High Expectations

"Stop focusing on how stressed you are and realize how blessed you are."

    As I said earlier, I've been realizing a lot about myself lately. And it's a lot of fun to get to know yourself, if you haven't tried it you most definitely should. I've been cooking awesome healthy meals, going to the gym and enjoying it, working a lot and enjoying it, and doing a whole bunch of school work. And it's awesome.

    While it's awesome, it's also really stressful. I've taken on a full load at school plus a part time job which ends up being full time hours most of the time. This semester, school involves a class where I work with some of the main campus food providers to design a new restaurant to open up in January. Which includes a ton of out of class work. Actually, it's mostly all done out of class. Did I mention they gave me a little over one month to do this? Talk about stress. 

    To be honest with you, I'm terrible at dealing with stress. I'm really hard on myself and I like everything to be perfect. I know it's not going to be 100% right in the end and that I'll have to fix a whole bunch of things but, I aim high. The bad thing about high expectations is that it makes it really hard for you to be happy with it in the end.

    Now, I'm not saying you should just lower all of your expectations and go with the flow. That would probably just stress me out more. I'm saying that you have to learn to deal with it, that things aren't always going to go your way and that is perfectly okay. As long as you're happy with it, it doesn't matter. And happy doesn't mean perfect.

    Some of the ways that I've dealt with this are:

• Take a hot shower or bath. I know, it's the first thing everyone says to do when you're stressed. But it works, and that's what matters.
• Go for walk.
• Go to the gym. Me time is great time. Also, my gym has a massage bed. Which is 100% worth the monthly charge.
• Play with a dog. Sorry cat people, but dogs are so much better.
• Read a book. If you have an active imagination like I do, books can take you to a whole different world and distract you for quite some time. Within the past week and a half I've read three and I always feel so much better afterwards.
• Watch your favorite childhood movie. It'll bring back some good memories and make you smile.
• Girl time. Or guy time. But girl time is super great. Especially when you just camp out in front of the TV and eat chocolate and talk for hours.
• Cook or bake your favorite food. Then find people to share them with. Or just keep it all to yourself, whichever works.
•  Take 3 deep breaths. You'll instantly feel better.
• Talk it out. Sometimes, that's really all you need to do. Find someone you feel comfortable with and ask if you can just talk to them about a situation. Other people can also give you great insight of what else you could do.

    After trying some of those tactics, if you're still feeling the pressure (and even if you're not) think about all the good things happening in your life. For me, it's that I've learned a lot about who my friends really are, how many options I have in my life now, and that even though I'm really stressed about work it's all going to lead to me finding a career that I love and that I'm good at. Eventually, the stress goes away.

    Just remember, high expectations are great to have. But don't let yourself be let down just because things didn't go 100% your way, be proud of what you've done and most importantly, you need to be happy with knowing that you did your best.