Mental Health + Pursuing Your Dreams, Tips to Get You There Faster

This post is a little impromptu, but one I felt was necessary and definitely relevant in my life right now.  Studying for the MCAT, the Medical College Admission Test, with moderate to severe mental illness has been no simple task.  However, I know that when I’m a successful doctor living my passion and serving others, this process will all have been worth it.  

As someone who has struggled with their mental health all of their life, I know how difficult it can be to pursue your dreams, whatever they may be, at the same time as you're managing your mental health condition(s).  

Here are some tips to help you with that:

Learn Yourself.

The first step to pursuing your dreams in the midst of depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety, or whatever may be bothering you is to learn yourself.  What are your regular patterns?  How do you tend to react to stress?  When are you most productive and why?  What are your triggers?  Answering questions like these and doing some reflecting will help you determine how you operate and help you become more acquainted with yourself.  This is key.  Before you can tackle a problem, you must study it, become familiar with it, and understand it.  Besides, you won’t know progress when you see it if you aren’t sure where you’re starting from.

Adapt to Self

This tip is absolutely, hands down my most favorite and most effective tip.  Instead of trying to measure up to someone else’s standard of success or recovery, make your own.  Perhaps you can draw inspiration from someone else’s methodology, but don’t be afraid in the slightest to tweak those plans to better suit you.  For example, because of what I struggle with it’s almost impossible for me to pull long, consecutive hours studying for my MCAT exam like most future doctors will.  After several failed attempts to force myself to do it anyway, I realized I didn’t have to.  There are so many different ways to be successful; we’re all so different.  Figure out what works best for you (a reason why tip #1 is so crucial) and work with that.

Don’t be Afraid of Extra Support

If medicine will help fix what you’ve been struggling to cope with on your own, don’t avoid it!  If counseling will help you clear your head and come up with solutions for coping with your unique struggles, try it!  It will be very difficult to pursue your dreams if you have to spend all of your time barely managing your mental health.  

Don’t shy away from other avenues of support; you don’t have to go it alone.

I hope these tips help you as they have me.  Which one was your favorite?

Marie