Inescapable, consuming, mind-boggling, inevitable: stress.
Stress, according to The American Institute of Stress, is such a subjective topic and varies so much from person to person that it is nearly impossible to adequately define the term.
In the American College Health Association’s 2015 collection of data, 85.7 percent of students surveyed admitted to feeling overwhelmed by all they had to do at some point within the last 12 months, and a collective 79.3 percent reported their stress levels as ranging from an average to more than average amount.
As a human in general, and especially as a college student, stress and feelings of being overwhelmed are inevitable. However, it is important to know that these feelings are mutual among individuals other than just yourself. In other words, you are not alone.
Sophomore Malea Casey, an Exercise Physiology major at Ohio University, has been struggling quite a bit these past few weeks due to an inner lack of motivation.
“It’s not that I don’t want to work hard and get everything that needs to be done, done. It’s just that lately it’s been really difficult to maintain the motivation I need to make things happen," Casey said.
This feeling of a lack of motivation is most definitely a feeling that is shared by college students more often than not. When you’ve got a lot to do and everything starts piling up one after another, an occasionally common response is to shut down and turn away from responsibilities due to the inability to decide what needs to be done first. In order to combat this mental shutdown, there are a few different approaches that can be taken.
Some people are good at keeping a schedule, while others are not. If you are the type of person who is able to create a set schedule and follow it to a tee, then a possible solution for you might be to keep a planner of some sort and write down each thing that needs to be done right when you find out about it. Once this has been done, the next step is to prioritize. Look at everything that needs to be done, and decide what you want to do first, as well as when you would like to do it. And then, once you have completed this, the final step is to find time and execute.
Through my own personal experience of planner-keeping, I have found that if I have all of the things that I need to get done written out on paper, I feel more motivated to accomplish these tasks because their importance of getting finished becomes more “real” to me. Then once I complete a task, I like to cross it off of the paper as a symbol of completion and accomplishment.
While this strategy works for some, it may not work for others. If you are not the type of person to keep planners and if doing such a thing does not help motivate you, perhaps another solution to your lack of motivation can be found through interacting with others.
If you are the type of person who feels more motivated whilst working with a group of people with a common goal, then try it out. Get together with others who have a similar mission as you, and work together to accomplish that mission together. Whether it be with schoolwork, an extracurricular activity, sport or club, or even something as simple as just getting out more to take things off your mind, joining together with others who have the same goal as you is always a good option to stay motivated and get things done.
If you feel that you’ve tried everything that you possibly could and still can't find the motivation to make progress in different aspects of your life, then maybe it is time to make a change to your routine.
Think about it: maybe the reason that you feel so unmotivated and disinclined to carry out certain tasks is because you’re unhappy with where you’re at. There have been plenty of times in my life where I’ve felt really down and as if I was stuck in a rut. At those points in a person’s life, sometimes the smartest thing to do is to change things up in order to keep life interesting.
If you want to make a change, ask yourself if the life path you are currently on is what you really want to do. Don’t worry about money or the expectations that others have set for you; focus on nothing but your pure and genuine happiness.
If you’ve thought about this and know that what you’re doing is exactly what you want, and you still feel unmotivated, try experiencing something new. Take up a new sport or club, go out with new people, take a chance and introduce yourself to that person next to you in class and see where things go.
Try whatever you’d like and do whatever you must to keep yourself happy.
Lack of motivation is not an easy thing to deal with and can unfortunately really bring down a person’s mental welfare; however, that does not mean that it cannot be beat. No matter what you do or how hard things seem to get, don’t ever give up hope in finding that motivation, and always remember that there is someone else out there feeling the same way you are. You aren’t alone.
Bri Shaniuk is a sophomore studying journalism at Ohio University. How do you destress? Let Bri know by emailing her at bs714714@ohio.edu.
