As my time in Paris draws to a close, I figured it would be a great opportunity to reflect on my time here: things I learned, how I matured, habits I discarded, and outlooks I will be bringing with me as I return home.
When I arrived in Paris, I was a second-semester college sophomore with terrible time management and organizational skills, a huge procrastination problem (I’ll be honest, I still have it, but I’m getting better), an infatuation with a boy back home, and a love of binge drinking (but I hated wine). Now, as I pack my suitcases to return to the States, I’m bringing back (slightly) better time management skills (I still get distracted super easily), amazing organizational skills (thank you, bullet journal!), an infatuation with myself (I’m pretty awesome, what can I say), and a love of fancy cocktails during happy hour and a glass of wine with dinner.
How did I grow so much in only five short months? Well, a lot of it had to do with living on my own in a big city thousands of miles away from my family, but it also had to do with my determination to be a better, healthier person and to prepare for life after college.
If you want to know how to get started on your self-improvement journey, keep reading. If you think you’re totally awesome and like where you are in your life, feel free to keep reading or check out my other blog posts ;))
I have always been the messiest, most unorganized person you have ever met (just ask my sorority little, my roommate, or my parents). I turned my work in on time, but I procrastinated so long that I always stressed before turning it in. Once I moved to France, I decided to change that. I did not want to be stressed in the most romantic city in the world. It required getting a planner, and setting time aside to work each day — even on the weekends (although that didn’t always work out).
I have always been the messiest, most unorganized person you have ever met.
Before I moved to Paris, I decided to start a bullet journal, and I turned two pages each month as my monthly planner. To help keep myself even more organized, I used a calender on my computer, where I put all of the information for my classes, as well as other important dates — such as meetings or the days I worked.
I also made a Google Slides document and went through the syllabi for each of my classes and typed in all the assignments I had and their due dates. I then color coded it by class and organized by date! This wasn’t as helpful this year as the school I studied abroad at was super unorganized, but I also did it last fall semester, and it helps so much. It’s a bit of work at the beginning, but if you make sure to put all the dates in by the end of silly week (syllabus week), then you’re good to go for the rest of the semester.
Let’s talk time management. I know myself enough that I know I will not work if I stay in my apartment and try to work at my desk. I need to go to a library — however, it wasn’t the easiest to get to the library here, so instead I learned to work in cafes. Finding someplace where you can block out the world and focus on your work is essential to being able to get your work done — once you can do this, you’ll get your work done in no time.
I also started going by the mentality of “work before play.” During normal working hours (10am to 6pm), I worked almost nonstop, and I divided it up into 15 minute intervals. However, even with this mindset, you have to make sure to take brain breaks. I would do this whenever I ate, and I would watch a 20 minute show to relax my mind before getting back to the hard work again. After doing this type of studying and working for a while, now I can focus on my work for hours at a time!
Finally, the third thing that helped me the most with procrastination and time management is whenever I got agitated working on one piece of work, instead of taking a break on my phone, I would take a break and work on homework for another class. Sometimes, hating the work you’re doing simply means your brain is fried on the specific subject. As soon as you switch subjects, it’s like your brain hits the refresh button.
If you have any other tips for dealing with procastination, organization, and time management, comment them below!
The next big change my self-improvement journey was how I felt about myself. Since my freshman year of college, I have always been a very confident person. I know that I’m pretty, I’m smart, and I’m a good person (I promise I’m not vain, I’m just trying to make a point). However, even though I knew these things, I still let my self-esteem rely (slightly, but still) on my relationship with this boy. My feelings about it were so intense that I wrote a whole poetry book about it (and while our relationship didn’t work out, my poetry book did, and I have a publication offer, so keep your eyes out)! And surprisingly, writing about my feelings let me release them into the world — and made me more confident for it.
When I wrote about why I was sad, I was telling myself that what I was feeling was normal and okay, and that I was allowed to feel them. And when I wrote about how awesome I felt, or how angry I was at the world, I was telling myself that, yeah, my feelings are valid — I am awesome and I am angry at the world.
Changing how I looked at my own feelings — that they were a natural part of me that needed to be expressed, and that I shouldn’t be ashamed of them — led to the big change in my self-confidence. I no longer needed validation from anyone — and it was so, incredibly freeing. I’m a badass all by myself, thank you very much.
The last major thing that change was my mentality on drinking. Now don’t get me wrong, I love getting hammered and going clubbing just as much as the next college kid, but there’s a time and a place. My nights are no longer filled with drinking as many Malibu pineapples as I can get my hands on, but instead, hanging out at home with one of my best friends, watching Bridgerton and drinking wine. Don’t worry though, Friday’s are still filled with clubbing sometimes! But only when I’m not doing work.I don’t get FOMO if I decide to stay in, nor do I go insane when I go out. It was necessary to find a balance between the two, and I can confidently say that I truly enjoy either.
If you also want to improve and make yourself a more confident, open, and better person, here are some websites that can help you get started!
My Favorite Bullet Journals: https://www.archerandolive.com/
How to be More Self-Confident: https://www.insider.com/how-to-be-more-confident-2018-1
How to be More Productive: https://www.forbes.com/sites/ilyapozin/2013/08/14/9-habits-of-productive-people/
Wine for Newbies: https://www.foleyfoodandwinesociety.com/Magazine/News-and-Articles/6-Wine-Recommendations-for-Beginners
Now go drink some wine!
~ Jamie
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