Taking Charge!

Well, I made it through spring “break” in one piece. The stress levels I’ve been trying to overcome taught me some things about myself. This introspection resulted in me making some tough, but for me, appropriate decisions to attain the goals I’ve set out to achieve. Quitting smoking is among the top of that list because smoking has taken away so many positives from several areas in my life. My post, “Step 1: Contemplation” illustrates just how much my smoking has hindered me.

The priorities in my life right now are quitting smoking, obtaining my Bachelor’s degree, and acquiring experience in my career field. With this being my first semester at Drury, I don’t feel like I’ve taken enough charge of the latter two priorities because I’m still busy adapting to a new school. This has generated enormous stress and, thus, also sabotaged my first priority to quit smoking. So, I’ve made some missteps during my first semester, but a momentary “melt-down” of sorts over spring break drove me to make some serious adjustments.

I didn’t listen to my own intuition when my academic advisor encouraged me to not only enroll in an 8-week block class that also included an online teaching component, but to enroll in two of these structured courses at the same time! Because the rapidly growing trend for education is leaning towards online courses, those that excel in a traditional classroom environment seem like the exception these days rather than the norm? So I felt like an incompetent reject because I couldn’t digest nor keep up with a blended-class work load these last two weeks. Maybe I am weird, but I realized that people learn in different ways and I am a traditional student that learns better in a seated, 16-week class structure.

So, I took charge of my educational path and dropped those two courses. This was a tough decision and even tougher to explain to my core support system of family and friends. I’ve missed out on credit hours that would have completed my degree sooner and I feel like I’m off to a bumpy start towards the next level of my educational goals. But, ultimately, the stress levels have lowered. I am seriously considering changing my major to a business degree and have a longer appointment with my academic advisor next week to create a comprehensive game plan for my remaining semesters. Having a written plan will also do wonders for my stress and motivation levels.

The second hard decision I have made is to stream line the activities I’m involved with outside of school to only include those that are gaining me real experience in my career field. I am making arrangement to end my involvement in a pilot project that I became involved with through my schooling at OTC. The direction the project is taking has changed and no longer meets my career evolvement needs. This was partially my “baby”, but I’m ready to turn it over to those that are more likely to benefit.

I believe in “signs” of sorts—messages or “kudos” from Jesus that I’m making the right choices and I’m getting some added help from Above. Almost instantaneously after making these tough decisions and beginning to tackle them, I got notice of an amazing job opening that has the potential to grow my professional skills in a way I could have never imagined. I’m tailoring my resume for submission and hope the opportunity is granted. This job has a large PR component to it, so I have to acknowledge Jesus for breathing new motivation into my life to quit smoking, ASAP!

The nicotine patch will be back on my arm tomorrow. My car is getting a professional cleaning and I’m going shopping for a new suit this week as I focus on going after this exciting job position. Stress levels are becoming manageable again and I will chart my progress as, once again, I take on my nicotine withdrawal this week!