It’s the first week back to school, and odds are that you’re still stuck in your summer slump. Don’t worry! Every college student has had a moment when their reality catches up to them and basically slaps them in the face. That assignment that was worth 100 points that you put off until the morning of? Yeah, you got a D on it. All of the unnecessary snacks you’ve bought at Louie’s throughout the year? You have 17 meal points with three weeks left in the semester.
For many, every few weeks you take a step back and evaluate the choices you’ve been making, and realize you haven’t been thinking of the consequences that go hand-in-hand with them. This is when you buckle up and decide to get your life back on track.
The good: this is a completely normal phase in the cycle of life. When you disregard responsibilities and good habits for too long, you have to slow down and accept that you’ve fallen off your grind.
The bad: there isn’t exactly a starter pack that includes everything you need to do to snatch your life and get things in order. So you’re forced to navigate this “getting your sh*t” together thing on your own.
The ugly: you had some bad habits to begin with, and they don’t just magically disappear once you decide to quit them. It’s a process to turn your life around, and the beginning of this process is filled with trial and error.
When beginning this process, we’re all guilty of dancing around the subject of facing your flaws head on.
1. Take a Shower
The first thing many people do when deciding it’s time to buckle down and turn their life around is strip down to nothing and hop in the shower. Taking a shower is kind of like a symbolic way of cleansing yourself of your bad habits, only to be washed away, down into the drain and gone forever. There is also a general consensus that our best ideas come to us while we’re in the shower. Picture it: you’re mindlessly scrubbing away and running your fingers through the tangles embedded in your hair and — BAM — a prophetic thought pops into your head. So yes, you’re not the only one that does this. Research shows that you’re more likely to have a creative epiphany when you’re doing something monotonous, like showering.
2. Go Grocery Shopping
Eating healthy and having a balanced diet is undoubtedly a pillar to a productive life style. After looking into your pantry and realizing all you have is Froot Loops and Ramen Noodles, you decide a trip to the grocery store overrides the pending homework you have. Although the only kitchen equipment you feel comfortable using is your sink, microwave and maybe your toaster on a good day, you enter the grocery store on a mission like a contestant from “Chopped.” Never tried cauliflower before? Throw it in the cart. Have an unexplained aversion to brussels sprouts? Well the new and improved you loves them. After checking out with a cart full of costly produce that will most like rot in your refrigerator, you feel healthier already.
3. Go To The Gym
Whether your reasoning to get your life together was health related or not, the most proactive thing a college student can do is go to the gym. After putting off the day you decide to renew your gym membership or actually locating where the infamous Rec Building is on campus, you decide enough is enough and rip off the band-aid. After aimlessly searching for the entrance and failing to swipe your ID correctly when arriving, you’re faced with the most difficult task: picking a machine. Following the daunting hour you spent navigating workout equipment you’ve never seen in your life, you come to the realization that abs don’t form within one workout. Although you’ll leave the gym puzzled as to how people make time for a workout every day, you’ll also leave with a feeling of triumph knowing that you might have just made the first baby step to getting your life together.
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