Trev

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Chapter 9 of the One Life Manifesto: Sleep.

I want to talk about waking up as a morning ritual. Even before breakfast, waking up is the most important process to start off your day. I’ve seen many people struggle with getting up early and tackling the day. Part of it is not having something to wake up to. We need some sort of a burning desire. Your 9-to-5 job isn’t getting you excited enough to wake you up early. As the job starts at nine, what are you doing between the hours of 5 am to 9 am? You have four hours before you start your job! What are you doing in those hours? Likely sleeping in as long as you can.

You can accomplish quite a bit with just an extra hour per day. Its translated to 365 hours in a year. That is a significant amount of time with just one additional hour per day. When you think about it that way, it would be beneficial to have a structure where you go to sleep and you wake up as consistently as possible, at the same times, without sleeping in.

How much extra time you have is free time. If you can eliminate the chaos in a day, you will have more free time and the flexibility to get things done without stress. The flexibility to get things done that you want to get done. If you wake within a reasonable time, you will have more free time. Then you can get even more done, and be more productive. If you take that free time and use some of it for a new exercise routine, you will be even more energized throughout the day compared to if you had slept in.

There is the concept of night owls and early birds. I feel that night owls are night owls because they have chosen to stay up late and they have chosen to sleep in. However, if one day you decide to go to bed at 9pm and just go to sleep at 9pm, you will wake up early, naturally, without any alarm clock. You are unlikely to sleep in to the same number of hours. You only need 6 hours in a day and your body can adjust to that.

When we went to school for years, our classes were in the morning at 8am sharp. We had to be there early. We had to be up early. So as children we learned to wake up and handle that endeavour. We had no choice. We had to get up. We were forced to get up. Hence the reason why in our later years we don’t perhaps enjoy waking up early.

Our childhood days had structured wake up times and maybe that was annoying for you. But there is a way to really make it enjoyable again. To make waking up enjoyable, you just have to get passionate about something and focus on the benefits. Focus on the opportunities of having those extra hours. Another tip is to feel exhausted by the end of the day. If you are exhausted by 9 o’clock or 10 o’clock, you will just fall asleep automatically. The minute you hit your bed you will be so exhausted because you worked hard for that day. You will just fall asleep and have a quality rest.

Having several alarm clocks around the house is another way to wake yourself up in the morning. By the time you shut off all of the alarm clocks in the morning, you will be wide awake. The process of turning everything off wakes you up, whether you like it or not.

Once you get up and once you make your bed, you will be less likely to go back and crawl in. You worked hard to make that bed. That’s a great way to start your day.

I find that some people don’t even need alarm clocks. They wake up because their sleep hours are so structured that they are in bed by 10. They are up by 5 or 6. Their body is just naturally awake. They need no stimulus to wake them up. This requires supreme discipline to be in bed at a specific time. Most people may be at a party, or their family keeps them up. It could be worthwhile to have a set sleep schedule for one or two months to experiment with your sleep.

Over one month I tested the concept of waking up at 3:30am each morning. I would be in bed by 9:30pm every night. I would get six hours of sleep every night. At first it was challenging to be up at 3:30. But then I became determined and said to myself that I have to work out first thing in the morning. I have to go and do this. I have to grind and just get motivated to be up at 3:30 to gain the benefits of being up before everyone else is. I need to get motivated for the vitality and the energy that I will receive. With a consistent schedule, you will never wake up groggy and without energy again. Tackle the day.

Waking up is the hardest part of your day and requires that desire to get after something. So, it’s so important that you have something that you can work on. It really wakes you up. If you have the structure that says: I have to be at this or I have to be at this destination at this specific time, then you will essentially have the urgency to be up. You are forced to be up, just like in childhood. If you don’t have a job and you are self-employed, you need to build urgency around whatever it is you are working on. Say: I have to be up for this. Because no one else is going to take my place and wake up for me.

