10 life skills to learn before college! ✨

you guys in today's video I'll be talking about ten life skills that I have learned or am in the process of learn during this period of extended free time thanks to self-isolation these are 10 skills that I think have improved my present-day life and will make my future self grateful that I learned without further ado let's get started with skill number 1 and that is learning how to actually relax throughout my entire high school experience I've kind of been just stuck on this hamster wheel brain of like what's the next thing I have to do what's the next homework assignment or thing that I can work on for an extracurricular or my next sports practice or club meeting or whatever the next task is my brain was just so focused on getting it all done and if there was nothing to do I should add in something else to get done throughout my entire high school life I kind of got caught up in that productivity and hustle culture of like if you're sitting still and relaxing you're being unproductive you should be doing something and that's really not a healthy way to live and unfortunately I realized that a bit late now that my mental health has had a fun time so during this time when I essentially can't do that much productive stuff I can't go to school I can't meet with extra curricular activities I've been practicing how to actually sit still and just let myself exist without the pressure to produce something for it I returned to a lot of the hobbies that I did for fun more often before high school and before I started having to commit myself to all of these extra things that occupied pretty much all of my waking time and energy I've started reading more often just for fun I've practiced my instruments that I like to play and the last two things that I find super helpful for my mental health and just feeling more at ease with the emptiness of my time these days is journaling just getting my thoughts out on paper without any sort of pressure making it look pretty or having it in some sort of organized way and just napping heaven knows we all need to catch up on sleep in a way being forced to disconnect from all the things that I usually fill my time with have benefited me because I have been forced to get off that hamster wheel of like what's the next activity what's the next task that I need to get done instead I have space and time to just sit still do nothing learn to breathe and learn to just exist without the pressure of having to produce something to prove my like worthiness to exist the second skill which is a little bit lighter in nature is that I have learned how to sew an embroider this is thanks to my parents and my grandma who have been very lovely and helpful in teaching me how to do these things so far I have repaired the drawstring bag that I use for sports which is starting to have a couple of holes in the bottom and I have embroidered my school backpack with this cool space galaxy-design the skills pretty useful because one by repairing your garments or other fabric items instead of going out to buy a new one you can a save money and be it's better for the environment because you can just repair what you already have instead of needing to go out and buy something needed with entirely new materials also embroidering is an activity that I find really helpful for relaxing which supplements the first skill that I mentioned earlier something about sitting still for hours on end and working with my hands to create something it just feels very calming but at the same time satisfying it makes me feel very accomplished and cool that I can take this bunch of random string and actually make something that feels like a real solid object you know but third thing I've learned is how to keep in touch with my friends when we're not physically with each other this whole world situation forces us to stay physically apart to prevent the spread of the virus as a result I've been working on ways that I can keep these personal connections alive via the Internet do you have the traditional methods like sending text messages and emails like an old person and calling people and FaceTime and video call through all of these other platforms to other options that I'm working on learning how to do is one to play group games via video call and text for example we've played a game of mafia by doing a group call for the whole talking aspect of it and then anything that requires the pointing and private talking between the narrator and the players we just do it via a DM it's pretty interesting and the other thing that I really want to start doing is having a pen pal and sending physical mail the fourth skill I want to discuss is that I have learned how to propagate some plants one this helps you save money on houseplants you can just cut off little bits of plants that your friends or family already own and make those grow into a new baby plant instead of having to go out and buy a new one so I've been stealing from my grandma's home garden here so far I've propagated some succulents which are in my room and my next project is going to be propagating some pothos plants which have currently taken over this little brick section of the living room the fifth thing I have learned about and that I'm still working on is eating like a normal person this might be kind of specific to me in my life but of course learning how to eat healthy and have good nutritional habits is a useful skill for everyone because you know everyone needs to eat to live now for my particular circumstance I've been a long distance running athlete for pretty much my entire high school career I trained pretty much year-round and as a result I got into some habits of eating in a way that works for an athlete who's training hard and racing super often but doesn't really work for a normal person for sports we normally eat a lot of carbs because carb loading is normal for races and a lot of protein because we have to replenish our muscles after some hard training now I still run and train on my own but the level of intensity is just not the same you know that's not something I necessarily want to change about myself I'm going to exercise at a level that makes me happy and then I also have to eat at a normal healthy level the things that I'm working on right now are one to rebalance the like categories of food that I'm eating mostly to just eat more fruits and vegetables and not have quite so many carbohydrates because I really do not need to be carb loading for non existant races secondly I've also been working on figuring out what is actually a normal serving size once again the quantity of food that an athlete consumes compared to what I should be actually eating right now is definitely not the same the sixth skill I want to discuss is learning how to resist impulse buying I've definitely pretty budget-conscious for my entire life but even having developed some good habits over time it's still super hard to resist all of these psychological tricks that marketing companies use to try to make us buy things you know so many brands have been having sales right now thanks to the virus situation the sales are just a tactic to try to get you to buy something that you didn't want before but now you're considering it because now it's cheaper so now I should buy it like it doesn't make sense when you say it out loud right but that's the mentality that sales are trying to go after the second factor that has been making it harder for me to resist endless purchasing is just that I have so much more free time now to be browsing the internet for things that I might want this whole situation we've been in has really been a test of my abilities to take a step back and stop myself from buying something I didn't really need and didn't really want the methods that I found the most helpful for this are one to be aware of all of the mind games that marketing likes to play on us being able to look at something to be like hey I see that I don't actually want this thing someone is just trying to manipulate me it really helps you to be able to banish the bad thing from your shopping cart and secondly to just wait it out give yourself like a day or a week or a month as a waiting period before you pull the trigger on it usually by the end of my waiting period which is generally