Photo credit: Juliet Paiva.
Life at Columbia can often feel like walking on a tightrope. You are constantly pulled in different directions, unsure where to dedicate your limited time and energy. Striving to live a harmonious life is not a problem unique for Columbia undergrads, but at a school and in a city where there is always more to do than one individual could manage, finding balance can feel like a constant battle. As a senior, I’m trying to strike a balance between my classes, clubs, writing a thesis, exercise, self-care, trying to figure out what to do after I graduate, and staying in touch with my family and friends from home, all while at the same time trying to make the most of my last year here by enjoying time with my friends and focusing on the present moment. I’ve experienced the precarious feeling of trying to find balance since my first year at Columbia, and as I begin my senior year with a new host of obligations, I thought I would reflect on what has helped me most along the way. If you’re considering starting a new research project or adding a research assistant position to your already filled schedule, these general tips will hopefully help you do it all.
The best mindset shift that helped me feel less overwhelmed by everything on my plate was embracing imperfection. Like many Columbia students, I can sometimes be a bit of a perfectionist. But when there is more that you want to do than you can practically complete, constantly striving for perfection in every aspect of your life is impossible and counterintuitive. At times this led me to an all-or-nothing mindset where, if I couldn’t do something perfectly, I wouldn’t do it at all. But most of the time, that mindset makes you miss out on many worthwhile experiences. Sometimes we can get caught up in trying to do everything perfectly and fail to do anything at all. For example, you could have a goal of working out a few times a week. But it’s easy to feel like you won’t exercise at all if you don’t have time for the perfect workout. Instead, shift that mindset to instead try and incorporate some movement into each day. Sometimes that might mean going to the gym, but other times that could look like going on a walk or stretching. Learning to embrace imperfection has helped me strike a balance and sometimes get more done than I initially set out to do.
A second tool that’s helped me create a more balanced lifestyle is finding ways to integrate my different priorities. Previously, I treated the various aspects of my life, like school, my social life, and self-care, as entirely distinct elements competing for my limited attention. Shifting the framing of my priorities from competitive to collaborative has helped me find parity between them. While some things must be done independently, finding creative ways to integrate different aspects of life can help create balance. I love reading as a form of self-care, but in past semesters that was my last priority once school work piled up. Last year I started a book club, which combined this aspect of self-care with a more social dimension. Now, in a single activity, I incorporate two key priorities and remove the limiting wall I previously put up between the different aspects of my life.
The last balancing tip is prioritization. Learning to prioritize has been the most challenging for me to implement. One of the best ways to live a balanced life is by understanding what matters most and dedicating your limited time and energy based on that assessment. We all have many buckets representing different elements of our lives. One bucket is academics, and another is social, another is personal, and so on. We fill these buckets by focusing on the actions we can do relating to them. So, for instance, I’d fill up my academic bucket by spending my time reading for a class or writing a paper. But it’s impossible to fill all of the buckets at once. If I pour all my energy into my academics, my social bucket might empty slightly. And that’s okay. Accepting that you can’t do it all but still thinking about what matters most at a given time is the best we can do. And remember that your priorities can change. Sometimes you need to lose your sense of balance to find it again.