Have you ever worked as hard as you can to get something, be something, only to fail after being almost certain that you would succeed?

Have you ever felt the soul-crushing wave of defeat that usually takes over people at times like that, that feeling of defeat that grows and develops into the feeling of resignation, the feeling that eventually leads to your giving up on the one thing that you were sure that you were able to be successful in?

Have you ever had that soul-sinking feeling of realising that the dreams that you have had for years, the fantasies of the life that you felt would be yours might not, might never actually come to pass?

I am sure that we all have had times like this, times in which we have had to deal with the reality of the fact that hard work is not necessarily what guarantees success and that there is a possibility that you could work harder than everyone else in the room for something and still be the one to come out as the least successful.

Sure, for most people, this happens only in some endeavours and not in all of them. For me, it occurred during the time that I ventured into competitive essay writing and the occasional creative writing contests, back then between 2019 and 2020. I worked as hard as I could on the essays that I wanted to win and read as many books as I could find on academic legal writing and the likes, but somehow, I never did win, at least in the national level competitions.

It was easy for me to win in the occasional local university competitions though, those that usually had less strict criteria for success and fewer participants involved in them. But for those with difficult topics that required extensive research, huge prizes to be won, and participants that come from either around the country or around the world, I never emerged as anything. I never was able to get any of the prizes that I wanted to get, that I struggled to attain.

As for my creative writing, I was unfortunate enough to have begun a story that I had gotten into a rot in, and even though I spent that period taking course after course on creative writing and reading books on creative writing, I was not able to find a way around the story that I had come up with. In an even sadder turn of events, I had entered into several contests, one of them being a particularly grueling one that I was sure that I was going to win but ended up losing at the final stage.

And so, after the countless failures that marked the lockdown period for me, I simply lost hope in myself, in my writing abilities, both for fiction and non-fiction. By the time the school session began after the extended strike and I delved back into my academic studies, writing for me had been locked up and thrown into a trunk. I was not sure that I was ever going to be able to bring myself to write anymore; at least not in the way that I thought that I was going to end up writing.

But that did not matter, or at least that was what I told myself. I was a good law student, a great one even. I aced almost all of my papers and I, after the initial struggle, had managed to even include myself in all sorts of extra-curricular activities that I was doing great in. Of course, there were times, at least ten percent of the time, in which I would see an essay or two that was so alluring that I decided to give a shot at it, only to pass only ten percent of the time as well.

But as for my creative writing, the one that was really devastated by, the one that I had cried over, I had considered it over for me. I felt that I was never going to become the writer that I wanted to be. And it did not help that I did not get myself to sit down and think of new ideas to write about, and due to some perfectionist trait that I had, I could not get myself to be decided on a few that I came up with, thinking them not good enough to come out as a second book after such a long time of having a dry spell.

And again, it did not help that in all the visits that I went to with my parents, about seventy percent of the time, there was bound to be an interaction in which someone would ask who was the writer in the family, and then all eyes would be on me, and then I would be asked when another book would be coming up, and then I would feel like swallowing myself as I told them soon, hopefully soon.

Yep, losing hope in oneself, in one’s abilities, it sucks. It really does.

And what sucks more is the trunk load that it comes with.

I am sure that you all know what I am talking about. But here, let me list out a few of them: loss of self-esteem, shame, disappointment, embarrassment, even guilt, loss of self-respect, branding oneself as a failure and so many others.

You see, there is a difference between feeling down about a loss and completely losing hope in oneself. A lot of the time, when people, particularly those with a growth mindset, fail in an endeavour, they feel down, but after some time, if another endeavour that looks similar shows up, there is a high chance that they would hop in to try once again. But repeated failures can do things to the heart of even those with a fixed mindset.

And you know the thing that is so complicated about this? It is the fact that there are times that it could be logical to decide to pack things up, to pursue a new endeavour, to decide that there is no way that you could be good at this thing that you so desperately want to get and decide that by sticking up to this dream, this construction that you have built of yourself, you are limiting yourself, holding yourself back from the one thousand other things that you could be doing.

For instance, you would not tell someone that does not have the build of a basket baller, someone that is five feet tall and not naturally athletic that desperately wants to go against the six to seven-foot tall giants that are in the same court that he is at and that has failed consistently, for an extended time, to just keep trying and to never give up. No. if you love the person, you would sit the person down and let the person understand that there is no way that he could be successful in that endeavour and that it is time to let go of that dream and move on.

But then, should that always be the answer to consistent failure? And if not, what draws the line? If two people fail a thousand times at something, what would make someone try to make one person realise that perhaps it is time to give up while pushing the other person to try again, just one more time?

What marks the difference between when it is wrong to pack the trunk, lose hope and let go of some dreams and when it is the right thing to do?

…………………………….

I wish that I could say that I had a revelation as to the fact that perhaps, letting go of my dreams was not really the right step to take. How much I would have loved to come here and share the miraculous story of the experience that I had in which I realised that perhaps I was wrong in deciding that all was lost for me, that perhaps I was too hasty in my decision to let go of a talent that I knew that I had.

But there isn’t.

Turning back to my writing did not take overnight. It took time. The occasional fiddling that I did on my journals and my laptop, the different books that I read that did nothing but make me crave writing, even more, and the occasional times that I had a reminder that my stories were enjoyed by people. Watching my younger brother read the first book that I wrote a hundred times, not because of me, but because he liked the book that I wrote. Occasionally having someone come to me and tell me that he or she had read something that I had written and thought that it was really good.

I guess the biggest moment was when I found out about web novel writing, the avenue that I felt that I could pour all those ideas that I felt were not good enough to be in print, and then actually getting a readership on some of the books that I wrote. Eventually, it just happened. Over the strike, I realized that I was working more on my typing speed so that I could write more, and that the dream that I had always had of starting my blog had been resurrected in me. And then I realised that whatever thing that I felt, whatever it was that made me give up hope on my writing and think that there was no way that I was actually going to be able to become the writer that I always wanted to be, was gone.

……………………….

And again, the question of what made the difference comes into view. That was not the first time that I had given up on something before. I gave up on science after I encountered chemistry in SS1, I gave up on dancing by the time I entered secondary school for some reason. I gave up on wanting to enter school politics. I gave up on chess because I no longer had the time for it, on origami, and so many other things.

Like any other human being, my life has been filled with times in which I have abandoned pursuits and found other things to pursue. Of course, this occurred more as a child, but as I grow, it still happens sometimes. In a way, being able to let go of certain pursuits and take hold of others is all a part of growth.

So why, when I let go of writing for that brief period of time, did I not mark it as one of the other things that I had done many times?

