From My View

Let me get one thing straight, i have always hated speaking in front of an audience. Even if it was just my mum, my dad and my siblings i would always get scared. For one, i grew up with a stutter in my voice, i would always slur my words when i was reading aloud from a book, or just a reading. This got to a point when in assembly in primary school, i was too scared to speak in the thought of everybody laughing a t me that i had a panic attack.

Here is the thing though, i was never actually scared of speaking to others, i speak to my friends all the time and i never get laughed at. Sure, i was bullied in primary school, but everybody goes through hardships right? What i was afraid of was being, unloved, alone and humiliated. What i was afraid of was the concept of speaking and messing up my lines. I recently read “How To Become A Straight A Student” by Cal Newport, and in this book it has a whole section on public speaking. I had all these negative thoughts about public speaking that i never did it. Today, i finally broke that .

As stupid as it sounds, i had to give a 2 minute presentation on improving economic productivity,. But those two minutes changed my thought process. I never thought i could speak so clearly to a class without getting scared, my friend said the best thing “You sounded like you always do”. Hearing this, and knowing i can do this has allowed me to apply to be head boy of my school. There is a slim chance that i will be able to get this job, but knowing i have the capability to speak to a wide audience gives me the confidence to do it again.

Tomorrow i have to speak to a room of over 100 people, just the slight push out of your comfort zone can change your perspective completely. When you are afraid of something, look deep. It might not be the thing you are afraid of.

Anyway, wish me luck!

I have always had an obsession with YouTube.

It has been apart of my everyday life for about 9 years! I have probably spent for than 2 years of screen time on YouTube. Basically what i am trying to say is that i have been on it way too much. A few months back i tried to go without YouTube for 10 days, i couldn’t even complete that due to my desire for entertainment and relaxation. It got me through my parent’s divorce with smiling faces and structured me into who i am today.

But, i need to take a break, even at the start of March (when i am writing this) i tried to give it up for the entire month. But guess what i couldn’t even do that.

So what am i going to do to stop this, well i have made my mum sign a wager/ del so that if i slip up and watch YouTube from now on then i owe her 20 pounds. It is crazy right, but from James Clear’s book “Atomic Habits” one man did this, and it worked miracles.

So from today, i am YouTube free.

I have fallen back into my old ways, i am constantly checking my phone and are always on YouTube as it gives me a place for relaxation and isolation. I love my own space, in fact i crave my own space as it recharges me for the next day.

But back to the issue at hand, i will start to fall back on school work and spending time with family and friends if i don’t break this procrastination-addiction. It is toxic and not good for my productivity.

We have been doing a presentation at school based on productivity, i am quite the guru when it comes to it yet i never implement any of its tactics into my personal life. It is terrible really. Procrastination is the enemy for all productive people, it is that voice in your head that can mess up your life. If you are able to overcome procrastination it happens with great strength, willpower and massive changes in your life.

So, from now on i will be setting screen time limits on my phone so i do not use it as much. On my computer i will be setting extensions to buffer websites for 20 seconds so i don’t use them. It takes 20 seconds of reasoning before you are committed to an action, i hope this will help me with that.

I will keep this blog updated with how i do 🙂

So recently, i have been reading a lot of habit books, including “Atomic Habits ” by James Clear. It speaks very much of how important it is to schedule and stick to new things so you don’t fall into the trap. I also read “The Flinch” in which it basically says to overcome the flinch, you must always be using it to give you the energy to start whatever it is you are doing. Just get going. I recently completed a challenge i set for myself, the 7 day cold shower challenge. The reason i did this is because it has many health benefits (improving muscle recovery for example) and i wanted to see if i could push myself out of my comfort zone. For too ong i have stuck to the same regiment and habits that i have always stuck to. I was amazed by Atomic Habits when refering its teachings to my life. Every single time i would come home from school i would walk straight to the store and buy myself something, every single time!If anything, these books (among others by the likes of Cal Newport) have inspired me to stretch myself into new areas that i was not comfortable with before. For example i am applying to be Head Boy of my school, it will include a lot more responsibilities and will involve new roles such as public speaking which i was not comfortable with beforehand.Overall, habits are extremely important to your everyday life. Inspired by Matt D’Avella’s video “12 habits for life”, i have laid out 12 habits i will stick to in the year.March- Blog everydayApril- No YouTubeMay- Journal everydayJune- study for 3 hours everydayJuly- Workout for 15 mins everydayAugust- Take cold ShowersSeptember – No snacking between meal timesOctober- Make a video log everydayNovember- No swearingDecember- No buyingJanuary – meditateFebruary- Declutter.

Everybody feels this at some point. Burnout is the point at which where you feel mentally exhausted and basically are unable to take on any more work. I felt this way last year after i had finished all my exams and i just felt, well tired and depressed. Sometimes, i think that is good to feel this way. It gives time to recollect thoughts and overall motives going forward. Ask yourself, “okay i am feeling burnt out, why do i feel this way? What can i do in the future to stop myself from feeling this way”. On YouTube these days, many you tubers are opening up about mental health and the feeling of being burnt out. Jacksepticeye – who is a popular gamer and entertainer on YouTube- spoke about burnout to a psychologist on his break from you tube. He said this break gave him the confidence and motivation to get back into the work when being away from it all. Occasionally, a fresh set of eyes are important especially with a long term task.If you are feeling burnt out, remember to ask yourself 3 questions:What am i doing to cause this feeling?What feeling does this do to the people around me?What can i do to avoid feeling this in the future?Breaks from working are always important to take, especially if its unexpectedly stressful. But please, if you take one thing from this is to get back into the work soon after this. Take a week or two away, or however long you need. But if you leave it for too long, the effects could be much worse.Instead of leaving on a negative, don’t be alarmed if you feel burnout – It’s normal and healthy. More work though will not help, try to look for areas that you could minimize in your life to de stress this feeling.

