“I haven’t been everywhere, but it’s on my list.” – Susan Sontag Hi, welcome back, another week another plog! Can’t believe there are only two to three more weeks of classes till this term ends. Almost there and then break!! Read More
The post PLOG: Capturing recent! Welcome to another stunning week!! first appeared on Tmylife.
I don’t think I’ve ever had so many things on my to do list before with such little to no motivation to do any of it.
I don’t know what to do.
To give you a visualizer, I have my Calendar and Reminders apps open together on one desktop screen so I can keep track of what I have going on in the day plus what I have to do (homework assignments, work assignments, other things to do, etc).
While this makes me feel like the most organized person in the world at times, it is really letting me down right now. Rather, I am letting myself down here.
I have almost 20 back-logged items on my to-do list and I have no clue how to catch up.
Okay, well, that’s not all true. I have an idea—a plan, if you must—of how to get through it all, but execution is a completely different subject.
Note: I’m taking this blog post as a moment to think out loud right now, so bear with me.
It’s 1:05 AM right now on a Friday. I’m planning to wake up in about six hours to get ready for school. I’ve got meetings on online classes on more meetings and then in-person classes all lined up for the day, so there is no room to mess this up. BUT TOO LATE. THE MESSING UP HAS ALREADY BEEN DONE.
I should be finishing up my part on a group assignment—a report, to be a little more specific—right now because our group needs to present this in nine-ish hours. Now, that doesn’t seem terrible, but I have been pushing off this report for the past five days, so what makes it seem like I’m going to write it right now?
It doesn’t help that I’m thinking out loud instead and not actually typing words onto my page, but I could use a moment to think.
At the beginning of the week, I assigned myself certain tasks to complete on certain days, and I will say that the first day worked out pretty well.
I gave myself two assignments to work on (and keep in mind that these assignments should have been done back in January, but who’s keeping track, and I right?) on Monday and I got them done before the end of the day.
Very proud moment.
That feeling of checking two items of the list in one day was like… getting off work three hours early and still getting paid for those three hours.
I could not be more relieved and at ease.
And then Tuesday came around, and I did nothing. Yes, I went to class and had everything in my calendar all figured out and lined up… but the comfortable habit if slacking off had returned in no time.
So, here we are on an early Friday morning, half asleep with my report open, and eight other assignments to get done before tomorrow because I didn’t feel like doing them earlier. How convenient.
Moral of the story? If I’m going to tell myself that I need to get something done today, I’m going to get it done. Enough of this ‘I’ll do it later’ or ‘I can just push it off till tomorrow’ talk. I’m not helping myself in anyway shape or form here—unless you like to think like me and call this a moment of utter perseverance hehe, which is just a half-glass-full way of looking at this situation.
It’s time to get something done for once and that time is… well… a few hours from now, once I’ve finished up my part of the report and gotten a solid four-ish hours of sleep, and survived my back-to-back meetings and classes, etc. You get the gist.
I will get something done today, and I hope you do too. Cheers.
Soooo, I’ve been absent for quite some time now! I told myself that I’d take some time off from my usual weekly posts to figure out the next couple of steps I’m going to take to continue to expand my brand but unfortunately, I’ve found that I’ve been continuously hitting dead ends.
I’ve been back on Vancouver Island for almost two months now, which is more time than I spent here in all of 2019. The last time I went to a photoshoot was on the 19th of March. I remember that shoot so well, I knew it was going to be my last one in the city for a while, but as I walked off into the sunset I was confident that I’d continue to be creative whether I was in Vancouver or not.
Fast Forward to now.
Am I still confident? I’ll be honest, it’s been tough adjusting to this new lifestyle but at the end of the day, I’m alive and healthy. For the past month I’ve been in a rut. I haven’t been productive at all and I seem to be constantly fighting with myself about what my next move is going to be.
I thought I was going to take this time to catch up on all the little details that came with building one’s brand but lately I’ve been waking up, showering and crawling back into bed binging ABC’s Modern Family.