I believe it is laziness that’s holding people back from waking up. Laziness that is preventing them from hitting that snooze button one more time. I think it’s a lack of determination, a lack of preparation for what’s ahead. A lack of interest in something. Laziness is not a trait, it’s a bad habit that can be changed. You can condition yourself so that you are not lazy. You can become hungry and wake up early to get you the satisfaction that you simply do not get from sleeping in. I can’t think of anyone that’s excited or proud to have slept in till 9 or 10am. I can’t think of anyone who is excited about that. Who is mentally happy about that? Who accepts that?
When everyone else is up, the world is already moving along. The last two or three hours you slept through have already put you behind. You are now psychologically thinking you are already behind. You are in a state of panic. Because the world moves and you stand still. That is not a great feeling to have.

However, it is possible for you to catch up if you are up at 5am, greeting the day because you know you will be ahead of the game. You will be ahead of everyone else. That is a great feeling. Psychologically you will have set yourself up for happiness today because of your early morning. By waking up early, you will command your world. That is a powerful feeling to have, to be in control of yourself. You are not guided by physiological responses to waking up early.

Sometimes it helps to make sure that your electronics are off. They are at a distance so that if some alert or notification comes in, it doesn’t disrupt your sleep. Because if your sleep is interrupted, that can affect your wake-up time. Your bedroom should be like a temple. A silent temple where you hear nothing and you are just deep in sleep.

Consider your opportunity in the day to be successful and your opportunity to make an impact. Consider what you can do with those additional hours. What you can accomplish. What you can work towards. People say they don’t have time. I always look at the time they spend in a day and see the things that don’t matter. Here is where you have time. Stop doing that activity. But when I find out people sleep in, that is the first way to gain some time.

I look at how people spend their evenings. If you stop watching TV, you are going to save yourself some serious time to get ahead in life. The concept of winding down doesn’t make sense to me as you should just go to sleep instead of watching TV. Sleep is your winding-down session. Hop in bed, fall asleep, done. You should be tired and exhausted, not winding down with TV. Pursuing an unproductive activity like TV will ruin you.

Next time you wake up, immerse yourself in your thoughts and how you feel at that moment. When you wake up, do you feel good for having slept in or do you feel regret or guilt? Do better by waking earlier next time. Most importantly, if you have a consistent sleep structure, you are more likely to feel better the next day. Get in bed at this time. Get out of bed at this time. That is your seven-days-a-week process. You will adjust, you will adapt to that schedule. You will feel like it is the only schedule to ensure that you have the most energy in a day.

Observe your sleep schedule. Is it erratic. Are you sleeping in one day? Are you up early the next? Your body does not like those fluctuations. Then you counter-balance the deprivation with caffeine. Yet caffeine is not good for you as a sleep alternative. It is only a short-term stimulant, then you are back to your original groggy state. Natural sleep is the way to go to avoid inhaling unnecessary stimulants.

Sleeping pills are a major industry. If people just properly had a schedule and exhausted themselves throughout the day, they’d fall asleep. Do mindful activities that really take all of your energy away. Take on challenging tasks. By the end of the day your brain will be naturally tired. You will just crash and sleep. No sleeping pills necessary. Work harder. Get more exhausted. Then you will have nothing left in you. Your sleep will be of much better quality. You will go into a deep sleep from the exhaustion. Your body will just require every ounce of sleep. When you wake up, you will be well-rested. You will be ready to go for the next day.

I am against napping throughout the day. I feel that when you nap, you are more likely to have a lower quality of sleep at night. You might be more restless at night. These long naps throughout the day are not the best use of time because you should have a full level of energy throughout the day if you are healthy. You should have a ton of energy to carry yourself throughout the day. Then if you nap, if you absolutely must have one, it should be no longer than 10 minutes. A quick napping dose to get that extra energy boost in you. Just enough for you to push forward. Not a 45-60 minute nap. That is extreme and unnecessary. I am not saying napping is a sign of laziness or weakness. Instead it’s more of a procrastinator.