Getting a job is the best, you start to earn money and meet new people. It is great. But, nowadays especially those at my age seem to pile their work over everything. I am not just talking about jobs now, it includes class work also. It bewilders me that so many students like myself aim to prioritise their work over everything, when you go to Uni you may prioritise that dissertation that you left to the last minute because you were on your phone for 5 hours and instead cancelling a meeting with your family you don’t speak to. It is crazy right? Family and mental health should esteem above the classwork.Sometimes classwork is the pursuit of passion for students, it may be more important truthfully due to the love and wanting for the accomplishment. When i took my GCSEs for example, i studied like hell and went to work straight after this. This actually calmed me down as it was a takeaway from all that hard work, to all of that hard work…The point i am trying to pursue here is that it is very important to have a work-life balance, we all want it in our lives and yet many feel that there work is their life. In my opinion, if it was my last day on this earth i would rather spend time with my family and friends than write a stupid dissertation, you can’t live everyday like its your last in that sense, but you can make your actions more meaningful to which when your last day arrives, you would know what you want to do. Work hard, play hard and live each day with meaning.I will leave this off with a great quote from Steve Jobs -“If you live each day as if it were your last, someday you’ll be right. Every morning I looked in the mirror and asked myself: If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I do today? ”.
Have a Great day!

Planning is everything in life. We may have 24 hours in each day, but there is 24 hours of possible slacking and getting nothing done. Don’t get me wrong, i love to sometimes to do nothing, we always seem to be way too busy when in actual fact we only do anything meaningful about 70% of the time. It is so important to plan, it helps you set what you want to do each day and subtlety remind you what you need to get done. Our brains can get overloaded with all the work we have to do, revise, pay my taxes, don’t spend, see my family, the list goes on.It is crazy that planning can work so well to get what you want done, it can change your mind to increase in productivity. Scheduling the time for your task to be completed. What you can see from this, is that i love to plan and schedule. Sometimes it doesn’t work, but since i started it has improved my life for the better, i highly recommend it.

Come on, everybody loves somebody right? Well apart from my friend Jamie who is asexual who doesn’t love anybody but nevertheless everybody loves someone right?When i say this, i mean romantically, not between your family. A lot of the time these days, romantic love is becoming harder to express to people, although the introduction of social media dating apps like tinder, grinder among many others. My mum met my dad on a dating site! But nowadays especially on tinder i see that people meet, they fuck and they leave. That s not romantic love! Im in love with a girl, but i also find it hard to express how i feel to her, we have so much in common and we just click. Sound like you? Then your love is real and needs to be fruited and expressed, tell her how you feel, not just online messaging or through text (because it is not expressed fully) but through person, that shows you care. Sometimes love may be rejected, or you may fall in love with the wrong kind of people, but that is what the life experience is all about, finding that one person in life is unrealistic, there s no one person that the creator (Or whoever that is) chemically formed you to be positively compatible with another. There are many variations of that “One person”. Once you get over that barrier to look for someone, there will always be positive results. You will find that person, they are out there, have the courage to show and find your love to them.

The choices we make impact our lives. “Everybody knows that so why are you writing about this?” i see you write, but really its true. Even the smallest choices affect your life, whether you brush your teeth or not can impact if you are closer to getting gum disease. It is crazy right? Being more aware of your choices makes your over peripheral of life more intense, you will be more aware of what you are doing so that you do things that are more impactful.
With me for example, i always will have periods of work and many periods of well, nothing! It is definitely because i am not aware of the choices that i am making, being part of the younger generation, have this mentality that “well i have the rest of my life to do this so” but that is not true, you always need to be wise of your actions, there is no right path or choices, it is your opinion.
Ask yourself, is this really what i want to be doing, will my future self thank me for slacking off and leaving my work to the last minute. It is precarious really. Life is about making the best life for you and those around you, if you would rather be slacking off than doing your job for example, you are not living your best life, make the choice to change your job/ surroundings/ friends/ habits/life. Make the right choice.

We all have goals, don’t we? Hit that certain weight at the gym, or get up everyday for 5:30 to do countless hours of work. Well what happens if you break these? Once you have ingrained them into your head and you slip up, the brain can enter a state of depression and anxiety. “If i can’t get up at 5:30 every morning then i am a failure”. I used to think this way about what i wanted in life. I remember i was out kayaking with my sister once, and our brother was ahead of us in sailing back. As i am older than my brother and always strive to be better, this was agitating. I entered this state of anger and resentment to myself and those around me, especially my sister (sorry Catherine!). What i should of done at the time is recollect my thoughts and say to myself ” It is okay to fail, i should be more thankful that we have this opportunity to try new things and for my brother to find something he is good at”. If i did this, then i would of realized that my dad was also in the kayak with my brother and was the one pushing ahead, but that is besides the point. It is absolutely okay to fail, just as long as you keep going afterwards. This fits me perfectly, i aim to write on this blog everyday for the next 30 days, i have already missed a few days! But what that has done for me is that it has shown me what i should truly focus on, this blog, my work and my family. The true goal in life should be trying to achieve balance and security in all aspects, once we get over ourselves and the small things that don’t really matter in life, then maybe all of us can see your version of my dad rowing my brother.