As a creative, I feel as if it’s my job not only to myself but to others to continuously keep our spirits up- especially right now. But who’s there to lift me up when my spirits are down? Lately, I’ve found that every social media platform I’m on has become an extremely consuming place. The truth is, it’s always been extremely consuming, I just didn’t notice it as much when I had a busier schedule. My current reality is sulking in my robe (that I haven’t washed for three days) with a handful of chocolate approaching my mouth watching other people I know be creative. And the reason why I’m addressing these embarrassing new attributes of my life is because they scare me.
I’ve mentioned it before on my blog, but to rejog your memory… last summer I was at the lowest point I’d ever been in my life. I wasn’t going to school, I didn’t have a job, I didn’t have a purpose. Everyday I would wake up and then just go back to sleep because I didn’t feel motivated to even continue with the rest of the day. I spent about 7-9 hours on social media every day drowning myself in the lives of others while I failed to live my own. Day by day, it just got worse and I started feeling extremely stuck. At this point, I wasn’t doing YouTube, and I was only taking a few modelling gigs every couple months but I knew that if I didn’t change my ways then I would never be able to achieve my dream. I was ready to completely give up on creating content, I was letting everything knock me down to my knees, and I stopped fighting for myself.
But slowly things started to get better and the events that took place on two nights in particular turned my entire life around. After that point, I started living for myself and I haven’t looked back ever since. That was only last July, it hasn’t even been a full year and so many amazing things have happened to me in that short amount of time.
I haven’t had any thoughts about quitting creating, and I’m definitely not even close to the state I was in last year but laying in bed not being productive freaks me out. I need to keep busy in order to stay sane. Creating has always been a positive outlet for me and I’ve always wanted to use my creativity to help others. I’ve received a lot of DMs recently about people enjoying my YouTube videos, putting smiles on their faces and just giving them a laugh during this hard time. Messages like that continue to remind me why I do what I do.
Helping others is my passion and creating is my purpose. That’s why I create, when I’m down I watch my favourite creatives on YouTube and it always makes me feel better. Seeing people genuinely happy, living their best life is sometimes the greatest kind of medication. Real, everyday people living their dreams helps encourage even the most unmotivated people to do the same. I know that without them, I wouldn’t be where I am today. And that’s why I feel like it’s my job to push myself to do the same for my audience.
“There are dreamers and there are realists in this world. You’d think the dreamers would find the dreamers and the realists would find the realists, but more often than not the opposite is true. You see, the dreamers need the realists to keep them from soaring too close to the sun. And the realists, well without the dreamers, they might not ever get off the ground.”
Everyone dreads the last few weeks of spring semester. Here are some survival tips that will get you to spring break – ready to chill!
Create a Schedule
Instead of daydreaming about the warm beaches that I (unfortunately!) WON’T be tanning on this spring break, I like to make a list of all the high priority tasks that I need to complete before the break.
I like to map out everything that I need to get done by creating a schedule of what I need to do every day. This way, I don’t have an excuse to get lazy or “not know what to do” because I have taken the time to plan it out.
Check out: MIDTERM SEASON: Study Tips
Find your Go-To Study Spot & Hunker Down
If you haven’t already found your favourite study space, find it! Everyone has their preference, but personally, I find I can remain the most focused when I get out of my house and study at a cafe. Try out a few different settings, and consider what works the best for you. I like studying with some background noise, but others prefer the quietness of a library.
Check back on my blog soon for a post about my favourite study spots near SFU!
Make time for self-care
Ensuring you make time for yourself as a student is the key to success, IMO anyway! Whether you take some time to go for a walk, run a bath, or put on a face mask, you will thank yourself later. Knowing that I am taking care of my mind and body always helps to ease the stress of encroaching assignment deadlines and midterms.
Check out: Practicing Self-Care as a Student & 5 Tips to Staying Healthy as a Student
Comment down below if you have any tips for me. Have a great spring break everyone 
