5 lessons of June
As we've entered a new month, and my blog is nearly a month old, I've written a round-up of 5 things I feel I've learnt from my experiences throughout June. It may be that I repeat a couple of these next month (admittedly I don't always learn from my mistakes immediately....)
1. Don't worry - I'm terrible at this, I really am. I'm a very confident person face to face, but I do worry and stress about things that haven't happened yet, which I get annoyed at myself for! I definitely felt stressed in June, particularly school-wise. We've just finished our exams, haven't received the results yet, and are already back at Sixth Form learning next year's content, choosing a topic for the EPQ, deciding what to do after Year 13 etc. However, I do believe that at the end of the day, I will end up where I want to be. I try to tell myself this whenever I feel stressed, because deep down I know that if you're determined enough to do something, you'll do it. Sometimes it just takes a little longer than others to get there.
2. Read for leisure - I take English Literature for A-level, so I spent a lot of time last year analysing different novels. I love English literature, and thankfully I enjoyed the novels on the course this year, but I didn't realise that I'd actually sacrificed leisure reading for this until after exams. I felt so relieved to just sit down, relax and read a book that I'd chosen to read, rather than a teacher telling me to read a book and then picking it to pieces. In fact, I got a little bit obsessive with regards to reading on holiday (I read 4 books in the space of 5 days). It was just so nice to read something a little lighter than Frankenstein or Oranges are Not the Only Fruit !
3. Flip more coins - lots of people have lots of different opinions and give lots of different pieces of advice. That's great, because it shows that people care about you and want to help you. However, something I've learnt in the past month is that we really do only hear what we want to hear. I can be quite indecisive sometimes, because I worry about getting things wrong, so I like asking others for advice about what I should do, choose etc. However, having to make quite a few important decisions last month made me very aware that I am usually just looking for that reassurance from someone that I'm doing the right thing. I want to stop doing this, as other people shouldn't make decisions for me. Therefore, one thing I have found particularly useful is to flip a coin......
4. Make time for old friends - over the past couple of weeks I've 'reunited' with a few childhood friends at family events who I feel like I haven't seen in ages. I personally tend to class my friendship group at school as my sole friendship group which I think is fair enough - after all, we do spend all day everyday together. However, for me, this means that I tend to shamefully neglect the people I grew up with, which is ridiculous really, as from my experience, the people you grow up with tend to know you almost as well as you do! It made me think about other childhood friends, who I've just lost contact with moving to new schools etc. but who I really would love to see again for a catch-up. I don't think I'm alone on this, dare I say it I think most of the human race are guilty of losing contact with at least one old friend. So, even though it might be utterly terrifying picking up the phone to arrange a coffee with a childhood friend, do it! Even if it's just to laugh at the 'good old days'....
5. The importance of family - I have a pretty close family, so family has always been important to me, but none more so than recently. Most of us don't tell our family members that we love them enough, and we really should.... as cringe-worthy as it may sound, family truly is the most important thing in the world. So no matter where you are, who you are or what you're doing, make sure to make time for family time!
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