I guess it was because letting go of it did not just come easy, but came from a deep feeling of failure. But that was not all. I guess it all boiled down to purpose, and to listening to my heart.

Because in the end, there is no equation that tells you when you should let go of certain pursuits and embrace another. Sure, you could say that when one’s genetics is patterned away from what the person wants to pursue, it is not really right for the person, but it is not so clear-cut out.

When should you let go of something? Give up hope of getting something? When, deep down, you know that there is some other agenda driving your obsessive need to get that particular thing, some other agenda outside of that which you have been carved out to do. When you know that obsessively pursuing that thing is preventing you from growing as a person.

Sometimes it is brave to let go of things. Sometimes, it is toxic to keep telling yourself to cling to things, onto unattainable goals, because the world keeps pushing the ‘Don’t give up’ mantra down your throat.

And when you should not? When letting go of it feels as though you have let go of a part of yourself that you are not willing to let go of, not because of whatever benefits that you think it might get you, but because, deep down, you know that this is what you are supposed to do, this is what you have been carved out to do.

When letting go of a particular pursuit makes you feel as though you have created a vacuum in your life, one that you know cannot be filled by any other thing but the thing that you have let go of.

When you know, deep down, despite the failures, despite the letdowns, the heartbreaks, the slow tear to your self-esteem, that this is what you are meant to do, that all you have to do is get better and then let the star within you shine.

Simply put, when you know that the one thing that you have been failing at is your purpose and that the fact that you failed in it does not make it any less than that.

But what if you are not sure of whether you are taking the right step by letting go of something?

Take a break. It clarified me and made me realise that I was abandoning something that I was created to do, created to reach the world with, just because I had experienced a few failures. Of course, one of two things can happen to you, but if you take that break with the idea that it is meant to give you some mental clarity, then you will get that mental clarity that you desire.

And of course, there is no better way of getting mental clarity than actually being spiritually sensitive enough to communicate with the Holy Spirit and let Him reveal to you whether your failures are a result of the fact that you are treading down the wrong path or whether they are just hurdles that you have to pass through so that you can train yourself enough to be able to be truly revealed to the world.

So are you losing hope in yourself, in your ability to do something that you have been pursuing?

Don’t give up, only if you are sure that the one thing that you are pursuing is your purpose in life and not some triviality.

And if that one thing that you are about to give up on is your purpose in life?

Don’t do injustice to yourself, to the world, because of the crushing defeat that you are feeling along the way. The fact remains that in life, there is no true easy route for anybody. Even in that one thing that you are certain is your purpose, you are still bound to meet and face obstacles that will threaten to tear down your resolve and every other thing.

But do not let your failures be the things that will cripple you, dim your light, or let you go to the grave having failed to achieve the things that you have been created to achieve. Because that is the real failure, not losing in contests or failing at applications or not growing the network that you want to grow, but not letting the failures define what steps you take, letting the failures prevent you from achieving your purpose.

It is easy, especially as a person who reads a lot of self-growth and productivity books, to believe that it is possible to achieve change all at once, or at least, within a brief period of time. After all, most of the stories in self-help books go this way: I was broke and unhappy, working in a job that made me miserable, etc. And one day, I decided that I had had enough of what life was dishing out to me, that I wanted more out of life, so I transformed my life for the better, changed my habits and I have never been happier than I am at the moment. 

After reading scores and scores of these kinds of testimonies, most of the writers of such works not being very detailed as to the step-by-step process it took for them to get to where they were in, I started to think that the recipe to change was to barge into it all at once; that to be productive and make something out of my life, I was going to have to make a lot of radical changes all at once and I sincerely thought that I was going to pull through with it.

During the pandemic period, I thought that it was going to be possible for me, as it is for most people that make New Year’s resolutions, to switch from someone that spent all of her time watching movies, scrolling through memes on social media, and generally loved wasting time and engaging in convenient and pleasurable activities, that felt good to her, to someone that exercised every single day, quit movies and social media cold turkey, and spent most of her time reading school books, self-help books, or taking courses.

And it did work, for like, the first few days in which the motivation and the adrenaline were still intact. But after some time, I crashed, plummeted, and fell back to the person that I was but with the added benefit of the guilt that I felt for not being able to maintain and build up the life that I wanted to build for myself, not being able to become the ideal person that I wanted to be.

Here is the thing: not only was I not ready to make the change that I wanted to make, but I did not even take the time to build up the system that I needed to make the change possible. I wanted to give up on social media and the likes, but I never made provisions as to what I was to do instead during the periods in which I felt such acute boredom, that I needed the distraction that I got from social media. When I worked out, I put too much pressure on myself, and hence I began to dread exercising because all that I could think of was the pain that I was going to subject myself to, pain that left my muscles sore for days at certain times. And I dreaded the boredom and pain of the life that I knew I would need to live to become the ideal person that I wanted to be.

And it has taken me an embarrassingly long time to learn, but now I know that if you think you can just turn your life around, transform all your bad habits all at once, and make yourself the ideal person that you want to become just after one day of planning, then you are setting yourself up for failure. And even though I do not have the statistical figures to say that there is a 100% chance of failure, I can say that most people that approach habit change this way are doomed to fail.

Now, do not get me wrong, one thing that I have found is that once you are intentional about change, even if you fail at changing some habits or developing new habits, you never really go back to being the person you used to be. So even though I could not maintain a lot of the habits that I tried to crash into, even when I went back, I never did truly go back to the person that I was before I decided that my life needed a change. Something had changed within me with all the books that I had read, the videos that I had listened to, and even the experiments that I had tried in a bid to change my habits, a change that was so fundamental that it reflected in the time that I got back to school after the pandemic and strike.

So yes, I had changed, and that change sustained me and enabled me to maintain the grades that I got in the university whilst participating in a lot of extra-curricular activities and so on, but that did not wipe away the guilt that I felt in not being able to sustain that habits that I wanted to sustain. There was still some part of me that I knew could use some change, but because I had not yet learned the lesson that with habit change, I needed to take it one step at a time, I never was able to achieve the change that I needed to achieve.

You see, change is like growth. In fact, when it comes to behavioural and habit change, both words can be used simultaneously when they are looked at in a positive light. So when you change your habits for the better, you are growing as a person. And human growth takes time, whether physical, mental, or spiritual. You cannot speed it up, cannot take gallops in growth. You just have to take it one step at a time.

And what do I mean by this? Many self-growth coaches preach something known as 1% growth in all areas of change. That means that even when you want to make a radical transformation, you have to have a 1% growth regularly until you get to where you wish to get, until you become the ideal person that you want to become. Even if you want a total transformation in your life, you have to know that this sort of thing will not be achieved within a short period, that it will take time.