You should be continuously motivated throughout the day to tackle a particular task. You do not need a nap to compensate. You should be continually motivated to tackle the day. Try getting into a habit of proper sleep. Six to eight hours. If you want to work harder, get six. See the benefits with the extra time you gain from a disciplined sleep schedule.

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Chapter 8 of the One Life Manifesto: Health.

I would say throughout my life I have been fairly healthy. I don’t do drugs. I’m not into drinking alcohol. My diet is fairly controlled. Like everyone else, I have my cheat days. But I have never been overweight. I have never been obese. I have always been skinny. I mostly thank my high metabolism for that. But you know what? If I wanted to, I could be obese. It could definitely happen. All I need is more sugar, more salt, more unhealthy fats, tons of carbs. That’s what makes up our North American diet. If I eat a lot more crap, then I could be that individual.

But that’s not me. I am psychologically not capable of going down that road of unhealthy eating habits. I want to discuss with you how I have really conditioned myself to live a very healthy life. There are so many benefits to what I am about to describe. You will be much happier, much more focused, with more energy than you have ever felt before. That’s what good health brings you. It brings you a higher level of intelligence, less stress, less anxiety, less bodily issues, less of that need to go to the hospital. Less of that need to go to the doctor. Less of that need to subscribe for medications. I am happy to say I am not on any medications. No medications to rule my life and dictate what I can and cannot do. I feel limitless and that is due to my good health.

It doesn’t take much. I am not the gold standard by any stretch. Actually, I approach a very simple process to ensure that I have a good, healthy life. It’s not over-complicated at all. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Watch the media and news outlets suggesting you need to try this diet or that diet. Problem is, once you listen to too many voices, you start a new diet every week. Your body doesn’t like the on-and-off inconsistencies. Your body and mind both need to get into a habit of one simple routine.

Think when you go to grocery stores. You find that the majority of foods are filled with sugar. The aisles are covered with high-sodium and high-sugar foods, with the bakery taking up a big portion of the store. They’re calling out to you: I am the sugary treat, eat me. Come and try me out. It’s there every time you go to the grocery store. It’s not easy to turn right and ignore. It’s in the aisles as well. Sprinkled in with the healthy foods.

Right next to the produce area is typically the bakery. It’s almost impossible to go and get your fruits and vegetables without seeing a cake, cookie, or pie in the distance. There is no control on the amount of unhealthy food in the grocery store. There does not seem to be any government control on this. Governments have these health care issues and they wonder why.

We are talking about a 50% obesity rate in countries like Canada and the USA. Maybe that’s why healthcare is not so great. Most people are in hospitals because of a heart attack or cancer caused by the food we eat. Due to unhealthy living and an unhealthy lifestyle. Maybe if the government controlled what kinds of foods were in a grocery store, there would be less of that.

It’s a psychological habit when you see the unhealthy item. You have the desire to pick it up. If it is there in front of you in the grocery store, your brain says: I crave that. You go for it. But if it is out of sight, it is out of mind. You are less likely to fall into the trap. You know I love my cookies. I love my cakes. I love my pies. But I do not eat them every day. It’s not part of my normal routine. My normal eating routine is a specific set of foods. I don’t have a ton of salt, I don’t have a ton of sugar.

Healthy foods require some study. It requires you to be understanding of the foods that are out there and why you need to eat those foods that are healthy. Understand why they are good for you and why they bring you energy. You need to educate yourself if you want to implement this change. The more educated you are, the more disciplined you can be with not eating the unhealthy foods. I know you will have cheat days sometimes. It is important not to feel guilty if you do.

It’s your opportunity to get disciplined. Turn that page. Re-adjust. Your family may be a reason why you don’t eat healthy. Maybe they are the ones who go to the grocery stores and they take charge. They buy the foods. Maybe it’s time for you to take initiative and say: hey! Why don’t you let me take this on for today? I am sure they would appreciate it if you put in some effort and went shopping with them to help them out. Say: hey! Let me get dinner tonight. Bring home a healthy dinner everyone can enjoy.

