Tag: Stephanie Fowler

Another Semester Bites the Dust

If I told you I had an undergrad degree with a co-op designation and multiple terms on the dean’s list, and a public relations certificate, would you believe me if I said I still didn’t know how to be a student?

This semester was HARD. I feel like I felt an entirely new level of stress and anxiety. I’m in a hard place to trying to entirely focus on school to get the grades I need to get into med school, but also not fall apart at the seams in the finance department. This semester I had a part time job for the four months, was balancing volunteer work, with limited to social/free time, and a half course load of very heavy classes (read my first chemistry class EVER, my first university math class, and biology).

Not to mention, I’m still battling my low energy levels. I started on consistent iron supplements in February, regular B12 shots since March, and slightly more attention to nutrition. But I’m also fallen off my iron pills and nutrition in the last month. Like cliff-dived.

Today, I wrapped up my final of three cumulative exams. I definitely feel like a weight was lifted off my shoulders but I also still have this heavy feeling in my stomach. This is the first time in my academic career where I’m not absolutely relieved to be done. This leads to me to a very clear revelation that things need to change in the fall. I am not deterred from school, in fact I know this drive is ever more clear to get myself INTO med school. I am deterred from feeling this overwhelmed and having a weekly scheduled completely bogged down, every hour of the day.

Here’s to figuring out a solid plan when I head back to the books in the fall (if not this summer-I’m trying to get onto a waitlist at another school to take the next level of chemistry).

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Let’s Get It

There’s times, and often times in the morning, that I’m not overly inspired. My energy levels are lower, my motivation is virtually non-existent, and it takes A LOT of mental energy to remove me from my couch, that is if I have left my bed.

I am NOT a morning person. There I said it. I’ve read countless articles that say the most successful people take advantage of their mornings. But really, it’s an uphill battle.

I’ve been trying to figure out HOW to overcome this sluggish start to my days. I tested out early morning fitness classes. But quickly learned this was not working for my energy levels in my academic classes. And this is a space in my life that I definitely need the energy. So back to the drawing board I go. What I’ve learned is that the late morning/early afternoon is where I am the most productive.

I think now that I’ve realized that, I need to figure out how to BEST optimize my time during that block, but also improve the other time blocks. There are so many things I want to do. So let’s start SMALL.

I found this app called Way of Life, the Ultimate Habit Building App through a podcast I listened to in the new year. And it has been awesome! Super clear and easy to use. I’ve developed a few habits including: consistently testing my blood sugars at meals, FLOSSING, and drinking water. I’m currently working on exercising MORE, yoga’ing consistently, and reading.

More specifically, I want to dedicate 30 minutes every morning walking. That’s just 15 minutes away from my home, and 15 minutes back. That’s my small step in trying to make my mornings a bit more productive.

 

Let’s get it. Here is another go at increasing my productivity and energy levels. What are you currently working on? Please let me know!

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Revised Priorities Plan

Can you believe it is already past the midway point of January? January for me so far has absolutely been jam packed, as I try to tackle my top three priorities:

  1. Focusing on school
  2. Maintaining a consistent fitness routine
  3. Building maintaining community especially on social media

I shared priorities with a former teacher, and friend recently and she suggested maybe I was tackling too much. This idea kind of shocked me. I mean really, it’s only three goals. But as I reflected on the past weeks, I realized that my energy levels were almost at an all time low. Although I was hitting every point I had aimed to check off, I was not doing it in a sustainable way.

I know for sure that I do not want to feel like I could always use a nap. I want to be energized and revving to go for whatever a day may throw at me. So that means I need to readjust and revise my plan to meet my priorities for January.

On realizing this, I downloaded some new podcasts to listen to in my car, that I knew were inspiring, but would also offer something tangible I could apply in my life. I downloaded a few of Gary Vaynerchuk‘s, Tim Ferris‘, and the Harvard Business Review.

In a recent HBR podcast, 505, Tara Mohr, shared an idea of letting go of fear, but also of praise. This is not something I’ve really thought about before. But it really made sense to me. If you’re a high achiever you might recognize this in yourself. Where you make decisions based on what you can achieve and the praise you will receive. Mohr, suggests that this can hold us back, similar to how fear works.