Look at habit transformation as a skill that you have to learn. Now, I have been working on my typing skill, even though I do not practice every day. And one thing that I have noticed, one thing that every typing app and website that I have used teaches, is that at the first point, it is very difficult to master touch typing. Sometimes, you have to reduce your wpm to 10 until you can achieve close to 95 percent accuracy. Learning how to touch type during the first few months can be very frustrating and it is still frustrating for me at certain levels, but you cannot speed up the process or you will end up getting finger fatigue and achieve nothing.

In those first few months of learning any skill, you have to learn how to forgive yourself for the mistakes that you make along the process, in fact, be prepared for making a lot of mistakes. The important thing is that you should not give up on yourself and think that you will not be able to master that skill just because it has been very difficult for you in the first few months of trying to master the skill. But then, the great thing about learning a particular kind of skill is that the moment that you are able to wade through the first few tough months, it becomes very easy for you to speed up your growth process. So, for most typists, after they are able to reach up to 70 wpm or thereabout, reaching to 100 or 120 becomes very easy for them.

Habit change should be viewed through the same lens as learning a skill. As I can tell you for sure because I am still, for a lot of habits that I am working on, still in the beginning stages of hunting for the best steps to go about and maintain the routines that I want to maintain, it is difficult to get to change the bad habits that you have, habits which you must have stuck with for years and which have become a part of your being. Thinking that you can just stop a particular habit especially when there are cues all around that push you to perform that particular habit without ever missing the comfort that the old habits provided, is nothing but a fantasy. But deciding to improve on that habit in small bits at regular intervals, is a more plausible way to go about things.

What do I mean by this? Maybe you spend too much time watching movies and you want to end this because you are very much aware of the amount of time you are wasting on movies. Instead of just stopping movies entirely and deleting all the movies that you have on your phone, you could limit yourself to just one movie a day, then one movie every three days, and then one movie a week. Maybe you want to grow spiritually but are finding it difficult to. Instead of thinking that you can become a prayer warrior all of a sudden, you could start small and dedicate an amount of time, even if it is twenty minutes every day, to God and spiritual activities, and from there, you can incorporate spiritual books, .

And whenever you begin to work on yourself, you should be aware of the fact that you might stumble and crash to the ground. You may wake up after resolving to reduce your screen time and see yourself spending hours on end binge-watching a movie series. You could decide to be intentional about your walk with God and see yourself spending a week without remembering to perform your spiritual activities. Two instances could happen whenever you meet this kind of roadblock. The first is that you could decide that you can never change, as many people do when they encounter any sort of frustration or find themselves going against all that they have planned to do, going back to the habits that they decided that they were going to change. Or you could forgive yourself, know that this is just a part of the process, and kick yourself back into gear. The difference between the two choices you have to make is that one would lead to you remaining at the spot that you are and deciding to never change because you are afraid of failing or falling short of any expectations for yourself. The other would lead to a situation in which the little stumble that you had in the past would not even matter in the long run. Yet, we have a lot of people choosing to give up on themselves and their dreams of change simply because it was not the smooth, clear ride they expected it to be.

All in all, change is a slow, difficult process. As you work towards bettering yourself, be prepared to meet stumbling blocks in the way. But you should always ensure that you take change one step at a time so that you can always be prepared to meet whatever obstacles you might face along the way. Assuredly, no matter what pace that you are working with, as long as you continue moving and never relent, someday, you will become that ideal person that you want to be.

During the month of May, I spent a lot of time reading different genres of fiction to widen my perspective as a fiction writer. However, I was able to get out some time to study self-help, productivity, and spiritual books to ensure that I never lost track of what I was focused on attaining, and that is, becoming the ideal person that I would like to become. The books that I read in May were as enlightening as they were inspirational, and as a result, I would highly recommend that you look at the books to tap from the wealth of knowledge that I could sift out of them.

1.      SECRETS OF THE MILLIONAIRE MIND BY T HARV EKER

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This was the first book on finances and wealth creation that I read in a while. The book is written by a man who had made his fortune by opening a line of fitness stores and it has quite a few tips on wealth making and the difference in mindset between those that make and properly manage their wealth and those that do not.

The first thing that the author mentions is something that he refers to as a ‘money blueprint’. Part one of the book is fully dedicated to the analysis of this concept, which, in essence, can be explained as the thought and behaviours that we have around money which are formed by our childhood experiences, particularly in line with what our parents’ attitude towards money was. Some people, depending on their childhood experiences, usually ended up patterning their attitudes towards money similar to that of their parents, while some revolted against it. He spends his time explaining it and then stating, with examples, that no matter what money blueprint anyone may have, it can be changed.

Part two of the book deals with ‘wealth files’, in which he lists seventeen ways that rich people think and act differently from poor and middle-class people. Some of the seventeen points which resonated with me are:

· Rich people choose to get paid based on results. Poor people choose to get paid based on time.

· Rich people manage their money well. Poor people mismanage their money well.

· Rich people constantly learn and grow. Poor people think they already know.

· Rich people act in spite of fear. Poor people let fear stop them.

· Rich people focus on opportunities. Poor people focus on obstacles.

Some of the other tips that I got from the book are:

· Without passive income, you can never be free.

· The only time you are actually growing is when you are uncomfortable.

· Training and managing your mind is the most important skill you could ever own, in terms of both happiness and success.

· The secret to success is not to try to avoid or get rid of or shrink from your problems; the secret is to grow yourself so that you are bigger than any problem.

· If you want to get paid the best, you have to be the best.

Whilst the book had a vast array of knowledge to share, I have to say that I found some issues with it. For instance, I found that several parts of his text had a lot of new-age religion teachings that had to do with ‘The Secret’ sort of manifestation, aligning your vibrations with the universe, and other pseudo-science. In fact, each of the chapters ended with affirmations and after some time, I got tired of seeing the instruction to repeat “I have a millionaire mind!” repeatedly. There were also weird instructions such as the one to pick stray money off the road and shout, “Thank you, universe, for sending me money” and stuff like that and I found it to be a wee bit hilarious.

Also, I felt that there was just too much self-promotion in the book. Sure, a bit of self-promotion is not bad, but in each chapter, it appeared he found his way to keep hounding the fact that I could only get more if I registered for his courses and that what was written in the book was just the tip of the iceberg.

All in all, I would recommend it for those that are fresh in their study of books on finances and such. It does not have as much depth as some other books out there do, but it has bits of advice that could change the mindsets of some people out there.

2.      THE WORK/LIFE BALANCE MYTH BY DAVID J MCNEFF

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This book debunks the saying that life is divided into only work and life and lists seven aspects of our lives or slices that we all need to focus on to achieve harmony and balance in our lives.