Don’t let others buy food for you. Perhaps they are putting toxins in your body, moving you closer and closer to hospitalization. That is the harsh reality. If you go down the road of obesity, you will be in need of medical help. Whether it be through medications or sickness, you will need to go to the doctor more. I don’t like going to the doctor. When I do go, it’s hopefully for maintenance. There are never any serious physical issues with me as I eat healthy.

Here is the food-buying process. When I go to the grocery store, I focus on two particular areas: produce and meat. That is it. The other aisles I pay very little attention to. Now I am detached mentally from the other aisles. I do not go down the other aisles. I have a specific set of foods that I have in mind before I go shopping so that I don’t get swayed by temptation. Produce and meats. No frozen meats or foods. Frozen items are just as bad as table salt by itself, filled with preservatives and salt to keep it fresh past the expiry date.

People want convenience. They want fast. They want quick. They want cheap. The perception is that frozen food is cheap and easy to cook. Frozen food sounds good. Can’t go wrong there. Get a pizza, throw it in the oven, and it’s good to go. It’s not the best approach to think of food as convenience. Food is not convenient. Food is a necessity. Food is a big part of your life. Food provides the fuel for functioning throughout the day. You put the right food in your body, your body will work without a hiccup. Put the wrong food in and you will break down. You will fall apart. Your body cannot function the same way. I see all these people who are exhausted by the end of the day.

I have plenty of energy with no caffeine, no lattes, no unhealthy foods. I fill my body with greens. 75% of my plate is greens. Most people don’t even have that many greens, if any. People look at greens as if the taste is just not there. Forget the taste. Move past the idea that food has to be delicious, even though healthy food can be, easily. If food has to taste sugary and salty, move past that thought. Get to the point where you can enjoy the food as it is. I may be an extreme example because I will eat a handful of spinach and enjoy the taste and the texture. I know it is healthy for me, and I feel great afterwards. I enjoy my handful of spinach. Of course, I will encourage you to put olive oil on it to get some healthy fats. Mix healthy vegetables together with a few fried eggs on top and boom, you’ve got yourself a delicious salad. Olive oil is your dressing. You do not need vinaigrettes and ranch dressing full of unhealthy fats. Vinaigrettes are mostly full of salts and sugars. They are disguised as healthy and light salad dressings, yet they are not.

As a rule of thumb, the foods that die a couple of days later are the foods that you should consume. The fruits that wither are the fruits that you should consume. When it comes to meats we jump quickly to talk about the expense. I disagree. I feel that fresh meats are actually less expensive than the usual junk out there. You are cutting away all of the salts and you are getting exactly the food that you need to fill your body. It is like premium gasoline for your sports car. You are going to be running smoother with premium fuel. So, it is worth the investment.

When you break it down, you can get bulk fresh meat, freeze them, and only eat what you need. In fresh meat you get a full dose of that protein, a full dose of whole food that fills you up for hours. Potato chips are astonishingly very popular, but absolutely toxic. There are healthier options these days, but still they are not healthy enough. They are just lighter, which means you will eat more of them. Smaller, which means you will just eat more.

I recommend you transition to snacks that are healthy. Switch over to walnuts, almonds and other unsalted nuts. Perhaps some raisins to get that iron in there. Raisins are a good substitute to sugary foods because they have a healthy, natural sugar. Apples are another alternative to sugary foods. Nice, delicious apples to me are much better than any candy. It has the high fibre that I need to fuel my day. I like having them in the morning for breakfast. These are very basic, simple foods that are absolutely easy to consume. Yet you just pass them in the grocery store like they don’t exist.

I recommend that you review what you are buying at the grocery store. Consider clearing away all the garbage in your household. If you have healthy food in your household, you are more likely to eat healthy. Fill your shelves with healthy foods. If you have a cheat day, that is okay. Embrace it. If you have several in a row, you may wish to review why.

For me I look at the mirror and I say there is no way I could ever be obese. It’s not something that I would want to put myself into. I never want to go to the hospital. If I become obese I will become hospitalized. I would never be able to handle the stresses of life. Plus the horror of the hospital just scares me away. I do not want to go down that road ever. Psychologically, I must eat healthy. I simply cannot eat unhealthy for days. I never want to put myself through that misery.

