I think as college students we have all become familiar with the feeling of being overwhelmed. Before I started this article I had to figure out how I was going to manage my homework and study time while devoting enough time to my family to celebrate my brother's birthday and the holiday. Personally, I have a bad practice of pushing myself so far for so long that I become weary of my responsibilities and end up crashing somewhere down the line. What I think is a better approach and one I've done my best to implement for myself is maintaining a practice of regularly stopping and grounding myself in the moment to recharge from the efforts I've given and to prepare for the moments that I need to put forth effort again.

I frequently find myself disillusioned with the idea that I have to stay worried about my deadlines and my work in order to be successful, but I don't think that is necessarily true. I'd much rather feel healthy about the way I approach my goals and I think that that means learning to handle situations in the following ways. Be proactive when you can be; teach yourself that you can enjoy doing something decades before you need to do it so that the goal is accomplished and you don't feel the pressures of deadlines. Be mindful of deadlines but do not allow the encroaching feeling that they give you cause any negative stress, instead turn that rush into motivation to focus and hone in on what needs to be accomplished. Think of those rushed moments as practice for situations where you have to perform under pressure and just do your best. Become appreciative of your accomplishments AND your failures. You didn't make your deadline on an assignment but you gave the assignment your best shot, so be proud of it, learn from it. Don't let one failure or a succession of failures bring you down or discourage you from doing better the next time. Learning to accept your failures is the first step in turning the following attempts into successes without the stress and negativity that comes from over-powering self-criticism.

"Take your time, hurry up, the choice is yours, don't be late" these words from the voice of the band Nirvana, Kurt Cobain, are applicable to the closest thing to actual Nirvana that I think we as students can obtain, that being peace of mind. Don't rush, stay cool under pressure, accept the results you generate and be proactive if you can be. Stay healthy and stay blessed friends.