The seven slices which the author lists are: family, professional, personal, physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual slices and the author lists practical ways how to balance these slices plus real-life examples and stories of how other people were able to achieve the same in their lives.

The author promises that if one could learn how to make use of what he refers to as ‘the seven slice method’, while it would not make the stressful elements of one’s life vanish, it will improve the ability of a person to manage such stressful situations.

Furthermore, the author guarantees that by giving adequate focus to all the aforementioned seven aspects of one’s life, one would be able to achieve happiness and success in one’s life.

Some tips that I got from the book were:

· When you have a sense of harmony, your daily life feels more manageable, and you enjoy it more.

· Many take their bodies for granted, yet the state of our body’s health has a direct impact on every other aspect of our lives. After all, the body is the vehicle that carries you in each slice of your life.

· We should check in with our emotions every once in a while for our own benefit, given how easy it is to overlook them, put them aside, and then wait for the day they either implode or explode.

· Slowing down to self-access in a real and tangible way allows you to pay attention to yourself.

· Agreeing to too many requests comes with a price - by devoting so much time to others, you may lose a sense of balance in your life. You must be able to say when enough is enough, and that starts with effectively managing time and setting boundaries.

It was a good book and I recommend it to all that are looking towards being productive even as they do all that they need in order to ensure that they do not put every other thing on the line just so as to achiev career success. By the time I was done with the book, I realised I needed to invest more in my spiritual and physical life, checking what I was eating and making sure that I carved out enough time to invest in my faith. And I was able to also use the book as a guide to teaching some others about the benefits of ensuring that all the aspects of their lives were properly balanced as well.

3.      WHEN GOD DOESN’T MAKE SENSE BY DR JAMES DOBSON

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This was the book that was studied in the book club I manage this month. It is by a Christian writer who examines what goes on when it feels as though God has forsaken us as Christians and how we can hold on to our faith during periods of pain and distress as Christians. It was a really insightful book that helped me discern a lot of spiritual things.

According to the author, almost every Christian, at some stage in life, reaches the betrayal barrier, in which it seems that the Lord has forsaken us when we are in moments of crisis and pain. He states it is not wrong to try to discern the reason why the Lord lets us pass through such hard times, but that we should have it in mind that the ways of the Lord are unsearchable and past finding out, and hence, we should lean not on our own understanding in trying to discern the ways of the Lord.

The author also states that trial and suffering are part of the human condition and that they can be essential for the development of character. Also, he believes that the main reason why a lot of Christians are unable to handle pain is that they have been inculcated into the doctrine that having steadfast faith in God guarantees a happy, carefree life. He believes that this is firmly wrong and that looking at examples from the biblical martyrs and apostles, it appears our faith almost guarantees us some form of abuse from the world.

Furthermore, he states the adversity principle, which is that without adversity, no soul properly matures, giving examples of people like Stephen Hawking, who were able to grow strong and achieve all that they could achieve despite their disabilities, some of them even claiming that the disabilities and the challenges they have faced, as a result, have made them strong enough to achieve the things that they were able to achieve.

Another thing that he notes, is that if just being a Christian was all one needed to live a perfect life, then the entire basis of God’s relationship with man would be undermined as people would seek friendship with Him to gain the benefits, rather than responding with a heart of repentance and love and that the most greedy of humans would be the first to draw to the Lord.

Again, he notes that we should not neglect the fact that sin can play a key factor in causing us the pain that we suffer. According to the author, it is not that God sits in heaven and determines to abuse those that makes mistake, but that He forbade certain behaviour because He knew that it would ultimately destroy its victims. He states examples of sexual sins and the chronic diseases that have killed millions around the world as a result.

Finally, the author states that we should not forget the transitory nature of life. If we remember that after this temporary life comes permanent rest in heaven, then life’s frustrations would not be so frustrating. He also states though the pain could be terrible here on earth, we must never forget that soon we will be reunited with the Lord in heaven when our tears will be removed forever.

Some points I noted in the book are:

· God is present and involved in our lives even when He seems deaf or in an extended leave of silence.

· God’s timing is perfect, even when He appears catastrophically late.

· For reasons that are impossible to explain, we human beings are incredibly precious to God.

· If we were given all that we wanted here on earth, our hearts would settle for this world rather than the next.

· The lord doesn’t always solve our problems instantaneously, and He sometimes permits us to walk through the valley of the shadow of death. Eventually, we’ll all take that journey. But He is there with us even in the darkest hours, and we can never escape His encompassing love.

I would definitely recommend this book, not only for those suffering through hardship but to all people here on earth. There is a wealth of knowledge to be tapped from the book and it would go a long way in increasing your knowledge of the ways and the principles of the Lord, and why certain things here on earth are the way that they are. But the author says and is clear in stating that He is not out to get a cohesive answer to the problems of the world with his book, for no one can know the ways of the Lord.

4.      PROBLOGGER BY DARREN ROWSE AND CHRIS GARRETT

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This is a book written by two bloggers on how one can be able to prosper and commercialise the art of blogging. It focuses on blogging as a career path and not just as a hobby and gives various tips on how to get an audience, how to generate multiple streams of income through blogging, how to manage a community, and how to cooperate with other bloggers and so on. It is a splendid book for all that are hoping to get into blogging and I would recommend doing so as well as going on the blog ‘Problogger’ to get even more tips on blogging.

So what about you? What personal growth books did you study last month?

Being a productive, well-rounded person is hard. I don’t think there are enough people out there that are actually talking about this well enough.

It is difficult to get up in the morning, plan your day, and then try all that you can to manage your time to ensure that you optimally use your day, sometimes regardless of how you feel.

Sure, there are some days that you wake up and get a burst of energy that lasts for half the day in which you just want to perform, get all your tasks done on time, and genuinely will enjoy the feeling of grinding for a major chunk of the day.

For me, that happens about once a week, and often, I get that sort of energy after spending the previous day not performing to the best of my abilities and then wake up and, instead of acknowledging the guilt that is really the reason underlying my sudden burst of energy, I decide to overachieve the next day. Of course, one thing that I have learnt is that when I set out to over achieve, I do not end up being able to accomplish all that I have set out to do. As I explained in my other post on planning my days , I am almost a pro at setting out to do just too much in a day than is humanly possible.

However, most of the time, I wake up, and I hover around median energy, the sort of energy that I need to accomplish just enough sometimes, without particularly over romanticizing what I am about to do. So I wake up and I know I am going to work, I may or may not enjoy it, but I am going to enjoy the feeling of accomplishment that I get when I perform the tasks that I have set out for myself.

