On a scale of 1-4, how stressed would you say you are?
4 being always stressed, losing sleep, and feeling as though you don’t have time to do fun things in your life. I had a presentation about stress-management not too long ago where this same question was raised. A surprising number of students said 4, while only perhaps two to three people said 1. Although some amount of stress is necessary in our lives in order for us to remain productive, too much of it can cause you to eventually burnout or have a mental breakdown.
One way to relieve this stress is to simply change your mindset about situations you’re dealing with. In other words, changing your negative thinking into positive thinking. A useful skill to acquire in life is the ability to look at things from multiple perspectives and grasp the bigger picture. One bad test mark is not the end of your life. Or you may feel like all these problems are being stacked onto you, but if you take it one step at a time, you’ll make it. Today is a new day – let go of yesterday and focus on the present.
It’s key that you are able to have a balanced lifestyle. If you make a schedule for yourself, you’ll be able to do all the things you want to do in life. If your whole life revolves around academics, that can quickly become a monotonous routine of waking up, going to school, doing homework after school, going to sleep, repeat. You need to balance academics when doing other things that you love. It may be sports, music, art, volunteering, writing, and the list goes on.
What’s a negative thought you have about yourself? Now, what’s a way to think positively about that negative thought?
The presenter also asked the above questions. After hearing the responses from my class, I was amazed to see how a simple change in thought had a powerful impact. One particularly memorable moment was when one student said how she was worried that she didn’t fit in, but another classmate quickly jumped in and explained how she was accepted by the class for who she was. (Bravo! You know who you are.)
I was inspired by this presentation and took it upon myself to ask those same questions to other youth. The goal is to show that there are other people going through similar struggles and that it’s possible to look on the brighter side of that situation.
(Here are the responses I’ve gotten, hopefully you’ll be able to relate to someone else:
“Negative: I will never be the best at _____ (sport, school, etc.) Positive: I will be the best ME.” – Julia
“My negative: I lack the worldly experience and exposure people my age already have.
Positive: I must stay focused on my own ambitions and not worry about my pacing because I am doing what I feel like I need to be doing at the moment.” – Kandace
“I have various insecurities about people who have a family/friend relationship with me, but I know that they remain in my life because they value me as a person.” – Anonymous
“I’m scared my life won’t go as planned after High School. But whatever happens I know it will happen for a reason and maybe I can learn something new from it.” – Carman
“Negative: Not muscular enough. Positive: Watch motivational vids and read books to improve myself as a person and physical as I improve my fitness.” – Anonymous
“I’m hilariously weak, physically. It’s a struggle just to carry groceries or move boxes around. I was really embarrassed going to the school’s fitness center at first, and I still am sometimes. But I’m gradually getting stronger, and it’s important to recognize that progress, as slow as it may be.” – Naoreen
“I don’t like the way I have panic attacks but I’m learning to control them and calm myself through having one.” – Anonymous
“I always worry that I’m too selfish and conceited. I think a way to change that into a positive is to think about what I can contribute to the world and to the lives of others- especially to those I care about. I also should just remember that I have more confidence because I accept myself for who I am and how I think- sure I make conceited jokes but it’s only because I love to make people laugh while bringing myself up and remembering that I am a good person.” – Armina
“I usually feel like I annoy people because of the type of person I am. I’m pretty talkative/outgoing but I feel like it just comes off as over-the-top or just “too much” sometimes. Even though people reassure me that I’m not an annoyance, the thought is still always there at the back of my mind.
A positive way that I can think of it though, is that certain people look for the personality traits that I have. Even though I may feel like a bother sometimes, I know there are those who actually like me because of the aspects I mentioned since it makes up who I am.” – Pauline
“I hate being in public because I think everyone is judging everything about me and making fun of me but then I think “well they don’t even know me why would they care” and it tends to help a lot.” – Vanessa
“I think that I annoy people sometimes, but I guess that the positive side is if some people are annoyed by me acting as myself, they’re people I don’t really want to hang around anyways.” – Jayson
“I feel like I get judged on how I look like for example, I always tell myself that the people that kept seeing me with make up on will definitely judge me without any make up on one day. However, I realized that the people who will dislike me because of my looks aren’t worth keeping in my life. The people that love me for who I am would see me the same no matter how bad I look. To think positively about myself, I tend to say to myself, “Nobody’s perfect in this world so I might as well just live the imperfect life without worrying about anything” – Anonymous
“I’ve had a lot of negative thoughts such as “I’m not good enough” and “I hate myself”. I’ve realized that the problem is the stigma that comes with saying these things. It’s as if there’s something wrong with wanting to crawl into a ball and not get out of it, feeling self-pity, or voicing out those negative emotions. It’s not a mistake to feel; in fact, it makes you human.
We’ve been programmed to feel as if these negative thoughts are a burden, but in truth, positivity comes from confessing these problems, even if it’s just to you. We’ve been disillusioned to think that we need to flush out all our negativity in order to be happy, but people don’t realize that to do this we need to confront the negativity and be able to voice it without hesitating or swallowing the words back.” – Vivian
“My boyfriend broke up with me in January and I’ve been having trouble with understanding why, because he implied that it was only for a short time and that he still cares for me. It turns out he lied, and that he just doesn’t want to be with me because he’s a partier and extroverted and I’m not. But anyway, I was feeling bad about it because I thought you know, if I hadn’t spent years isolating myself that he would have still wanted to be with me.
But the thing is, I grew up a lot while we were dating and I became a much nicer person, I haven’t self-harmed since November, and I’ve been way more controlled with taking out my anger on the people I care about. So, even though I was frustrated that I couldn’t suit his needs because of my personality, being with him opened me up a lot more and changed me in many good ways, and I can now appreciate that instead of dwelling on the fact that in the end it didn’t work.” – Anonymous
“Why can’t you look beautiful? But BEING beautiful from the inside is much more important than being beautiful on the outside without being a nice person. It is important to be presentable and neat and clean, but it is just as important to have a heart of gold, arms that reach out to help people and a bright smile on your face which makes people’s problems disappear. To me, that smile is as beautiful as it gets.” – Nabila
______________________________________________________________________
Want more inspiration? I’ve been following Youth of YYC and You Belong YYC, two projects started by the Youth Week Committee and Mayor’s Youth Council, respectively.
Youth of YYC is akin to Humans of New York, but it’s focused specifically on the youth in Calgary. There’s many wonderful stories on there that I love reading and I would encourage you to submit a picture as well.
You Belong YYC is a campaign that is focused on the issue of youth mental well-being. I think it definitely deserves a lot more attention as it’s an important topic that’s often ignored.
DFTBA! (Don’t Forget To Be Awesome!)