That is my discussion on food. It is a tough grind to make the adjustment. Your diet is more important than your exercise. 70% of who you are today is due to your diet. Your appearance is dictated by your diet. So, if you get your food in order, you will find life to be a little easier.

You might need somebody to help you out. For me, my brother encouraged me to eat healthier. Although I have always been fairly particular about what I eat, my parents helped by putting vegetables on my plate when growing up. So, I understood what was required to eat a healthy meal. As far as meats are concerned, I don’t eat anything too heavy. I prefer chicken, salmon and turkey. All the lean variety. I don’t deviate too much from that. It is my strategy and I alternate between those three meals. It keeps things interesting. Gives me the variety I need. Satisfies my cravings for food. Once you have your food, nutrition and diet taken care of, you will be more equipped to handle the next piece, which is exercise.

Exercise is not fun for everyone. I don’t always enjoy my routine, but I do it. I know I must do it to keep myself in shape and keep my muscles tuned. So, I have some very small routines that I do every day. I get into yoga every morning to get some flexibility. This keeps me conditioned. I go for some basic walks. All you really need to do is walk around the block every day. I started with that. I try to get a 30-minute walk in every day. You can do it during your lunch break or while you’re at your work, heading to meetings. Ideally you should get it done in the morning, when you wake up. Go for exercise and then you are done for the day. You move on with the rest of your tasks, knowing the hardest part of the day is over with.

If you exercise in the morning, first thing, you will feel amazing for the rest of your day. You will feel like you could conquer the world. It’s a pretty great feeling to have. Why not exercise in the morning? Why not take advantage of the time that you have in the morning? Get up early. Go for a run. Go for that walk. Do something that you enjoy. Dance, stretch. Find an activity you enjoy and embrace it. Do it with somebody else. Get that exercise in. Have sex with your partner, it’s a fun way to burn those calories. For the couples out there it is the most fun way to get your exercise done. Nothing wrong with that. It also shows you love your significant other.

Exercise is that other important piece to ensure that you are healthy, happy and ready to tackle your day. It should be like brushing your teeth. Nobody ever tells you this, but exercise is what brushing your teeth is for the body. It’s required. Nobody ever pushed this 30-minutes-a-day concept when I was young. You just need at least 30 minutes a day to be healthy! But it really is true.

If you just have that routine every day and have it as a process, you are getting something amazing done. By exercising 30 minutes a day, you will live longer, you will live happier. If you are injured, take the day off. You can get back to it. Just like food, you can have cheat days. Don’t plan to have cheat days for skipping or resting, but it could happen and that’s okay. Don’t beat yourself up over it. But just stick to the process of a proper fitness routine. I hope you can make a positive impact in your life to feel good and feel healthy. I want you to feel strong.

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Chapter 7 of the One Life Manifesto: Confidence.

Let’s continue the conversation we had about fear as it ties into confidence. When you overcome fear, you become confident. That is the benefit. Confidence makes you a very powerful person. Confidence is a fantastic trait to be associated with. There is likely something you can think of right now that you are comfortable with. Your fearlessness with that item shows you are confident. That is attractive. Confidence is a very attractive state to be in. I know you cannot be confident in everything. But even if you are confident in one thing, people will take notice. They will realize that you are fearless in that one area. You become a specialist in that one area. Confidence is the result of you tackling your fear. It is the reward.

It’s just a great feeling because you are free from anxiety. You are free from negative emotions. You are aware of the activity and you can tackle it with the ease and effortlessness that others look at in awe. I have never really been one to show confidence. In my subject matter, I think I hesitate and I kind of wean on one side or the other. It’s only been until recently that I started creating content and really taking control of my voice, my views, and my thoughts. Confidence comes with maturity. Confidence comes with understanding who you are. Confidence comes with understanding your capabilities, your strengths, and your weaknesses.