And then there are days I wake up and feel an intense headache just looking at my laptop, and feel as though I would rather do any other thing than actually sit down to work.

A few productivity books acknowledge days like this, the ‘hard days’, the days in which you do not have any atom of motivation left in you, in which your reserve of willpower is completely dried up, in which you want to do nothing but lie in bed and press your phone and watch movies and eat junk food, do any other thing than get up to do some work.

Sometimes, I have found that this also happens after a day of over exerting myself. I wake up then, feeling weary and sleep deprived, and then I look at my desk, and remember how hellish the other day was, how I worked myself up to a headache, and then just the thought of getting up and being as productive as I was the other day is enough to send chills running down my spine.

There are two things that usually happen to me when this sort of situation comes up. One is that I may actually laze about for a few hours before I finally guilt trip myself into working, or I remember people on YouTube, study streamers, who spend 12 hours daily doing nothing but sitting on their desks and studying, even one that was able to do so for an entire year, or the productivity gurus that I read books on who can achieve seemingly impossible feats and then I get hard on myself, and I force myself to get up and sit on that desk and open that laptop and work. I mean, I have read enough productivity books to know that ‘the grind never stops’ (but it can take some pauses though).

And then there are days it happens to me mid day. As a creative, there are bound to be times in which I get so frustrated with my writing that I just abandon it all and go to take a nap or go do something else to avoid staring at the jargon that I am conjuring up. But then, the problem is, the moment that I leave work that I am doing, it is terribly difficult to summon the energy to go back to continue, especially when I know that going back to it means going back to the hurdle that I know I am supposed to provide a solution for.

But that is just one of the problems. Because there is a reason there are scores of books on productivity and discipline and why, according to Market Research Blog, the self-help industry is worth over 10.5 billion dollars (according to a 2020 research). You see, this discipline is very difficult to accomplish and we humans are not very good at it.

I think one reason hard days are so, well, hard is because it is in those days that it seems almost impossible to practice delayed gratification. I mean, do you think it is easy to put away your phones and delete loved apps and movies so that you can actually work to become, you know, successful and accomplished in life? Of course not. You think there is anyone out there who, when given the choice between working out, getting up early, performing tasks, checking off to-do lists, being productive and just lying on the bed and streaming movies for hours on end, with the assurance of still ending up being successful would choose the former? I mean, the person would have to be half mad.

We all know that. We all have had situations in which we have had to let go of things that we would rather do just so that we can accomplish things that we have set out for ourselves. And we all know how much it hurts to do so. And one thing that I have learnt is that it hurts even more during the hard days.

I feel like one of the true reason it is so difficult for people to push through during the hard days, is because that you never really know whether you are even going to succeed, despite all that you put yourself through to ensure that you do. Have you ever had that moment, when, during the times in which you have lost all motivation, you find yourself thinking, well, this might not even work anyway, so why even bother? I know that I have.

There is a lot of difference between knowing that if you wait for sometime more and exercise will power, that you will most definitely get the second cookie and being made to exercise willpower on the grounds that even if you wait, there is no real assurance that you might get that second cookie.

This, I have found out, can be a major deterrent to even exercising discipline in the first place. I mean, it is really difficult to burn the midnight candle when there is always that knowledge at the back of your mind that you might not even end up being successful.

Are you reading on, hoping that I would provide some sort of tried and tested way of putting a permanent end to the pain and the uncertainty that is associated with discipline and delayed gratification, to push through the hard days? Because there is none. Trust me, if there were, I would have found it already somehow.

Sure, if you do your research, you might find some feel good articles or write-ups that would give you 200 things to do to ensure that you remain productive all the time and ensure that you succeed no matter what. But there is a chance that you might end up feeling guilty when you wake up some mornings and find that even after all you have done, you still have the hard days, the days when work feels like actual literal hell.

The point remains that this is a normal part of human existence, and we just have to deal with it. But there is one thing that I have found, and it is that, when you are properly equipped, it is easier for you to deal with it. Being properly equipped with all the right knowledge on habit formation, the ways to push through hard days, how to subdue the demon of procrastination and so on makes the difference between a person who gives in to his or her lack of motivation on hard days and the person who actually pushes through when such days come up.

This post is already long enough, and taking a proper deep delve into the different methods and systems used by the best productivity coaches will take quite a lot of words, so I think I will leave with just a few tips, nothing more.

First is this, realize that whilst there would be an uncertainty as regards success no matter how hard you work towards it, you can most definitely be assured of failure if you fail to put in the necessary work to achieve your dreams. Yes, sure, if we were in an ideal perfect world in which all things worked out just how we wanted things to go, we would not have to worry about failure after working hard. A good number of the time, we would face setbacks as we work towards our goals, but this should never hold us back from doing the needful in terms of our goals and dreams. And this should nevr be an excuse to give in during the hard days.

However, always remember to put the Lord into whatever you are working towards, so that at least, if you experience any setbacks, you can be sure that it is God’s instruction for you to keep pushing as it is not the right time to get the desired success and not a clear indication of the fact that you are not working in line with your purpose in life.

Again, I can never underestimate the importance of just starting. One thing that I have found is that even during the times in which I have felt as though I would rather do anything other than do a particular activity, the moment that I started, I would end up being able to do more work than I thought I would be capable of doing.

Of course, if it were easy to just start, a lot of us would have started doing the important things that we were supposed to do a long time ago, but it is very difficult to when you are not in the mood to. Some time later, I will write a blog post on the importance of making yourself bored enough that you have no other option than to work (and by this, I mean removing all distractions so that you can have nothing else to take your mind off doing the needful).

Another thing that is important is to understand your energy levels and how to optimize it so that you do not feel weak and lethargic when you are supposed to be active and productive. But this is something that I am still working on and researching on, so it would be a post for another day. One of the key methods that I have learned, however, is that understanding your sleep cycle, can help with keeping us at optimal energy and that we should all acknowledge the importance of knowing the effects that food, especially sugar and energy boosters like coffee, has on our bodies and energy during the day.

Another thing that I have noticed helps me to work for long periods of time is knowing the things that can keep me going. This includes music, snacks by my side, and being in a comfortable, well lit environment. A lot of productivity authors have found that the conditions of the environment that a person works in goes a long way in determining how willing the said person would be to do a particular work. Hence, that is why many people dedicate themselves to making sure that their work environment is as pleasant as possible and having all resources available within arm’s reach as they study.

Of course, there is so much more that comes with being able to exercise discipline and delay gratification. Otherwise, there would not be a million and one books on the topic. But if you are battling with starting on hard days, maintaining focus and delaying gratification, you can start with these little tips that have proven to work for me.