Another HBR podcast, 504, Heidi Grant Halvorson, shared a new idea to goal setting that really clicked for me. She suggested to frame you goals as if….then….statements. It makes your decision making regarding your goals a little bit easier. And it can also incorporate backup plans. For example, if I have two or more classes on a day, I will do an evening workout.

I definitely suggest downloading those two podcasts. They will explain these ideas much more fully.

Based on these ideas, I’ve revised my January to plan to look like this:

  1. If I have one class, I will exercise in the morning.
  2. If I have two or more classes, I will do an evening class, or a take a rest day.
  3. If I have a test up coming the next week, I will only meet with one person during the week.

*I also want to be really focused on improving my energy levels. The first two weeks of January, saw me meeting my 3x weekly spin classes with 6:15am or 7:15am classes. But then I immediately noticed I hit my first wall of the day midway through my 10am class. This was supporting my fitness goal, but was not positively supporting my academic goals. So I am making this energy level idea a higher priority this month.

I am first addressing this by shifting the timing of my classes, outlined a bit more in my goals above. I am also going to book a consulting appointment with a nutritionist who can help me figuring out if I am fuelling properly.

Did you set new priorities or goals for the new year? Let me know how they are going. Leave a comment below or shoot me an email stephaniepamelafowler@gmail.com. I’m taking Devon Brooks‘ lead and supporting my community to be accountable.

 

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Post Finals Brain

For the past month and a bit I’ve been in a self-induced academic cave. I was determined to do well on my finals to finish my first semester back at school with a bang. I was constantly thinking about school. Then this past Monday, I wrote two finals. And woooooosh. My brain was finally free to think of things other than academia. It was the strangest feeling.

I mentioned this to a teller at a bank recently, who was also a student, and found we had the same kind of feeling. Isn’t it strange how you can shift your mindset like this? After I left the bank,  I felt a bit odd that I could freely think about almost anything. So much so that I wasn’t sure what to think.

Here’s to getting back to weekly posts as we head into the holiday season, and soon to be new year!

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Narrowing My Focus

Going back to school this past September, has really opened my eyes to a sense of balance. There are four main areas that are top priority for me:
1. School-doing well
2. Personal relationships-maintaining them and treating them properly
3. Wellness-taking care of my health through physical activity and proper nutrition
4. Financial-my back account desparately marks it’s level of importance in my priorities

What I’ve really been noticing is that I am not managing these areas very well. Physical activity has absolutely fallen to the wayside. Nutrition, is creeping its way back up, especially with the support of my boyfriend. Financial, absolutely forced it’s way back in. Personal relationships are currently coasting, I’m not putting an extreme amount of energy into it but they are holding strong. And school. Well school is needing the majority of my time and energy, but it is not getting as much as I want to or need to give it.

I read a post last week, from where I cannot exactly remember but it was from Elizabeth Gilbert, that esentially examined where her energy goes. She originally identified as a low energy individual but upon reexamining her life she found that she was just putting energy into places that were absolutely draining.

This got me thinking. I have also identified as a low energy person. I love my naps. I always have thought there was something wrong with my physiologically causing this. At first, poorly controlled diabetes. Then I got on top of that so it couldn’t be the cause. Then I had low, but not anemic levels, iron. I haven’t addressed this, because I am very inconsistent with medication that requires me to take pills. But as I’m not anemic, I’ve deduced that the level at which I preseve my energy levels to be is far too extremely low to be attributed solely to this. My energy levels are a constant staple in my mind, but often at the very bottom of the priority list of things I need to address. So when I read this post from Elizabeth Gilbert, I stopped and looked at where my natural level of energy was going.

I don’t drain my energy obviously, to myself. I devout most of my time to school. I’m an older student now and realize how I best study, and the enormous amount of time that is needed. But even so, I realize I’m not the most efficient with this time. I need to commit to figuring out a better strategy to retain and understand the most information but also have energy remaining to address the other areas that are a priority for me.

This thought process has really shed light on where and how I spend my time. Have you heard of that saying “We all have the same amount of hours in a day as Beyonce.”? Well I am working on figuring out HOW to be as efficient as possible. It is more of an ongoing process, now that I’m focused on a goal at school. Hoping too that the learning curve is quick as I wrap up my first semester back.

