! We have these things called finals! Panic! We need to write, write, write! Panic! We need to study, study, study! But most of the panic is centered around the fact that we need to remain sane through it all!

With the taste of home and turkey still in the mouths of college students back from Thanksgiving break, only three weeks remain in the semester. Thanksgiving, to me, seemed like a little teaser, coyly saying, “This is what you get to come home to IF you can get through these next three weeks” (See what Finals Week is truly like as told by Buddy in the movie Elf).

I am lucky enough to have a wonderful, warm home to come back to, but I think I can speak for all when saying breaks are a much needed rest–and Winter break is the quintessential, coveted break for college students. However, we all know that there are papers to write and finals to study for in the short amount of time until Winter Break. It is important to do the best you can and bear down on school.

Finals

I yell out a massive “call to arms” for studying. To equip ourselves with countless pens and paper, fully charged laptops, and coffee pulsing through our veins (Helloooooo Motley!). The short push will be worth it when checking finals grades when snuggled up with a mug of hot-coco and loved pet. It will be worth it when we are home.

So rush to the Writing Center! Go to the professor’s office hours! Lock yourself up in a study room! Don’t procrastinate (there’s an app for that)! Don’t panic…Just focus! Make yourself proud! Make your parents proud! Your aspirations, your future, your career will thank you for all of the effort you put in now. You can do it, I believe in you (and so does Ryan Gosling).

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Inspiration from an Unexpected Source

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Many people, including my parents, often openly wonder why I am interested in science. Both of my parents are involved in advertising as art directors, so they’re very creative people. Even my younger brother is planning on continuing that creative legacy through some form of film production. I’ve been the odd one out in my family since middle school, when I started to revel in my science and math classes while my friends began dismissing them. More recently, I’m now majoring in Organismal Biology and happily on my way to becoming a genetic counselor, helping and providing resources to patients daily. None of us really knew where this scientific excitement came from, but after pondering over the years, we think we have an answer.

possible trigger warning: intense medical conditions and descriptions

You wouldn’t know it by looking at me, but I was born with a neurological defect known as Chiari Malformation, in which the back of the brain (or cerebellum) improperly descends on top on the spinal cord. This causes large pockets of spinal fluid to form around the brain, leading to motor and muscle damage. My condition was discovered when I was about nine and I was immediately treated in order to halt progression of the fluid. In October 2005, I underwent decompression surgery to open up the back of my skull and allow the brain to retreat away from the spinal cord. The operation was a complete success and my pockets of fluid cleared up very quickly. However, soon after my procedure, the secondary effects of nine years of stress on my internal systems became clear. The constant pressure placed on my spinal cord impacted the proper growth of many crucial muscles. As I got older, all of the muscles on the left side of my body, head to toe, became underdeveloped in comparison with my right side. While not only inconvenient and occasionally disorienting, my muscles could not adequately support my spinal cord. So I had two spinal fusion surgeries for rather extreme scoliosis during middle school and high school, both of which have been relatively successful.

Alright, let’s take a deep breath… Okay, you back? Great. It seems to me that the exhilaration I feel when it comes to science and medicine stems from these personal experiences as a patient. It would have been acceptable, even normal, to fear hospitals and doctors offices after everything I’ve been through, to cringe and tear up at the mention injury or surgery. Instead, understand the way in which the human body functions, and how it interacts with the surrounding world, inspire and drive me everyday. I chose to see medicine and the clinical sphere in a positive and miraculous light and have accepted them as an inevitable part of my life, whether I would have wanted it to be or not. Because of that, I couldn’t be happier with the life I’m living. It is vitally important to try to acknowledge the good in the world.  While some people can’t avoid the negatives, if you are privileged enough to be able to see the silver lining, please embrace it . Because it might lead you somewhere awesome.