Relocating The Focus
About a
week ago, I went for a 6-day-camp. It was quite intense. Extremely challenging,
physically and mentally. The next day when I came back home, I slept the whole day so the camp was really
something, for sure! Nevertheless, I’m glad I went for it. I acquired a lot
from it, directly and indirectly. I thought I would share with you three things
that were mentioned by a few of the facilitators of the camp. What they
mentioned really stood out to me and they made me reevaluate the way I percieve
everything. The three highlights were :
- In Everything, There Is A Role and A Situation
- You Can’t Control The Results But You Can Control The Process
- Once You Are Geared, Never Fear!
Essentially,
what these mean…
In every
situation, there are two things that you have to take into account. The first
one being the situation itself and the other is the role. In a situation, you
need to analyse it and from it you have to extract the kind of role you should
take in that particular situation. For example, if you are in a classroom; figure
out the current situation and the role that you should take in a classroom
setting.
Situation :
Your lecturer is teaching in front.
Role : To
be a student where you listen intentively and take note of whatever that is
explained.
Another example,
your dad starts to share about his interest when you’re in the middle of your
work. What do you do?
Situation :
Your dad wants to chat with you but you are in the middle of a project but you
know you don’t get to go back home that often so this is an apportunity to
spend a quality time with your dad
Role : A
daughter ( in my case) who listens to her dad lovingly.
When you
are able to distinguish the situation and the role. You are able to put your
focus on the right thing. Had I not thought it through this way, my focus would
definitely be devided, half on my work and the other on my dad.
This thought
process allows us to analyse a situation in a very systematic manner. Sometimes
we get too overwhelmed in a situation to a point where our mind goes blank. So
this step-by-step way of thinking, in my opinion, is a really helpful tool in
times when we are baffled.
Save your energy from worrying about things that
you have no control of. Per se, results. You can worry all you want about your
results, be it in any terms; academic, health, your performance in a
competition or whatever it is, nothing will change unless if you take actions
from now. Think of the factors that will affect your results. Let me narrow down
an example. For instance, you are worried about your finals. You go all
day and all night sighing, feeling
anxious and pondering about your finals but you do nothing about it. You’re too
caught up with worrying about it to a point where you are not able to do
anything else. You don’t revise, you don’t take care of yourself and you lose
sleep. All of these are factors affecting your results. On the flip side, if
you had not used your energy to worry about these uncertainities and instead
you divert the energy towards doing revision, taking care of your health and
making sure that you get enough sleep. I can ensure you that your results will
be great!
So, think of the factors that can affect your results
and save your energy for things that you can control. This will allow you to control
the uncontrollable!
Have you ever heard of cases where people are
not able to pass an exam despite being one of the smartest kids in class. And
the reason behind it is because of their anxiety. This kind of people, despite
having the best preparation, they are not able to perform their best because of
the overwhelming sense of anxiety that they get every time they take an exam.
This reminds me of a character in an American TV series where this
character was not able to achieve her
dreams which is to be a lawyer because she would be too nervous whenever she
takes the bar examination. And because of that, she had to settle for something
inferior.
Personally, I have experienced this
overwhelming feeling whenever I had to take my math exams. I experienced this when
I was in my secondary school. I would always recalculate everthing with fear
that I had pressed the numbers wrongly on my calculator. It’s not even double
checking anymore, it’s more like quadruple time which would always cost me time.
I think this is when faith comes into the
picture. Like we’ve learned in Islam - do the best in your part and leave the
rest to Him. Meaning, if we know we have worked hard and we have done our best
on something, we need to let Him handle the rest. In other words Tawakkal.
Let go and let God.
Alhamdulillah, these are great reminders for
me, personally. It really puts me back to the ground. First semester of degree
was quite challenging, to be honest. I definitely had to go through a huge
climatizing process. It was definitely a roller coaster ride for me. The
materials that I’m interacting with were mostly foreign to me in the beginning.
The environment is also very different. But regardless, alhamdulillah, eventually
things did fall into place. InsyaAllah, I will have a much better control of
the second semester that is just around the corner. Especially at this age, I
really hope so. I hope whatever I share today will help you in any way possible. I
wish you all the best!
Love,
Diyanah Nadrah
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