Have you thought much about where your energy goes? Are you spending your time on your top priorities? Leave a comment, I would love to know!

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Start Before You’re Perfect

You know when I came back to school in September, I was excited. Actually I was incredibly scared and excited. What really pushed me to pursue this experiment was that it was a big goal that scared me.

However, in the last two months, I’ve been incredibly overwhelmed. I’m met with anxiety, a constant battle in my mind, and a debate on whether I could actually do this or not. What the voice I’ve concluded is actually saying is, “you don’t know this. There is so much you don’t know. Why are you bothering?”.

Pause there. That’s incredibly harsh. I was speaking to myself with those words that I would NEVER say to someone else. Why was my mind running away and dwelling on these negative thoughts? Honestly I don’t know. Insert this comment from my dear friend and mentor Paulina Cameron, “Be kind to youself as you do all that hard thinking.”
Be kind to yourself

I posted this earlier last week, at a point in time where I was feeling completely overwhelmed. And since then I’ve been battling with these types of thoughts and Paulina’s comment was a proding nudge to be kind to myself. That’s a great reminder, but boy is hard to do. It’s almost as if that thought acts as buffer to the harsh thoughts, but it doesn’t completely take the negative thoughts away.

What I’ve deduced that these thoughts are encouraging is that I shouldn’t start before I know everything or before I have it down perfectly. Once I put that phrase front of mind it gave my demon a face, a metaphor of sorts. Since putting a finger on it, I’ve felt a bit better at addressing this concern. So what if I don’t know everything? Who has done anything impactful or meaningful in life, knew EVERYTHING that they were doing? I”m going to venture a guess and say no one.

I do a lot of thinking. I’ve been paying a lot of attention to these thoughts in the past few months and boy if I didn’t have some education as to how these thoughts work or come about, I would be beyond overwhelmed. I studied thoughts like these but it is still an uphill battle trying to combat them.

An earlier post this week as tomorrow is a day to reflect and honour those who fought for our freedom (and so we could have thoughts like these and can blog about them). Thank you to all the veterans of Canada.

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I’m Back!

I’ve taken a bit of a hiatus from social media in the past three months. I made a decision at the end of August to step away from a career in public relations. Let me back track a bit and explain what my thought process was.

At the end of my third year in my undergrad degree, in psychology, I decided I was not ready to pursue a Ph.D. This was definitely the right decision at the time, as I would not have put my whole being into what I was pursuing. So I took an extra 2 years to complete my degree and three (which turned into five) co-op terms. This was a great experience as it exposed me to three very different arena that my career could go. Firstly with the Canadian Space Agency (federal government; psychology focused), followed by Dixon Transition Society (non-profit; adminstrative and event based), and lastly with the BC Lions (private sector; event based). At the end of this, I discovered public relation and enrolled in short and sweet nine week pr certificate. I was lucky enough to intern and work before I started in pr, and immediately after I finished my certificate. This was a great direction for me to pursue at the time, as it hit a lot of the interests that I had: social media, building relationships, and events. However, after nearly a year and half in the industry it really dawned on me that pr wasn’t the right fit for me. I loved what I was doing, I worked with great people, but I didn’t feel like I was thriving.

I am discovering my values and recently realized that I really want to make an impact in my career. This notion led me to the idea of medicine. Now that is a whole lot of schooling. I know. And a completely different direction. So what I am doing is testing out the physical sciences. The last time I picked up a physical science textbook was in 2008. Needless to say, I am putting myself in a bit of an experiment. In the next year, I plan to finish intro biology and chemistry, and will then make a decision to see if this is the path I want to be on.

So there you have it. A bit of a left turn in my career trajectory, but a challenge and goal that I am excited and scared to take on. And that I feel is the biggest indicator of something you should do.

Now for the goals of this blog. I wanted to keep doing some of the things I was doing including attending events, meeting new people and developing relationships, and sharing ideas. So I created this space, when this name dawned on me. I’ve attended quite a few events in the past to the point where some people started to recognize me off of social media. Now I thought that was a bit weird. But I thought why not utilize my event attendance to help support my developing writing skills. And so That Girl in Vancouver, was born.

Here’s to a year of fruitful lessons, endeavors, and writing!

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