Since many students are finishing their finals, I figured that in order to lighten the mood before the holidays, we could learn a bit about how to improve the way we view our shortcomings and how we can improve on them.
I finished my finals early this week and already started receiving some of my final grades for my courses. They were adequate (as usual) but definitely not good enough. As an aspiring med student who is competitive by nature, this news made me feel far from worthy to say the least.
After laying in bed thinking of all the possible excuses for my inadequacy (the curve was terrible, math-based courses are not my strong suite, etc.), I began to doubt my ability to do anything much at all. Questions such as:
“If I cant handle the work now, how will I manage myself later in life?”
“If they can do it, why is it so much harder for me to achieve it?”
“Am I capable of doing the same things as those who have already achieved this feat?”
And so on. You know how that downward spiral of despair goes.
But now that the term is over and winter break has begun, I have time to better myself and my thought process and can jump start this project with my first challenge:
Self Doubt; lack of confidence in oneself and one’s abilities.
When something doesn’t go your way, people will either:
A) Accept it and move on
B) Refuse to accept and find out why
We want to be the latter group. Why? Because those who seek to continue learning shall improve. If we were to become overly complacent, the human race would not continue to evolve in at the pace we are at today.
Thus, after feeling sorry for myself, I got up and decided to make this week’s self-improvement challenge about tackling self-doubt using the steps as listed in the diagram:
1. Identify your strengths and weaknesses
2. Plan your course of action
3. Take Action by developing your skills and implementing them
4. Review and Reflect on your outcomes and achievements
I love writing things down because it makes it seem official to me, so I will be writing this down on a master plan sheet and placing reminders in my agenda. If anyone has a problem they would like to tackle using this method, please let me know how it works for you! I hope to be able to implement this in hopes of bettering my study habits for my final semester in undergraduate university!
Until next time,
K
The Human Element 