good emotional skills to know 4 college but also in general
this is stuff that iāve found helpful and am in the process of working on. they may not be achievable for you without help and may not work for your specific circumstance, but this is a list of suggestions that you might be able to think about. i am also not a mental health professional so please do feel free to contradict me!!
self soothing.Ā having a toolbox to take care of yourself by yourself.Ā bc sometimes nobody else is available and you just gotta put some lotion on, listen to a tune, and go to bed early.Ā
checking in. checking in with yourself to see if youāre okay. knowing how to alter your strategies when your strategies arenāt working. knowing when your strategies arenāt working. this is just taking some time every day to reflect on what goals you didnāt meet and why and what you can do to fix that.
thereās nothing you āshouldā be doing. if you get caught up thinking āi should be doing xā thatās false! stop that! āshouldā be doing better implies that you have some obligation to do whatever it is that you āshouldā be doing. you donāt owe anybody except yourself. analyze why you think you should be doing that thing and change that intoā¦. āi want to be doing x becauseā¦ā or ādoing x will make me happier, becauseā¦ā. overall, more productive and less self-shamey.Ā
disconnecting from the crowd. eating in a crowded dining hall can be stressful! knowing how to be alone in a crowd and stay calm is helpful
being okay with being alone. Ā tbh college is kind ofā¦ being alone a lot, in my experience. even though youāre surrounded by people, a lot of time is spent alone. making friends is hard. your friends have different schedules. youāre busy. shit sucks. we make the best of it.
knowing yourself.Ā this relates to a lot of what iāve already said but like. knowing your emotional state and knowing what helps trick the monkey brain is helpful. stop repressing your feelings, friends.
talking to strangers. ordering from a menu! paying library fines. going to office hours. asking for a cashier at the register if there isnāt one. ya this is hard. ya you gotta expose yourself. sometimes i just try playing a persona. like this isnāt me ordering a sandwich. this is a cool me who knows how to talk to people who is ordering a sandwich.
you donāt have to be friends with your roommates. you just have to live together in a way that doesnāt make you two hate each other. ideally, you two will coexist in a way that doesnāt interfere with the otherās daily life.
give and taking. on the topic of roommates, sometimes your roommate can be a shitty person, but sometimes you are the shitty person! give a little but if theyāre negatively impacting your life, communicate.
communicating during disagreements. explain what your emotions are instead of blaming them.Ā āi feel hurt when youā¦ā orĀ āi feel frustrated whenā orĀ āi feel unappreciated when.ā if things get heated, ask if you both can take a ten minute break and then come back. and donāt bring up disagreements when the other party is preoccupied or going somewhere. you can legitimately schedule a discussion.
itās okay to apologize. learning to swallow your pride gets easier each time.
knowing that people work differently than you. some people are not gonna click with you and itās gonna seem like they have this whole brain process up there that is totally unlike yours. and yeah! thatās how it is. and thatās chill if they arenāt hurting anyone else. work with them and be flexible!!Ā
comforting people. you will probably/definitely see someone cry! hell if i know how to comfort people. someone please help. but some things iāve learned are: 1) different people need different things. different people need different things! 2) people need different things at different times. 3) you can ask them what they want and it wonāt be weird. 4) apparently a lot of people like hugs? but ask. and itās okay to not want a hug. 5) just show that you care in some way if you donāt know what they need. i used to think that if somebody needed to tell me what they needed it was a sign that i just didnāt know them well enough and we werenāt compatible or i wasnāt being a good friend. thatās fake! friendship isnāt based off of fitting naturally in every way and making an effort to be good for them is important.
knowing itās okay to not be liked by everyone. itās okay if strangers think youāre dumb because you said something dumb in public. you know youāre not dumb. itās okay if not everybody you meet likes you. itās okay if you do something cringey. everybody has their own shit to deal with and you will not shatter their world.Ā grow and move on!
forgiving yourself. iām trying this new thing where when i feel embarrassed about something i say. out loud.Ā āi forgive myself.ā and then i just try to grow from that and move on without getting caught in a spiral of shame.
knowing what you need vs what you want and what is better at the time.Ā what you need: a shower. what you want: to not do that. solution: take a shower! or maybe what you actually need is to go to sleep? but guess what. you probably know what is good for you. the hard part is actually doing it.
realize that building habits is less work than discipline. emotional effort is expended every time you have to make yourself do something. just make it part of your routine and youāll just think itās normal to do all the good things! like, for example, iām trying to make it a habit to eat structured meals instead of aĀ āeat when iām hungryā thing because i know that makes me skip meals, which is bad!
you wonāt be able to do everything.Ā forgive yourself for that. write downĀ things that are top priority and focus on them. everything else is not important right now and you shouldnāt beat yourself up for not being able to do them.
your health is important. iām not saying health will solve all your problems. it wonāt! but health will cause a lot of your problems to go away. because letās face it. not sleeping causes a lot of problems.Ā
itās okay to ask for help. we say this a lot but itās hard to internalize it. hereās a thought: thereās so much shame and hesitation about asking for help so by doing that youāre actually being proactive (which is respectable) and mature, and thereforeā¦ not weak or stupid. ask for help even before you need it! most people love to help others. and especially take advantage of people who are OFFERING help. for example: counselors at school or TAs. itās literally their job. they want to do it. and if you donāt want to talk to anybody in real life, my inbox is always open.
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