Hey lovelies! My coworkers regularly call me the “Minister of Enjoyment” because of how I balance my social life with my work life and I’m going to give a bit of insight to the method in which I am able to do this – which is by knowing myself.
Yes, this is a very popular phrase among motivational speakers and I too use it when asked to talk about my balancing ability at different seminars and conferences, so I’m going to go the extra mile to break down what I mean by “knowing myself”.
Yesterday I had plans to attend an event and set off time was 6pm. I had finished work around 4.30pm and then I received a notification of having to present a topic first thing this morning – complete with slides and in-depth knowledge. This is where I had a meeting with myself – how likely am I to be fully functional enough to begin making a slide when I get back from my event? Will I have the willpower to stay up to start from scratch? I did a personal review of all the recent times when I’ve planned to do something after a busy night and how many times I actually did it – and I acknowledged that sleep has a very key role when I’m tired and will supersede any other responsibilities regardless of the importance – so I pushed myself to make the slides before leaving, and did a review of my slides when I got back.
That personal review is what I call “meeting with myself”. You’ve got to be totally honest with yourself and acknowledge your strengths and weaknesses. In this case I knew I would be more inclined to sleeping than working at night so I didn’t procrastinate the slide preparation. So I had a fun time and by this morning, I had a complete slide ready for presentation – which went well!
This is how I am able to live the best of both worlds and it’s been a rewarding experience.
So for my readers that are still in school: identify your study method and practice it. Take a topic and try to study it using various techniques – you could try rewriting the notes and seeing how much you could store in your mind, or watch animated videos (YouTube is full of them), or do group study and teach it to your study group (which also builds confidence), or make rhymes/songs out of your notes, or color code your notes with highlighters, or practice it (e.g. clinical examinations), or associate it with things in your surroundings by means of sticky notes, or the pattern of your curtains, or you could listen to recordings from lectures – basically get creative whilst looking for a study technique that works for you then develop it maximally such that it will always work!
I really hope this has clarified the whole “know yourself” phrase, and that you will be able to apply this knowledge in your lives and thrive with it!
Till next time,
Dr. ETP xo
