As college students in today’s competitive environment, we are constantly facing obstacles that discourage us in our journey to becoming one step closer to our desired career. Along the way, motivation is tested and sometimes it’s hard to stay on track with classes and even stay motivated to continue on with personal goals such as going to the gym or making time for friends. This lack of motivation can be detrimental to our overall quality of life, level of happiness and sense of self. However, there are plenty of ways to overcome this obstacle if you’re willing to discipline yourself. The most important strategy I employed was to realize my self-worth and tell my myself every day that I was more than capable of achieving any goal I’ve created and handling anything that life wanted to throw at me. Also, it is so incredibly important to remember why you’re at college and why you want to become a professional in your desired career. When I think about the impact I’ll have when I become a doctor, it helps me to get through the difficult times.
Speaking of difficult times, as a Biology major on the pre-medical track there are plenty of hard classes that have been such a source of stress and have caused many a breakdown. At that time, I wasn’t really taking really good care of myself. I wasn’t getting a lot of sleep, my diet was poor, I stopped going to the gym and my headspace was not clear in the least. I was also having trouble with time management and staying organized and this caused so many problems for me. I came to the realization that in order for me to perform at my best in the classroom, I must take care of my overall health and practice good habits. To do this, I decided to record some of my habits and track my progress and reflect on my productivity and level of motivation. These habits included allocating time for meditation, tracking if I went to the gym and how I was actively attempting to decrease distractions during my study sessions. B
Along with the habit tracker, I employed a tracking method from the book “How to Win at College” by Cal Newport. This work provided me with some ways to employ new strategies in my pursuit of success. One piece of advice that was offered was to create an arbitrary deadline to help organize all of my assignments and even my meetings and events. Below is a short video of how I create this deadline sheet every week and what I include on it to keep my life in order.
[ Watch the Get it together! How to keep your life in order video on YouTube ]
The third way I decided to track whether or not I was actually following through on the promises is using an app called Moment. This app monitors how much time you spend on your phone and this includes how much time is spent on apps like snapchat and Instagram. I figured out that I waste a lot of time on my phone when that time could be used for something else, like assignments and whatnot. Over the course of a couple of weeks, I really attempted limiting screen time and having this app on my phone telling me to focus and put my phone done was very helpful. I realized that when I wasn’t on my phone and I actually decided to focus on the task at hand I was more productive and had higher quality work. I 10/10 recommend this app because it was awesome. h
I originally decided to read this book to learn about some ways to improve my undergraduate career to that I have a good chance of flourishing post-undergrad and getting into a good medical school. This book was incredibly helpful and insightful and has helped me improve my academic performance. In the boo, Newport presents these strategies as a list. One piece of advice was to not worry too much about your GPA and instead just focus on your individual assignments because it makes goals more attainable and your overall academic progress less overwhelming. He also mentioned not studying in your room and finding a good place to study. That is a good piece of advice, but I like to study in my room because I can get super, super comfortable and really be in my element.
Through reading the book I have learned that there is a plethora of strategies that I can employ to help with my success in undergrad and beyond. With this information, it is beneficial to cater these strategies to personal needs and preferences. Of course, everything in the book is not going to be the right fit for me, but I make it my own and get rid of what I don’t like and modify it as needed. I have also realized that just because I don’t follow a certain timeline or achieve my goals at a certain deadline doesn’t make me a failure, it just means that I have to work a little harder to reach those goals that I’ve set for myself. This book, and more so this class has helped me to evaluate my habits and actively reflect on what I need to do to be a better student and what I need to do to make sure I am taking care of myself so that I can finally become that doctor and take care of everyone else.