My proposal was centered around my issues with dwelling on negative thoughts and the belief that what I do and if who I am is good enough. I touched on the moments that caused or made me realize that I was letting these habits stop me from being "happy."

When creating a plan on how to stop these negative behaviors I didn't have a clear-cut plan, I thought I would be able to just tell myself to stop and that would be the end to the problems. I spoke about how on the scale they were both at a 10 because I desperately needed and wanted to change my behaviors. And also my inability to accept myself for who I am and my actions.

At the beginning of the challenge, I was trying so hard to fix my thoughts. I remember before Thanksgiving break I kept thinking about how over school I am because my grades aren't where I want them even though I've been trying hard. Thinking about that caused all the negative thoughts to resurface and it doesn't help that I have anxiety so all the negative hit me at once and I started getting muscle pains and my really bad headaches. I automatically got mad at myself because I failed so quickly but it made me realize that negative thoughts have literally become a part of me and thinking less of myself.

With the fear of failing, I asked my mother to send me the packet my doctor gave me in the summer for my panic attacks and it really helped. For example one day I was packing to go back home for Thanksgiving and I realized how I only have my parents and brothers because the rest of my family is in Mali so Thanksgiving was basically useless. I read a part of the pamphlet that said when I feel a panic attack coming on or any negative thoughts coming to focus my energy on something else happening around me and that helped tremendously. Ever since I started using the pamphlet as a part of the challenge I've noticed one very important thing, I can finally sleep at normal times and I don't wake up at random times.

Also, another substitution I used was comedy, I've been using comedy as a coping method for years. When I felt the negative thoughts about to ruin my mood for the day I would put it on a Trevor Noah stand up because that never fails to make me laugh, I also noticed that when I was back at home the negative thoughts and self-pity wasn't as bad because I always have my family to distract me with their humor. So when I got to GW I realized that the facetime calls weren't cutting it I needed to have my family physically around to help me cope with these negative habits.

I also used my friend Manee to help me with my negative thoughts for example if I was having a bad day we would walk around D.C and explore and just talk about life. I remember a Saturday where I almost lost the challenge again because I was being really hard on myself so we went to get crepes and then just went thrift shopping and that really helped me.

When doing the challenge I put my best effort forward because I want to be at ease with my thoughts and be a lot happier with myself, my work, and other actions in general. My mom has been my buddy since I was told I had anxiety, she was excited about this class so when I told her about this challenge she was all for it.

She called me every day to check up on me as usual and to make sure I was respecting my goal. But one night I called her crying because I started panicking because the semester is almost over. She told me to relax and to breath, once I got back to New York we went for a drive and reassured me that my family is proud of me trying so hard. So having someone holding me accountable is very normal and wasn't a change.

All in all, I feel as though the challenge has helped me get my sleep schedule semi together also I feel as though my thoughts are a lot more positive.