Have you ever wondered how things in your life can be at an all time high one moment, and then suddenly feel like you have hit rock bottom the next? From time to time, we crash. I know, from personal experience, this overwhelming feeling of helplessness, during these times of unpredictability. I often find myself emotional and my brain overwhelmed with uncertain outcomes. How do I move forward? Then I realize that although I am presently dealing with these issues, I have the ability to find a solution. I need to persist in the face of these issues in order to find the solution. The solution is ‘stamina’. Stamina is the ability to sustain prolonged physical and/or mental effort. This struggle of building stamina is ultimately what will help us succeed and achieve the goals we have set for ourselves. It can get you through challenges. Through it, we can figure out who we want to be. With stamina comes the increased ability to persevere. As is true of all things with anything worth having, developing stamina takes time, effort and most importantly, maintaining a balance. Once we understand the importance of balance, we can focus both on the time it takes to build stamina and the effort involved in building it. It may not be smooth sailing, but with effort, it is achievable. There are two components that are critical in terms of building stamina: one is maintaining physical health and the other is caring for emotional well being. Physical health is critical for our overall well-being. Our body was made for us to wake and to sleep. In order to restore and repair our bodies and to wake up the next morning renewed and repaired, we must sleep. This is a constant cycle. At times when we put our bodies under great stress, there is a point at which our bodies simply cannot function anymore. Our bodies get too tired -- a state that cannot simply be resolved with sleep. We should never underestimate recovery because in order to push ourselves, we must recover and restore. Our bodies tell us what they need. Bodies love to be hydrated and do not need counterfeit (sugar, caffeine) energy. Health Line has lots of information that tells exactly what our bodies needs to eat. Being able to eat in order to sustain glucose levels that are required for having energy for a full day, requires regular eating and foods with protein. But our bodies need more than just to be fed, they also need physical activity. NHS recommends ages 5-18 year olds get a minimum of 60 mins of physical activity per day. I cannot stress enough the importance of this. Some get their exercise through sports or dance, but for those we are not interested in breaking a sweat everyday, there are many alternatives. Even going for a 60 min walk makes a difference. In today's society, we multitask in order to complete our many jobs. We strive to achieve goals and the thought of failing may prevent us from giving up but overworking is unhealthy. When our emotional and mental state becomes overworked, we become overwhelmed. Humans need time to think and to rest. It is good to remember that being more efficient is better. Having many tasks at once is not bad as long as we know how to handle them. We must remember to give our bodies and our brains rest.
Physical balance, emotional and mental balance are crucial in building stamina. Whether we are aware or not, we are in a constant challenge with ourselves. Do not give up - eat, exercise, rest. While we are building good habits we are also building stamina. Do not overwork yourself -- give your brain time to think, listen to your body -- remember that we need recovery, and learn to maintain balance in your life. Not only will you build stamina, you will grow! Anna R
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Everyone experiences anxiety one way or another in their lifetime. Not everyone can tell when they are having an anxiety attack. People have different experiences with anxiety, and have different symptoms. Common Anxiety symptoms:
What is anxiety? Anxiety is your body’s go-to response when you are put in a stressful situation. It could be a test that you have, a class presentation, etc... Anxiety can seem to be taking hold of your body but it doesn’t control you. You are always in control of your body and you can prevent anxiety from being overwhelming. Ways to reduce anxiety:
Some inspirational anxiety quotes: "Fear is inevitable, I have to accept that, but I cannot allow it to paralyze me." -Isabel Allende “You need to let go of your fear and anxiety of being judged by others.” - Gavin Newsom “There are two wolves and they are always fighting, one is darkness and despair, the other light and i hope. Which one wins? The one you feed” - Cherokee Legend “Just when the caterpillar thought the world was ending he turned into a butterfly”-Proverb “Smile, breathe, and go slowly”- Thich Nhat Hanh “All our dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them”- Walt Disney Anxiety is a constant factor in my day to day life. When I get anxious I get really fidgety, my legs get restless, tired, and I would lose my appetite. I get really anxious when thinking about what I want to pursue next year after high school, because I have no idea what I will do. Class presentations also give me lots of anxiety since I am typically a shy person and do not like public speaking. I also have major test anxiety, when it comes to actually writing the test I freak out and forget everything. And of course menial tasks like answering questions outloud for fear that I am wrong and/or asking for help because others might think its a stupid question. Statistics and most asked questions about anxiety and my answers 2015 studies show that women are more stressed and anxious than men are. Women were at a 37% level of stress, and men were at a 31% level of stress. 2014 studies show that women are more stressed and anxious than men. Women were at a 32% stress level, and men were at a 25% stress level. FAQ’S:
