I don't know about you, but directly following Finals, I suffer from exhaustion and the lasting effects of Finals anxiety. Every summer I keep telling myself, "relax for a week, and then you can jump back into life." That week passes, and I still wake up bleary-eyed and totally NOT ready for the day.

As a student planning on taking classes over the summer, I knew I would have a purpose to get up and start my day starting June 5th, but what exactly was I going to do between the last few weeks of May and the first week of June?

Personally, I find the transition between a full semester of classes and goals and the suddenly empty first few weeks of summer to be one of the most difficult transitions to phase through as a college student. Suddenly, you're the master of your schedule, you and only you decide what you will dedicate your time too.

Now an easy solution to this, as I discussed in one of my previous articles, is to pre-plan a tentative plan for summer.

Unfortunately, I found myself spiraling down the rabbit hole of existential crisis a mere two weeks into summer. I struggled to get up after the week of letting myself go and suddenly, all the things I planned for in the summer seemed like they required an amount of energy I wasn't willing to invest and completely uninteresting.

So instead of sticking to a schedule that was only going to make me resent the perimeters I set up for myself, I turned to research answers as to why I might feel unmotivated to do anything and how to change my attitude. When seeking out different resources that offer a lot of great advice like; TedTalks, self-help books, and online discussion threads, I startedlearning about ways I could better myself by lowering anxiety and making the most of summer time.

Even though that wasn't on my original summer to do list, I felt a purpose in my life and a way to take the time I was given during the dead weeks before summer classes and effectively use it to improve my life.

Even though I had recorded possibilities of what I could do in the first couple weeks of summer, I could still choose to spend my time doing something else (I guess the difficulty of leaving a planned "assignment" was a leftover habit from the school semester).

It's so easy to feel restricted by a list or a plan you set out for yourself, but understand that in most cases, you are free to diverge from the path. In fact, you might even discover a hidden gem that will further distinguish your identity and help you grow more than the original plan you set out for yourself.