about a month I end up finding out that I don't want the thing anyways being able to just be aware of all these tricks that are being played on our minds and wait it out have been really helpful in stopping myself from wasting my money and doing something that really doesn't have a great carbon footprint somewhat related skill number seven is learning how to set up a personal finance system now that my 18th birthday is quickly approaching being able to actually set up this whole system and apply for certain cards open certain accounts is an imminent reality I've started to do a lot more research in concretely finalizing how I plan to set up things like savings accounts possible investment accounts question mark still not sure about that one and retirement accounts and credit cards and all of these other financial things you know I'm just like this random seventeen-year-old and not a financial expert by any means I think it's really gonna be beneficial for me in the long run to have set up a system and to automate as much as possible with automatic direct deposits to my savings and retirement account I live at home with my parents who provide all of my food and shelter and basic necessities so I'm really not worrying about money right now nor am i under a lot of pressure to figure everything out immediately I feel like this is a good time while my head is clear ish to set up a basic framework and obviously this is something I will adjust as my life progresses and my living situation and my income and all this stuff changes as I grow up but doing some preliminary research now to get informed and set up good habits concerning saving and putting money into retirement will hopefully be helpful for me in the long run and if you're also a high schooler or a college student I encourage you to do your own research and get started to the 8th skill I've been working on is being able to write legibly when I'm writing quickly yes I know what you're thinking all of my handwriting on this channel looks pretty darn amazing but have you seen me taking an AP test those essay questions I don't know how anyone can read those usually I only have two options and no in between I can write super freaking fast or I can write neatly but quite a bit slower how have I been improving this you might ask it's mostly been just through practice now that I have pretty much no homework and absolutely none of it is being turned in in person my handwriting really doesn't have to be that great while I've been doing my AP test practice questions I've been also writing them at a speed at which I would go during the AP exam which is pretty darn fast and as I have looked through my AP practice questions they've definitely gone from unintelligible gibberish to things that I can actually read isn't that amazing so this is the skill that'll be pretty useful to me in college since lectures go a lot faster of a pace so I'll need to be able to take down notes a lot faster and there are more essay based midterms and finals than I've had in high school the United skill I want to talk about is being able to do my makeup better obviously this is not a necessary life skill for anyone personally I don't think anybody needs to do makeup to improve the way they look cameras and filming lights do weird things sometimes and when I don't wear makeup I look like a boiled egg instead of the way I actually look in real life and right now I don't really go outside I just stay in my house all day so I've been taking this time to just practice makeup techniques try out two new things that I see on the internet and see if it looks good on me see if it will stay on and look normal under my camera lights that make me really freaking sweaty no one is going to see me if I mess up or some powder technique ends up making it look like my like under eyes are falling off or something so it's just a good time to experiment and figure out what actually works best for my skin type and my face shape and work well with my whole camera lighting setup thing and lastly number 10 I think the skill that has been the most important to me this whole time has been learning how to be accountable to myself I don't know how many of you guys are into gretchen Rubens before tendencies but that is like my favorite personality framework ogress houses whose basically it categorizes people into four categories based on how they respond to two types of accountability internal and external accountability internal accountability is something like I want to do this I'm going to tell myself to do this and then I will follow through whereas external accountability is something like it's my boss or my coworker or my friend expects me to do this thing show up at this time so I'm going to do it because they expect me to do it I don't think any framework is perfectly black and white but I'm generally in between app holder and obligor sometimes I will respond well to internal accountability and I almost always respond well to external accountability but now that I really can't have any external accountability because other people can't tell me a meeting time or make me go do something I've really had to improve my ability to stay accountable to just myself and just what I tell myself I want to do for instance I kind of fell off exercising at first even though I genuinely like to run yes I know I'm not insane I just like running don't flame me in the comments this is because I've gotten into the habit of normally having a running team or coach tell me when to run what to do and to actually make me follow but now it's just me telling myself what to do and it's not just exercise either I've also been improving my ability to make myself study and do academic work without a teacher setting up assignments and deadlines so for me and any other hobbies that I want to improve that like designing potential merch designs I know don't tell anyone else and all of the other things that I've mentioned throughout this entire video all of these could not have been possible without this last skill making myself do things which I know sounds so basic like how did you survive 17 years if you couldn't make yourself do things so here are the two methods that I found the most helpful for making myself actually check all those things off my to-do list instead of having them just float around on there and then disappear into the void of watching tic TOCs for three hours in a row number one is scheduling for some reason having a calendar tell me hey you're gonna do this thing at 10 a.m. today right feels like another person holding me accountable even though it's literally just me writing things in my bullet journal I don't know why that makes sense to my brain but my brain responds to it so I keep doing it and maybe it'll be helpful for you too the second thing is to have some sort of outside accountability but in a no physical social contact kind of way for example maybe if I wanted to make myself do push-ups an activity I absolutely hate I would video call a friend and we'd do our push-ups together so those are the 10 skills that I have learned or and in the process of learning even if you don't incorporate any of these ten exact skills into your day to day life I hope that you use this free time to do something that will make your future self grateful and that you'll enjoy doing in the moment I hope you enjoyed this video and if you'd like to see more of my videos I post new videos every Monday my Instagram where I post photos of my notes and bullet journal is at study quill see you next time well it's about green tea I might know with scale 11 I should be working on is how to drink liquids without choking [Music]

Channel: studyquill

Views: 266,344

Rating: 4.9823737 out of 5

Keywords: studytube, studyblr, studying, college, school, life skills to learn before college, essential life skills, life skills to learn right now, life skills for teenagers, best life skills to learn, easy life skills to learn, life skills for school, essential college skills, things to do before you graduate, schools should teach, life skills everyone should learn, life skills to learn before moving out, crucial life skills, life changing skills, study skills, studyquill

Id: RLqGwp4UOjc

Length: 15min 24sec (924 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 20 2020