As the spooky season rolls around, we busy ourselves with getting our decorations up and costumes on. But while we worry about ghosts lurking in dark hallways, we rarely stop to consider the demons we carry with us every day.
These aren’t exactly supernatural; they’re the voices in our heads telling us we’re falling behind, that others are doing so much better, and that we need to push ourselves even harder. University is already frightening enough without the pressure of reaching the top. Between midterms, finals, and career anxiety, it’s easy to develop habits that leave us feeling unfulfilled and miserable.
So this fall, I’m clearing out the skeletons in my own closet and letting go of habits that no longer serve me.
1. Burying the Need to Be Perfect
Perfectionism is a particularly difficult demon to get rid of. Everyone wants to be perfect; it’s only natural. But, as you’ve probably heard before, no one is! The classmate you admire and think is a super-genius also deals with stress and burnout, cries out of frustration over schoolwork, and feels disheartened about missing out on plans in favour of studying.
Striving for excellence is good, but not when it reaches the point where we put ourselves down or lose our sense of self. It’s impossible to be the best at everything, even things we really hoped to be.
What matters is that we tried and did our best; if our best isn’t enough, as people so often worry, we move onto something else.
2. Putting an End to Comparison
Comparison is hardly a new thing; it’s existed since the dawn of time. However, modern use of social media platforms gives us an almost endless supply of metrics to measure ourselves against.
We see the graduation photos, five-year anniversaries, the exciting announcements, and then wonder where ours are. Suddenly, our own lives aren’t nearly as impressive. But beneath what we see lie struggles of their own.
University makes this especially difficult. Everyone is racing toward something, be it graduate school, medical school, a competitive internship, or a prestigious job. Watching others can make it seem like there’s a universal timeline for success and that missing even one milestone means we’re falling behind. But there isn’t a cookie-cutter template for a successful life; there can’t be because everyone’s understanding of fulfillment is different. What works for one might not work for another, and that’s fine! The goal is to be happy and satisfied, whatever that may look like.
3. Exorcising the Guilt of Resting
Somewhere along the way, so many of us learned to feel guilty about not being “productive enough.” I can attest to this; it’s haunted me the last four years, at least.
It’s a very tempting mentality for a post-secondary student. After all, there’s always more material we could review for that one class, more progress we could make on that one project, and more we could do to get ahead of everyone else. But then rest becomes something that we need to earn.
I can’t count how many times I’ve come home after an awful day, thinking about how much I’d just love to sleep, but feeling like I haven’t “done enough” to deserve it yet. It sounds rational enough, but when you think about it, it’s actually a little ridiculous. Why should I have to earn relaxation?
This is just another one of the many ideas I’m banishing from my head this season, and hopefully, for good.
So, as Halloween approaches, I’m taking a moment to mull over what I’m ready to release, and you should, too. Autumn is the season of change, so why not?