feeling overwhelmed

I am at a time in my life where I am feeling particularly overwhelmed. Overwhelmed with the near future of my final year at university, overwhelmed with the thought of my dissertation, overwhelmed with reading lists and the excelled rate I am expected to read them. Overwhelmed with my connections with people I have perhaps outgrown and how to handle this, overwhelmed with living in my family home for the summer months having spent two years living alone, overwhelmed with the stability of my future regarding my career and housing. Overwhelmed with receiving bad news within the family; ultimately I am overwhelmed with the uncertainties of the future.

I am a self confessed worrier and my anxieties about the future take up a huge amount of my daily thoughts yet I fail to act upon my worries and effectively bury my head in the sand. This summer has particularly made prominent of how uncertain my future is in multiple aspects of life, however I have realised that most of these anxieties actually stem from not doing anything to calm my concerns- I simply sit and worry rather than being active and changing the way I am feeling.

While there are certain elements that are completely out of my control, there are many actions I can take and am starting to take, in order to relieve the stress and feeling of being overwhelmed. I have begun writing a list which orders the books I need to read for my first few weeks at university to get me started. I have downloaded the books onto my kindle and begun reading them so that when the university year rears its head, I won't be rushed for time trying to get the books read for the first few seminars. I really struggle with the reading on my course as I am not a confident nor fast reader, however by starting small this is really beginning to take the stress off beginning the most important year of my time at university.

Living away at university for the past two years has allowed me to tailor my way of living to suit me, regarding cooking and timescales of the day, and so I have forgotten my parents way of living which is stressful for all involved. To lower the stresses of living back in with parents I have to remind myself that this is their home and we have to find a happy medium regarding cooking, cleaning, and the lifestyle I live when I am in their home. Helping out around the house as well as finding a respectable way to relax in their home is definitely something I am working on. Ultimately, I want myself, my boyfriend and my family to feel relaxed within my childhood home.

The future is overwhelming, but you have to help yourself. You have to research what career paths you can go down and what experience you need, what qualifications you need etc. You have to research mortgages and loans and government schemes in order to get yourself onto the property ladder to eventually achieve your dream home. You have to talk through your anxieties with people to work out a plan of action on how to become content and happy, or even write a blog post to try and collect your thoughts rationally.

I am learning that if you simply sit around worrying about what the future holds rather than being active and alleviating your anxieties, you are going to become increasingly more stressed. Being active to diminish your anxieties is always going to have a better outcome than doing nothing at all, but equally it is important to relax and calm your mind- for want of a better phrase "work hard, play hard".

I hope in the coming few months I am able to continue being active in making the future less overwhelming for myself. The third and final year of university is always going to make the stress of the future rear its ugly head, but it is the way you react to this that decides how plain sailing the journey is going to be. My goal is to achieve a second class honours in my English literature degree, with some form of career or work experience lined up, and a solid-ish plan for the future after university, and then I will take it from there; content.

~

#lifestyle #personal