If you spend more time on areas where you can be strong, you will be more confident. You will show the confidence desired. But if you spend your time on areas of known weakness, it may be futile. These weaknesses cannot take you to the level that your strengths can. They are just not your forte. They are not for you. They are not your nature. That is okay. Ignoring the weaknesses shows that you are not focused on what you are weak at. People will begin to notice your strengths more. The strengths will overshadow any weaknesses. You will be perceived positively despite your shortcomings.

Notice how you feel as you continue to work on the things that you are skilled at. Being self-aware of what you can control and what you can improve on is important. Not everyone is destined to be an astronaut. Not everyone is destined to be a musician or an actor. We spend our lives trying to be something that we are not. That makes it very difficult for us to be confident in our true identities.

We can try to be confident in something lacking confidence. Chances are if you are passionate about something and you are determined, you can be confident in that item. But if you waiver, if you are uncertain, you will never have the confidence needed. Find that passion, find that one thing you want to be good at and get confident in it. Break down fears. Master it.

With dating and relationships, your confidence in communication is important. Nowadays you can be confident via text. We have Snapchat, we have images, we have videos. You can exude confidence without words. Nonverbal communication can now be a confident trait in many of the younger generations. Eventually you will have to speak though. It will be important to speak well and carry yourself well. So, I do hope that you don’t let the social media bubble hide you from the importance of face-to-face communication and the ability to talk to people.

In order to be a confident man or woman you need to be confident with the opposite sex. I have talked about this before: it’s about exposing yourself to these fearful events to build up that needed confidence. In psychology, they call it exposure therapy. Where they will put you in a mechanism of continuously being shown something until you are very much comfortable. You become acclimatized to that event.

I recommend you go through your own self-exposure therapy to get confident in the things that matter. Psychologically, that is what is holding you back. The way that you overcome that fear and be confident is to expose yourself to the fear repeatedly, over and over again. Remember the idea of riding a bike, it was fearful. You exposed yourself day-after-day to the training wheels, to the point where you were comfortable with the handlebars. Then you became comfortable with two wheels. You were ready to take off a few wheels to the point where you could ride that two-wheeled bike confidently. It’s repeated exposure. Your parents put you through this at a young age and it’s torture. It’s absolute torture for many of you. For others, you naturally enjoy it. You jump on and say it is exciting.

Constant exposure of something that you don’t enjoy can be very painful. There is however a positive reward at the end of the tunnel. It may be worth it to push through and continue to expose yourself. That exposure therapy is at the heart of breaking your fears. And if you feel that it’s not easy to do alone, I find that the help of others can really accelerate your confidence. They will help you to the point where you will break fears down much quicker and become more confident. I’m lucky to have a family that I can work with daily on this.

Break your fear down into a process. Talk about a fear aloud and say: I am scared of this, I need some help. I need more support to become more confident. I am not sure I can do this alone. It does not hurt to have somebody help you overcome fears, whether it be a mentor or a peer at work. You can build your confidence up quicker when you have a partner. They will hold you accountable. They will ensure that you are on track. Your mentor, your peer, your friend, your family member. They will all keep you on your toes, as they should. It is important to have accountability.

You go through school and education for many years, well over a decade. Many years of continuous learning experiences to absorb knowledge. You can get comfortable with a particular topic as you get into a particular concentration or major. Schools start off exposing you to many different subjects so that you get a taste of what’s out there. Schools are designed to funnel you into a particular area that you excel at. By the time you are 18, 19, or 20, you can decide quite easily what you are good at. If I look at school in that sense, I say it’s great exposure to subjects that you may be interested in. I only wish it showed me more. It does not show you everything.

There are important life skills that you must learn along the way. You must put to practice the knowledge of school. The textbook alone does not build up your confidence. The subject matter and the real world are two very different things. That is why we still deal with tremendous fears when we graduate because we don’t know how to navigate the world. We are still uncertain about what will happen to us. I wish that a year would be mandatory away from school to expose us to the real world and really show what is out there. The trials and tribulations of starting a venture, the process of dealing with failure.