One resolution that I made this month of May, in a bid to take care of my physical body, which I was sure that I had been ignoring and taking poor care of, was to begin exercising. This was one habit that I had developed during the lockdown, but abandoned once I came back to school.

By the time I made the firm resolution that I would try everything that I could to ensure that I never missed a day throughout the month, which was something that I did not do even when I began it in 2020, I decided to think through how I was to execute what I wanted.

Even though I did not sit down to write my plans down, I used some tips that I had learned from reading James Clear’s ‘Atomic Habits’ to achieve the goal that I had set out for myself.

The first thing that I did was to draft out an implementation intention (a plan made before starting a habit on where and when to execute the habit) in my mind. To achieve that, I made use of habit stacking. Knowing that fixing a particular time of the day had never really worked for me all the times that I had tried it out, I decided that instead; I was going to pair it with a habit that I did every day. This, according to James Clear, is known as habit stacking, i.e. identifying a current habit that a person already does each day and then stacking a new behavior on top of the current habit.

So, I decided I would make sure that I had my workout done before I took my bath. A lot of the days, I prepared what I would use to take my bath, and then, with everything in place, I slipped into my workout clothes and began exercising. Eventually, I involuntarily did another form of habit stacking. When I could not exercise just before bathing, most of the time because I had somewhere to go first thing in the morning, I made sure that I exercised before I slept, even if it turned out to be the last thing that I was going to do before bed.

Again, I looked back on the previous times that I had tried to bring back the habit of exercising and see what made me unable to stick with the habit. I found that there was something that I kept on doing that made it almost impossible to go through with my plans to exercise every day. This was because, whenever I exercised, I forgot that my body had not been exercising for a while and needed some time to readjust to having an exercise regime and started out strongly. Hence, on my first day of deciding to exercise again, I was prone to overstretching my body so much that I ended up hurting myself, rendering me unable to walk upstairs or run without wincing for the next two to three days after the hellish workout regime that I put myself through.

Of course, what this meant was that I could not exercise during those two to three days and after that, because of the negative thoughts that would flood y mind calling me lazy for not being able to stick with the habit, even though it was impossible to do so, by the time I had gotten physically capable of exercising, I had lost all the morale to do so.

Furthermore, even if I did not sustain as much harm, even if I could do such exercises, if I could pull such off for about three days, I would wake up on the fourth day with an inexplicable dread for the torture that I was once again going to pass myself through and just the thought of spending the time that I set out to spend torturing my body was enough to make me give up whilst berating myself at the same time for not having enough willpower to do so.

So, I decided I was going to implement the two-minute rule. What the two-minute rule states is that when starting a new habit, one should make sure that it takes less than two minutes to do. Of course, for me, two minutes was too small to accomplish anything, so it was more or less three to five minutes for me. Hence, on the worst of the worst of the days when all the motivation I had to exercise was almost completely depleted, or on days in which the last day’s exercise left my body feeling somewhat sore, I was going to spend only about five minutes exercising. And not only that, my exercises on such days were going to comprise mostly simple yogic stretches, nothing that would leave me out of breath or sweating.

Of all the things that I decided, I think this one was the elixir that made me able to accomplish this mission that I had set out for myself this month. This was because, on days that I just was too unmotivated, or the stresses of the day made me feel incapable of carrying out the workouts that I had set out for myself, or on days in which, for one reason or the other, I was feeling unwell; I did not have to sweat out over the fact that I had to exercise that day. This was because I knew if the worst was to happen, I was going to do some stretching exercises from the app that I used.

In fact, after a particular day in which I had carried a heavy load for a long time and hence, had my shoulders aching for two days, for those two days, all the exercises that I did were merely targeted stretches meant to ease the pain that I felt on my shoulders, neck, and back.

Again, to make sure that I had all the physical cues that were going to push me to exercise, my exercise mat was always lying in the corner of my room and my exercise garments were always accessible for use. In fact, on some days during which I did only stretches, I did not even make use of the regalia, using only my mat and whatever I was wearing as long as it gave me enough leg space to do the exercises that I wanted to do. Again, the three apps that I used to exercise were always staring right at the home screen of my phone, next to some apps that I used almost every day, just like my music app and my bible app.

I have been able to actualize the exercise that I set out to do throughout the month of May. The exercises that I engaged in included power walks, full-body exercises, full-body stretches, thigh workouts, abs exercises, arm exercises, splits training, glute exercises, walking/ jogging for relatively long distances, etc. I did not set out the goal to become ripped because I was terrified of injuring myself and not being able to work out the next day. Hence, the longest amount of time that I spent exercising was about twelve minutes (minus breaks to stabilise my body taken in between exercises which, if calculated, would probably increase the time to about twenty to twenty-five minutes).

The goal for me was just to inculcate the habit of exercising into my life. My long-term goal is to spend about twenty to thirty minutes daily exercising (minus breaks) at least four times a week for the rest of my life and I think that with how I have started, I have garnered enough knowledge and strength of will to stick with the habit long term.

Workout clothes and mat

Another strike has fallen upon all University students in public universities in Nigeria for the past few months, with threats of it being extended for more months, even indefinitely.

Now, in case you are not Nigerian and happen to bump into this blog post; or are a Nigerian student in a private university, blissfully unaware of what is happening to your mates on the other side, I feel obligated to say what the strike is all about. It is, simply put, something that people have described as an annual festival in Nigeria in which students do not go to school for months – and then spend the few months that they are allowed to spend in school being shoved faster than they ought to by a school management that generates almost impossible curriculums just so that they can make up for the lost time.

The last time that we as students had such a long expanse of time to spend at home was in 2020 in which, as a result of the strike and the pandemic, we ended up spending almost a year at home – no kidding, and then ended up cramming four semesters in one year (aka two years in one year) last year in the university that I attend, just to make up for the lost time- again, no kidding.

And when we were just about to settle back to a normal school session after the hectic year that we had last year, boom, even before the year began, before we had spent a good month in school this year, another strike came upon us.

All I can say is; I do not want to think of what 2023 or the late quarter of this year, depending on whether or not an indefinite strike is going to be embarked on, would look for me academically. I think I may have a panic attack.

And by the time the strike began, our able government (get your PVC fellas, let's change things), as always, advised the students to engage themselves in quote-unquote productive endeavours. Now, I fully support and am a part of the group of people who agree that forcing students to go out of their way to learn skills during periods of time that they should be in school is nothing short of an insult to the entire academic system. However, the fact remains that we have to choose between either doing that or spending the entire time killing our brains by doing nothing. 

So, even without the ‘helpful’ advice that we have gotten, the knee-jerk reaction for students during a strike, at least since I became a student, has been to go and learn a skill. The last strike that we had, I used it to learn wig making and I have to say that during a short time after that, my wig making skills helped me make some cash in school.

