Hi everyone! Welcome, or welcome back, to The Teen Safe Zone where it's safe for teens to be themselves! Today's blog post is a quick reminder that it's ok not to be ok. It's ok not to feel like you're on cloud nine all the time. It's ok to admit that life gets overwhelming, and it's ok to take time to breathe and not be in a hurry all the time.
With spring break coming up (or coming to an end) for most of us, it is a great opportunity to take time just for yourself. Midterms are over, and we're almost at the end of the school year. High school and college can get really exhausting at times, and it's easy to make them your entire identity. I know I do sometimes. I tell myself that these years are the most crucial point of my life, and whatever I do now will directly affect my life in the future and my opportunities for college. Although that is true to some degree, I tend to take it too far and forget to enjoy my high school years because I won't be able to get them back, and I know I'm not the only one who experiences this.
It's OK To Not Be OK:
As mentioned before, we can easily make something in our lives our entire identity, especially if we're passionate about it. Whether that be school, work, or something else in your life, sometimes it's really hard to make time for yourself in the mist of it all. Sometimes, we can get so caught up in these things that we don't even notice that our mental health isn't the best. Since things like school and work aren't something that you can just "stop" doing, you'll have to learn how to balance taking care of your mental health while doing your daily routine.
We live in a society where normal emotions are almost shamed upon. Everyone gets exhausted, worried, anxious, pressured, embarrassed, and more, but it's hard to open up to others, or even yourself, and admit that. Just a few weeks ago, I put a lot of shame on myself because I was experiencing writer's block and missed a blog posting day, which would be the first time this year. I also recently did the same thing because I haven't posted in a few weeks on YouTube. In all honesty, I was really exhausted from school and haven't had much energy or motivation to film recently. Does that mean that I should pressure myself for it? No. Why? Because I'm only human, and we make mistakes, aren't always motivated, and tend to overwork ourselves. This is the same thing you should tell yourself if you're dealing with this.
Some days, it can be really hard to motivate yourself to get out of bed and be productive. It's a normal experience we all have sometimes, but this leads us into our next topic... It's ok to not be ok, but it's not ok to stay in it.
It's Not OK To Stay In It:
I'll admit, I have days where I like to throw a pity party. Especially as teens, we sometimes feel that we have a "pass" card to say and feel however we want with no consequences because we're "teenagers with raging hormones". And let me just tell you, that isn't a valid excuse. Yes, everyone has one of "those days" that we mentioned before, but I don't want to make you all think that we should normalize "those days" completely. Normalize opening up and admitting that you're not ok and need help; not staying in the pity party. Normalize mental health struggles and overcoming it; not using mental health as a "card" to get away with things. Normalize a healthy balanced routine of school/work and self-care; not an uneven balance of one over the other because they are both important to thrive in life.
Below, in the next section, I have listed a few techniques to maintain a healthy balance of school/work and self-care.
Maintaining A Healthy Balance
Make Weekly Goals
I talked about this in a previous blog post about making New Year's Resolutions, which you can read here. When making "yearly" or "monthly" goals, I saw a habit of toxic productivity and a lot of guilt shaming coming along with it. Maybe I'm just not good at sticking to long-time goals, but regardless, I have changed my routine up a bit. I have started trying to make "weekly" goals this year. Meaning, at the beginning of the week (Sunday) or at the end of a previous week (Friday-Saturday), I make a mental or physical list of things I want to complete this week. For more important stuff, "the big stuff," I make a list of small things I can do in that week that builds up to accomplishing that goal. For example, if I have a school project due this upcoming week, I'll make a list of things I'm going to do daily for this project and take it step by step. That way, I'm not doing everything at once, but I'm still getting it done. For the more minor things, I would list them as something broad. For example, this week I want to "go back in time" and do a hobby I haven't done in a while. For that, I'll just list the hobby as a goal for the week that I can complete any day of the upcoming week. In this weekly goal list, I always try to include one day dedicated to self-care. Majority of the time, I list it on a Saturday because that's my free day, but you can list it wherever you see fit. Weekly goals are a lot more convenient for me than monthly or yearly goals because it's easier to adjust if something comes up. If you plan out the entire year or month and something happens, you'll have to change your entire schedule and everything crumbles down from there. If you're a person like me, who guilt shames a lot when I don't complete something, I wouldn't recommend monthly or yearly goals.
Dedicate 1 Day Out Of The Week For Self Care
Overcoming Obstacles:
Life will get hard sometimes, but that doesn't mean that you give up or throw a pity party. We've talked about how it's ok not to be ok, but you shouldn't stay that way. Of course, no one likes it when life gets tough, but we go through things for a reason. Life was never meant to be picture-perfect, and we humans were never meant to be robots who don't feel anything, hence the reason why we have hundreds of emotions. If you really think about it, life has obstacles because that's what makes us stronger. Obstacles in life teach us lessons. If we had everything that we wanted, we wouldn't have to work for anything. If everything was given to us, we wouldn't learn valuable life lessons. Going through the storm reveals who you truly are because if everything went well, of course, we'll be happy and jolly. But, when things start to go left, what do we do? Should we throw a pity party and get upset, or do we keep our head held high and overcome it? Take a minute to think about that.
Well, I hope you all enjoyed today's post! If you all have any other comments on this post, make sure to become a member on this site by simply signing up and making an account to comment! If you want to contact me about anything, please visit the "Contact Us" page on this blog where we can privately talk! New posts every other Sunday! - Lexi
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I love the idea of making weekly goals! It's like a much chilled back version of monthly and yearly goals lol. Finally something I can probably stick to
I hope you all enjoyed today's blog post and I want to apologize again for missing the last posting day, but I am planning to write a bonus one for next week! :)