2. What does anxiety feel like? Anxiety is when you get all shaky and nervous and your body can’t function properly. But it can be different depending on the person. Kassidy P If you have ever heard of Elon Musk, it’s possible you know him because he played a big part in starting the company, PayPal. He used all that money, even when everyone said he was going to fail to start a company, Space x. You may also know him for creating Tesla, an eco-friendly car company and naming that company after Nikola Tesla, instead of himself. These businesses failed so many times that after five years of failing he had almost no money left. “My proceeds from paypal were 180 million, i put 100 million into space x, 70 million into tesla and 10 million in solar city, i had to borrow money for rent” - Elon. Even though everyone was telling him for five years publicly on the news that he was wasting his money and anyone who buys his stalk is wasting money. He continued his dream. If you have ever heard of him you would probably know him for his crazy work ethic and determination. Now just how crazy? you might ask. Often he sleeps at his office and working much over 100 hours a week is typical. I started to wonder both what caused his work ethic and why he was so successful. Also how can his story help people like you and me. So first what caused his work ethic? When he was at school ( elementary and high school) he hated it. He was mostly seen as an average student. A former classmate said that he was a 'likable, quiet, unspectacular student’. Elon Musk said he would "rather play video games, write software and read books than try and get an A if there's no point in getting an A”. In college, he way outperformed everyone in his class, mostly because he knew the material better than anyone else often times before he even took the course. What I think this shows is that Elon loves learning and what most would call work, he loves doing. It was never about getting the grade, it was about learning and having fun while doing so. This explains his work ethic a little bit, he loves what he does. However, it does not completely explain why he works so much. Many people love what they do, but spending over one hundred hours a week on something just because you love it is rare. I think the reason for his productivity is number eight of Elon Musk Work Ethic: 10 Secrets for Insane Success, for this website. The reason is that he embraces stretch goals. Meaning that when something is important enough he does it even if the odds are not in his favour. He has shown this many times in the past. But what seems to be even more important than that, for him is having a dream with goals so unattainable that he has to work most hours of the day to achieve them or even come close at all. Now, why is he so successful? Now there are many factors to this but one of them is that he reads a lot, he is always learning. Of course his work ethic but also his goals, the ones that everyone doubted for five years before he made any progress and his persistence with those goals and that he risked millions of dollars to make those goals happen.
I think The most important factor of his success was his audacity to dream so big and to find steps to achieve those goals and go after them at the most intense rate possible is the reason for his successes today. Without his big dreams, risk, persistence, work ethic and accumulative knowledge. He would never have achieved what he has today. So what can you learn from Elon’s story? This is just one example of successes there are many more however what you can take away from Elon is: Dream, once you have that dream commit to it. Don’t be afraid to take risks or persist till you achieve that dream, repeat. Hayley C We are not just living, always making decisions every single moment. ”How many choices are made in a day by one person?”, about 35,000. Get up in the morning, choose which clothes to wear, what to eat for breakfast, if it says raining in the afternoon, you think if you should take umbrella with. It is already many choices until you leave the front door. These are all small unimportant ones matter in short period of time without much concerns. But we sometimes face serious decisions with far-reaching consequences. How do we act then? We often become indecisive when it comes to make big decisions. I always bring up various possibilities, and deliberate, or maybe pretend like I’m thinking, and leave it till the last minute I have to answer. Why is that hard to make decisions? Choosing one way from many in front of us, If it’s a big turning point, normally we worry about appraisal and urged to figure it from black and white immediately. Then try to deny what is on the other side from your choice for nothing. And also choosing something means you are giving something away or taking a risk at the same time, and we feel uncomfortable choosing one, so decide not to decide, or just procrastinate. Then, how can we become better at making decisions? People have all different process for making decisions but this Tom Griffiths TED talk brought new and useful perspective. Here is five tips for making better decisions you can take into your life when you are stuck making decisions. If you become better at making decisions, you are not only saving your time, it also connects with self-confident. Life is a pile of decisions. We want less fails in our lives, that is why we try to make best decision we can make at a time, sometimes it turns out to be wrong. If you did not go well with what you chose, you can delete that option from your list, or approach it from different angle. You are here right now due to all the decisions you have made before. Whichever you made good or bad decisions, they will be your one long life. Don’t be harsh on yourself to make right choices all the time, it will be just a tiny little door you are opening in your life.