To become confident, you must experience failure. You need to be in love with failure. You need to enjoy the feeling of having failed at something. In school, we were taught that failure is bad. That failure should bring anxiety to you as you strive for excellence with exams and tests. You could be on probation (like I was) or you could be kicked out of school. That’s a negative circumstance. Why would anyone want to fail? Nobody would.

Problem is, you then graduate and failure in the real world trickles into your life. You have no way of knowing how to handle failure as you are still not conditioned. You are not taught to fail when you are young. You are taught to succeed and just be very confident in success, even if it is false. You receive 7th place, 8th place, and 9th place rewards for mediocrity. 7th place doesn’t get you a job. You are built up to be falsely confident in failed endeavours. It astounds me that children don’t understand failure. They are encouraged to brush it off and not learn from the mistakes. Not suffer. Not learn that failure is okay.

By Grade 4, you are given letter grades. If you have an F, you are not coached. You are left behind, you are forgotten. It doesn’t feel good, having failed. The people who have A’s, they will receive more attention. They should. They are confident in their subject matter. However, the people who have failed are likely in the wrong place. They may be confident elsewhere. It should be the teacher’s task to find out where F students can be confident. Promote those activities.

In schools, we are pigeon-holed to do specific classes. There is not much flexibility until university. Even then, the structure is similar to pre-secondary education. Exams take focus. We should have been exposed to exams at a young age – it wasn’t until high school that I took my first exam. We should make exams out to be fearless activities. But we are judged, we are criticized based on exam results.

Hence these enormous fears and anxieties around exams in university. People go into a depression and commit suicide because of the exams. As the date of the exam approaches, people get into a mess. They are in a complete disarray. It’s because they don’t like exams. It’s not something that they can be strong in. For me I had a difficulty in taking exams. I simply was not good at exams regardless of the subject matter. I excelled in project-based work with teams and collaborations. I enjoyed working my ass off to complete a project. That is what I excelled in.

To take a few weeks and study for a very specific type of exam was and is not for me. It may not be for you too. School is based on that. I find that in elementary school, we mostly work on projects. Prevalence of exams is much greater as you get older, even though it’s not necessarily for everyone. I believe it is okay if you work better in other ways.

In the real world it is unlikely you will ever take a single exam. Unless you continue to go to school. Then you will have many. But in the real world, your employer is not going to give you an exam. I suppose it’s a way of figuring out how you handle pressure. I don’t think it’s the way to test aptitude. You are not cognitively conditioned to handle exams. You are set up for failure. You are set to be miserable. Especially when you are waiting to do projects instead and you are craving fun projects. You are craving a specific type of work and your school is not providing that for you. Then how can you enjoy school? How can you be confident in your abilities in school?

As I talked about previously, spending time on your weaknesses may not necessarily be the way to go. Schools only show your weaknesses. It is demoralizing to be going to school when all you do is work on your least-favourite interests. You never get to work on your strengths. Then you are negatively exposing yourself to the wrong things. Positive reinforcement is essential and exposure to the activities that help you grow is imperative. That is what I encourage to build up your confidence.

As you get out of university, you are in control of your level of confidence. You can take on the world however you please. Nobody is there to hold your hand. Mentors are ever more important to keep you accountable. You won’t have any more teachers to babysit you once you finish university. Teachers are gone. So, who do you have to teach you? Who do you have to build your confidence?

It’s up to you to find those people. It’s up to you to find those circumstances where you can continue to break your fears. People who are headed into their 50’s, 60’s and 70’s have this fear. Fear of life. They never experienced what they could have. I look at them and I say to myself: that is an individual filled with regrets. Regret for not having done something sooner. They are living in the fear of the unknown.

I don’t want you to grow up and be one of those people. I want you to be confident and fearless. I want you to feel excited about some endeavour. Confident in your work. Passionate. Living a fearful life is no life to live. So, I hope that you break down barriers and get confident. Struggle through. The pain is worth it to receive that reward. Confidence to become that better person is important.