Now, the moment I heard that there was going to be another strike, the first thing that I did was to sit and think of what I wanted to achieve during this strike. This time, I decided that learning new skills was out of the question for me. I had done that before, and I instead, chose to harness and work on the few skills that I had presently.

I decided that a huge chunk of my time was going to be dedicated to two things, reading, and writing. Hence, I was going to go back to studying productivity books, a habit that I had abandoned as a result of the hectic academic session that we had, was going to develop the habit of reading spiritual books, and I  was going to learn how to train my brain to memorize faster, develop my writing skills, write more stories, begin blogging, exercising and work on my typing speed to increase my productivity.

At that time, though, I believed that the strike was going to last for only a month. But it has been raging since February so I was very much in the wrong with my belief. However, I did have every intention of exerting myself, but not in the way that would be evident in the short term. 

What this meant was that I had no intentions of going after certificates, had no intentions of going for physical internships as I had resolved that I would do that later in my academic life, and was going to set virtual internships aside unless they were by firms and companies that had something to offer that I was interested in. I decided that I was going to be functional in the organizations that I worked for in school in whatever activities they were going to be doing online during the strike period, but other than the book clubs that I had founded, was not going to go out of my way to look for new positions in new organizations.

I know, I know. If you are the sort of person that values the certificates and the internships and whatnot, and there is nothing wrong with that, I still do, you might think that I have been wasting my time ever since the strike – I mean, no internships? No new skills learnt? No certificates gotten from webinars and workshops? None? None at all? As a law student? The abomination! What are you going to post on your Linkedin then?

And for some time, I did believe that you had to be lazy not to be actively looking out for those kinds of things. For a while, I thought that this was the right way to go about things, and I still do to some extent now. But I had had a few experiences that made me snap in my head one day and decide that I was tired of what I termed the "Law (or University) Student Rat Race”. I was done with it, done with the fact that I kept doing stuff that I neither liked nor even got any value from because I wanted to get that, you know, shiny certificate to post on Linkedin just to get people to send me already suggested comments from Linkedin ‘Congrats on your new post!’.

Now, before I begin my rant, I believe I should share a few things about myself. Now I believe that I am something called a Type A personality, as most law students and lawyers are said to be. This means that I am very career and productivity-oriented, a bit of a workaholic, and I hate having nothing to do, hate feeling lazy and unproductive.

During my first year at the university, I came a bit naïve and not so aware of things. And by the time the pandemic came and I began my productivity journey, one of the first things that I practiced was something called Digital Minimalism, in which I drastically reduced the amount of time that I spent on the internet, most especially on any social media except Youtube for my ‘Study with Me’ videos and relaxation.

By the time I came back for my second semester of Year One, I found that I had missed out on a lot of webinars and moot court competitions and whatnot. Since I still believed that all I had to do was work towards my grades, I was not an active member in any organization except for one.

But then, all around me, people were doing stuff, stuff that I could not do, stuff that I was confused about, stuff that I was beginning to realize that I should want to do.

Of course, now that I am very much actively involved in those things, I realize that I greatly exaggerated the knowledge of the rest of my peers and felt depressed for nothing, but at that period, I felt grossly inadequate as a student, confused and stupid at times even.

And so I did what I still believe was the reasonable thing for me to do; I began to participate. I made friends with the right people, and spent a lot of my time in the faculty- the faculty was essentially more of a habitation for me than my hostel. And by the end of the second semester of my second year, just a few months after, I had become an active person in moot court, even became lead counsel for some cases (law stuff kindly ignore if uninterested), had joined several clubs and taken executive positions, had done my first physical internship and had applied for some virtual ones, had participated in a Model United Nations Conference, had participated in several essay competitions and had gotten awards in few, had become a part of the executive in both my faculty and my fellowship. 

Essentially, I was on a roll. If there was any activity to be done that I felt was worthy of note for you know, my ‘CV’ or just to feel as though I was doing something others were not doing, something that would make me stand out, I did it. My CGPA was also decent and I had also begun a part-time job in writing that promised good pay.

Now, I also had several burnouts during my second year in the university, did literally no fun activities as the little time I had outside of school activities were solely dedicated to my academics, and I generally operated at a very low energy level. I had also completely abandoned exercising and other leisure activities that I was engaged in. One time I complained to my friend that I could not wait for the year to end so that I could have even a little bit of fun and he was like, “Why not do it? it only takes a few hours.” To which I truthfully replied that I just did not have a few hours to spare. 

I was performing amazingly in my second year at the university. But I was not the top performer, especially when it came to extracurricular activities.

And that lay the problem, or at least what I thought was a problem. Type A that I was, it greatly bugged me that I was not the top performer and the ‘great’ thing about today’s world is that if you are not the best performer in any aspect of life that you are interested in, the world just has a way of shoving it in your face that you are not. As for me, apart from the peer pressure that came with seeing my friends doing things that I was not doing, the real madness began when, acting on the advice of a senior colleague, I opened a Linkedin account.

Now, Linkedin is a good space, and it is good to have the pleasure of creating the best profile out there and talking about all the great things that you have done. You worked for it. If you choose to share your successes with the world, I would be stupid to bash you.

But the thing with Linkedin, at least the thing that I noticed was that even if I did not follow these people, the algorithm was carved out for me to run mad with the feeling of suboptimal performance. 

Yes, I had a good CGPA and was the executive of several organizations but so what? This person in my timeline interned in five of the top law firms in his first year, won a scholarship, won first prize in ten essays, started his or her organization, has thousands of followers and thousands of studio pictures wearing a suit with hands folded tightly on his or her chest and an expression that screamed top performer and this other person over here in my timeline? Well, he just graduated with a 4.99 CGPA in law. First-class has levels, my dear.

And at first, any time that I saw someone say anything negative about Linkedin and the performance obsession or toxic productivity that it tended to create, I was always the first to see them as lazy and unserious with their lives at best or just plain envious of other people’s accomplishments at worst. While they were busy complaining about the pressures of the app and the toxic productivity culture that it promoted, I was busily screenshotting the profiles of other students that had amazing profiles and trying to get to know what and how they got to where they were, asking questions, doing research and whatnot, essentially trying to find out ways to copy them, to be just like them. Yes, I had done a few things but then so what? I was not good enough. I did not have twenty experiences and job positions. I had not gotten hundreds of thousands off an essay competition. I was not the best compared to my peers over there. And I wanted to be the best. 

Healthy competition?

At a time I thought that it was, but not quite.

