Once I reached high school, severe migraines were a somewhat regular part of my life. My high-endurance legs, once my pride and joy, started to wear down from my daily soccer games and training sessions. Even worse, my quick-thinking brain, which I considered to be another hallmark of my identity, didn't seem to always problem-solve on command as I had become accustomed to.
At the time, I wasn't self-aware enough to have too much concern about where my life was headed, but each of these issues wore on me in their own separate ways. It was like I was in quicksand; simply put, I wasn't living the life I wanted to live. While these problems wore on throughout my high school experience, I never stopped to give them much thought and so it wasn't until the end of my senior year that I was able to make a change.
As it turned out, it was all about the little things. My diet and sleep schedule were terrible and my all-around self-care practices were practically nonexistent. But to me, I was just living a normal life. Now if you're already self-aware about these things, you may think you have nothing to take away from this. But really I think there is a valuable overall lesson to be taken away from my misguided lifestyle.
After I finally took the time to do my research, I fixed my diet, got better sleep and improved my oral hygiene, among other things. Really, those are the types of practices that I stand by today when things start to go wrong.
Of course there will always be times where it seems nothing is going right, where we get the feeling that we've lost control of our lives. Under those circumstances, it's easy to lose your way and constantly question what to do next. But during those times, there's only one simple answer: control the things you actually can control.
That means eating healthy and staying hydrated. It means planning your day accordingly so you can sleep enough to keep yourself sane. It means listening to music or doing whatever it is that makes you feel relaxed. It means doing whatever you can to give yourself something to feel good about, even if that's just whitening your teeth or trying a new hairstyle.
All these little things may seem largely insignificant in the grand scheme of our lives. But really when you pay them special attention, they can have a permeating impact on the big things.
“Incredible change happens in your life when you decide to take control of what you do have power over instead of craving control over what you don't.” -Steve Maraboli