For me, choosing one restaurant for my birthday dinner takes at least about half an hour. My host mother asked me, “What do you want to eat for dinner?” We were going out for dinner and there are my favourite restaurants out there, and I just could not decide. After about half an hour, I was still thinking, my host sister who is in grade three came into my room, and started like “Maiko, you are taking too long. Think about pros and cons, ok?” she started to list all the restaurants and foods I like, and she said “....then I think this restaurant might be good.” In two minutes, logically she explained and I was just sitting still, nodding my head like five-years-old kid. Everyone at some point in their life has given up or stopped believing they could do something. This was me four years ago after tearing some of the ligaments in my knee while playing soccer. I believed that I wouldn’t be able to play ever again, which really put me into a sober mood for a while. Luckily, I didn’t need surgery to repair the ligaments, and I was back playing soccer within a couple of weeks. I look back now and realize that going back to playing so soon was probably not the smartest idea because about a month later I re-injured it in practice. I began to fall into a very unhappy mood again, not just because I was injured again, but due to the fact that it was my choice to go back so soon, and because of that I might never be able to play again which really scared me. I had a super support system with my parents, my teammates, and my coaches which really helped me and gave me the motivation to work hard so I might be able to play again. After taking a season off to rehab my knee it made me think that if I had stopped believing in myself and the people around me, I might never have had the courage or strength to go back to playing the sport that I love. No matter what you are going through just remember that there will always be someone there to help you through it and just keep believing in yourself. You can do anything if you believe in yourself and the others around you.
Christina C For me and my experience with motivating myself was when I started working out and going to the gym. All it took for me and as cliche as it sounds, I looked in the mirror and thought I don’t like the way I look, and after that I started going to the gym. Now I know it isn’t as simple as saying your going to the gym, you have to actually go and dedicate time out of your day to go. In the beginning it was tough. I thought that results were going to appear right away, but they didn’t. It took about 8-10 weeks and I started to see solid results. I was happy, but not truly satisfied with myself. So I started to work harder, stay at the gym longer, lift weights, and cut unhealthy foods out of my diet. After about 4-5 months I had lost 35 pounds, and started putting on muscle. I started feeling more confident and happy with how I looked. Now the real challenge is keeping the weight off and not going back to your old habits. It helped that I had my family to help support and motivate me to keep the weight off and improve my work habits at the gym. Some of the habits I have and follow are:
Now I know that the gym isn’t for everyone and there are other ways to participate in fitness activities that keep you active and healthy. Here is an article that talks about ways to stay active and motivated. To conclude my blog post I’d like to say that you don’t have to be the strongest person in the gym, your not there to impress people, you are there to make yourself healthy and fit. Most people procrastinate going to the gym or working out, all that you have to do is just dedicate time, it doesn’t matter how much time, to doing some sort of fitness activity. As long as you are happy with your progress that is all that matters.
Jake V Whether you're trying to get a college degree, get out of debt, build a company, or have a healthier diet, many of life's most precious goals require a great amount of perseverance. Have you ever tried achieving a long term goal of yours? If so you might only think certain people has what it takes to be that persistent. Perseverance is something that is a must for leaders these days, if you want to be a good leader perseverance is key to helping you achieve your leadership goals. Its something not something your born yet it's something you earn. Its what keeps you going even when others think it's time to give up but you just keep going because you've learned the art of persistence. per·se·ver·ance /ˌpərsəˈvirəns/ noun
Sometimes people can misperceive persistence for obsession, dont get me wrong there very different things. An obsession is when all you think about and want to do is that one thing, persistence is when you continue thinking of ways to for example solve a situation or create a new business plan. There are a few ways you can increase and achieve perseverance.
How important is persistence? Persistence is important for many things but not for everything. It's what keeps you on track and what helps achieve goals. It's very important for high school, college, university, or even your current career. It is to insist and to be firm on getting something done and not giving up. There are so many ways on being persistent. Check out this page for a bunch of cool tips for perseverance. Perseverance is not about how many times you fall down, but how many times you stand up and keep on going, no matter the difficulty you happen to face. It is not something you can learn, but a habit you can develop and strengthen and grow, like any other. You gain perseverance throughout your life as you go against a variety of challenges and difficulties in different ways, at different times in your life. To be perfectly straight forward, if life was easy, we would all be bored out of our minds. We as humans can thrive under pressure if we know how to handle it correctly.
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