This was because, I was so interested in getting and being, performing, and over-performing, that I did not even notice that I had begun to work on autopilot. I jumped into every opportunity that I saw without even thinking, taking the time to ask God if it was the right way for me to go or even seeing if I enjoyed what I was doing. I believed that despite the fact I had not yet found an area of interest in law that appealed to me, I still had to grind, still had to do things that I had little to no interest in, because that was what the top performers were doing.

If I missed out on something that I would have been able to get, I beat myself up. If I noticed that something had happened that I would have played a part in, I felt bad. If I noticed that some of the top performers had secured a position, even though I didn’t have much interest in that position, I got angry at myself for not getting the same. I was obsessed with doing and doing and doing, regardless of whether I even knew what it was that I was doing. 

Why? Because that was what I was told I had to do. I was told that good results were common but what stood out was having that jaw-dropping resume. I was told that I had to keep performing, had to keep getting more of everything. More positions, more awards, more titles. I aspired for things I did not even like, ignoring the fact that I was abandoning so many things I liked doing as a result.

And thank God that I had gotten a few experiences that made me reevaluate what it was that I was even doing.

First, because I was in some organizations, I began to notice a certain phenomenon among students.

All of the top performers wanted to be a part of something. Every single one of them wanted to lead an organization. But I realized that what a lot of people wanted were the titles but not the knowledge to be acquired from the position or to even to do any work at all.

By the time that I started joining organizations, receiving appointment letters and whatnot, I began realizing that probably up to half of the student organizations that I was a part of did little to nothing, and a lot of them had executives who were just executives by title. Most of the time, an organization died when someone managed to secure his or her way to the top with no intention to do anything with the position he or she has acquired.

And I feel ashamed to say this, but there was a brief time that I kind of liked those kinds of organizations. Because I was already doing so much, they were my avenues to doing even more without actually doing more. There were some that I would get appointment letters and certificates of appreciation from after the tenure had passed without having done any single thing there, not because I shirked from my duties – in fact, I hate when people do that and hence strive not to- but because there were no duties for me to perform in the first place.

But did I use the names of the positions and the pictures of the certificates to garnish my Linkedin profile and posts? You bet I did. 

And at first, I thought it was a rare phenomenon until I asked about some other organizations, curious to learn all that was being done there, only to hear someone mention something along the lines of, “Well, we are not very active, you know.” I would see even the highest of leaders of the student organizations doing nothing but identifying as being leaders. I would see people struggle to get positions not because they intended to do anything, but because they wanted to bask in the glory of getting those positions. Now, this did not happen in all organisations, some had shown themselves to be very effective and functional. But the number of organisations that were like that was alarming. As I said before, many people only wanted the glory of the title and nothing more. 

In fact, I had participated in an online internship in which people just wrote their names as present for the zoom meetings, sometimes even begged someone to help them with it, without actually participating in anything, just so that they could receive that shiny certificate to display on their social media. 

And I realized that I was not the only one that was caught up in this web, I was not the only one doing things that I did not want to do simply because it was being done by the quote-unquote top performers.

I have come to resent that mindset. What is the purpose of doing things, and engaging in activities if you are not getting any value from them? What is the purpose of acquiring titles that you do not even enjoy having? What was the point of letting school pass through you if you were not even having a good time while doing so?

Now the strike is before us and another wave of madness has set in, just slightly different from that which I noticed during the academic sessions. Now, every young student is under the pressure of acquiring skills, not just any skill, but certain preferred ones like digital affiliate marketing, UI/UX, copywriting, forex, crypto, graphics design, and the likes. There are dozens of both paid and free webinars and advertisements that seem to urge students to perform, get, learn, and make them feel as though they are wasting their time if they are not busy learning a skill or two.

And then there are the internships. Not every faculty takes this as a priority, but for my faculty, this pressure begins to mount up whenever there is a break, a strike, or a holiday, a feeling that you have been wasting your time if you are not engaged in an internship or a certificate course at the moment. Some even engaged in three virtual internships running at the same time, a physical one, enrolling for ten courses, and are still looking for more. 

And because of this pressure, there have been times that, even though I have set out my priorities for this strike, I begin to feel a bit inadequate all over again because I know that I am not doing a lot of things that my mates are engaged in. But I have tried and am still trying my best to fight this mindset.

I know that just like I used to feel, there are certain people out there who are under this pressure to do something, anything, so as not to feel lazy and unproductive.

And I want to say this, it is necessary to spend this time doing something productive – in fact, if you have not been, then I am shocked at how someone has been able to spend about 80 plus days doing absolutely nothing. But if you are not among those who honestly enjoy doing what they are doing, who are learning these skills and participating in these internships because they are honestly curious about them,  but are among the group of people that are not very thrilled with what they are doing, stuck in the web of the pressure of having to perform, then I have a bit of advice for you. Step back. Breathe. And think.

If you have been engaging in something, learning a particular skill for a while, or any other thing and you hate it but are still doing it because you think that the best of the best are doing so, I think it is time to leave. There is courage in knowing the time to stop and leave something that you do not enjoy doing. You have no one to impress and you have to realize that this life is not one big competition.

If you are about to enter into something not because you think you would enjoy it or because you are genuinely curious about it but because of social pressures, then don’t. It is not worth it. Go and engage in that which you would enjoy even though it appears to be less glamorous than the other.

And, despite all that I have said, do ensure that you are productive, but use your own measure, not that of any other person or a system. No one knows how much longer this strike would last, and if you have been using it as an opportunity to one-up your peers, you need to slide back and realize that you are probably not much better than the person that has been wasting away his or her time.

If you have abandoned something you enjoyed because it did not appear as glamorous as what you saw on Linkedin, or because you felt that it would not make you look much different from your peers, then go back to that. Life is short. Do that which you enjoy.

But if you have been doing all that and loving every ride of the way, fuelled intrinsically and not extrinsically by the pressure of social media or peer pressure, then go on. Reach for the stars but remember that the ideal person that you want to become should be the only person that you measure yourself up against.

This is difficult to do, I know. Social pressure is difficult to resist and I know that the only reason why I have been able to be as laid back as I want to is that, due to the strike, I can prevent myself from seeing that which I do not want to see, can simply switch off my phone and do not have to see those achieving feats physically as I would once the session begins. But please note, and this is something that I am working on making my mantra,  that never should you let yourself be swept up, forget your achievements, and feel like a failure because your level of success is perceived objectively as lower than any other person. You are running your own race, on your own track, and spending your time trying to be like some other group of people is a terrible way to waste life.

Recently, I saw a flier that asked, ‘What are you doing with your ASUU time?’ and I have to say, after a relatively long time, I am finally using it to do what I actually want to do, not just what I feel pressured to do, and being very productive at it too.

I hope you have been doing the same as well.