Overview
I tried to encapsulate the travails of my work-study life by presenting them as lessons well-learned that students holding a day job can identify with. I conversationally used snippets of my life to illustrate the challenges distance learning students face.
People encounter many challenges when they work and study simultaneously because they cannot find a balance. They cannot find a way to fit everything into their lives, and they struggle to find a work-study life balance without certain aspects of their social life, study, and work obligations falling through the cracks. I’m just going to tell you about what worked for me.
1. Maintaining focus in a toxic work environment
Work was so stressful, I’ve had such a hectic day, I couldn’t wait to go home and study… said no one ever.
My name is no one. I loved going home after a long, stressful, tiring day at work and sitting with my assignments, as it made me happy.
I used to work the night shift at a call centre. I’d sit there for 12 to 16 hours listening to people yell at me because they couldn’t load their vouchers as they used a key instead of a coin and scratched out the digits of their voucher numbers. While I was at work, undertaking the same monotonous queries until midnight, I’d have thoughts of my assignments playing in the foreground of my mind because my job had become so tedious that I did it on autopilot. I learned to block out the shouting, insults and aggression, and I became a robotic customer service agent. Nothing phased me about the job because I had better things on my mind.
And that’s the power of your mind!
At the end of my midnight shift, I would come home excited to tackle my assignments, not because I behaved as a robot at home too, but because I chose to focus on what made me happy. Things were tough, no geyser, so I’d boil water in a kettle and bath, but I acclimatised. The moment I got to my tiny desk, I’d open the window, look out into the night sky, smoke a ciggie and start with my studies and assignments.
It’s not that I wasn’t tired, assignments were not confusing, and everything was easy. The truth is that I chose to focus on the endgame and my long-term goals. I sat with my studies and kept at it daily for hours on end after each shift. Consistency is the key. As I sat there, I envisioned having a study, a private den for my studies someday. Those positive thoughts inspired me to work harder to achieve my dreams.
And that’s the power of visionary and positive thinking!
I worked and studied diligently for six days a week. On my rest day, I prioritized spending time with my family and socializing.
2. Study with passion and purpose
When I left school, my mother took me to a university. She spoke with the dean and showed him my results, and he said, “My girl, pick a faculty and study whatever you’d like!”.
As an 18-year-old, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I had not thought of a profession or career while I was in school. I had no plans or ambitions. I suffered from major depression after my father’s death while I was schooling, and nothing interested me.
I looked at the faculties and curricula and said, “French sounds nice, I’d love to learn a language, maybe be a translator and travel the world”. I did well in French. I was the only student to get a distinction on my first test. However, my depression became chronic, and our finances on the home front turned for the worse, so I had to forfeit my studies at university. Only years later, when I could finally afford to study, I realised what I wanted to do with my life.
I thought about the subjects I enjoyed in school, the things that interested me and I was passionate about, and that I would enjoy learning at a tertiary level, and that’s how I chose majors.
So many people choose to study without a purpose or passion; to them, it’s just a means to an end. People drop out, change their majors, hate their subjects and scrape a pass because they have no passion for them. Their purpose is clear: to earn more money, yet their interests and passions lie elsewhere.
I’ve had this debate for over two decades of my life with family and friends who hate their jobs, hate to study, and hate their lives. Leading unfulfilled lives, they walk around with scorn and resentment. The reason for that is someone forced them to study and become what they didn’t want for themselves, or they chose higher pay over their passion. Now they earn well but are miserable at work, where they spend most of their adult lives.
If your sole purpose is to make money, you see studying as a struggle.
If you’re passionate about what you are studying, each struggle becomes merely a milestone on your journey to success.
If your passion and purpose are aligned, no matter what struggles or strife you encounter, you push through it because you want to succeed. You don’t ever give up!
3. Envision your end game
The first place I rented was a decrepit outbuilding, but it was enough to make a start. As I worked and saved, other more pressing needs had to be catered for, so I could never afford to study. Only after my mother literally “got back on her feet” did she say, “Cris, I’ll pay for everything, use your salary to pay for your fees,” and that’s how I got to pursue my academic career. There were many days that I cried in the bathroom or bawled my eyes out into my pillow out of frustration that I was stuck in these dead-end jobs with no way out because I had no qualifications to get me any other job. That bawling frustration was my motivation.
When I started studying, no matter how tiring and frustrating work got, I focused on my studies while being constantly mindful of my end game. Having no social life worth speaking of and little spare money to pamper myself added to my woes. However, I did not let such circumstances dampen my spirits or discourage me as I knew what I wanted to achieve.
I wrote a list of my needs and stuck it on my wall. At that point, I just needed:
- A new bed (mine was 16 years old)
- Wardrobes (I was living out of labelled boxes)
- A new TV (my old one broke a long time ago)
- A comfortable office chair and a nice office desk
- A shelf for my collection of books
- A GHD (my hair was always a mess)
I eventually acquired all those things over time. On earning a better income, I wrote down more ambitious needs:
- A home of my own with black tiles and black built-in wardrobes
- A room just for my studies
- A private bathroom
- A beautiful white room with an ensuite for my mother
- A fabulous kitchen, lounge, and dining room
I finally got everything on my bucket list and then so much more! When you envision an endgame, you focus your thoughts, redirect your energy to achieving your goals, and clear your mind of any deflating or defeating thoughts that arise to hinder your progress. When you envision your endgame, you create a mind map to chart your success because no matter what happens and how your plans get derailed, you know you will get all the things you want if you persevere instead of giving up. Even if you stumble or are forced to change direction, you will get what you want if you hold on to your vision for a better future.
Envisioning your endgame empowers you to keep fighting even when you feel overwhelmed or defeated because you know that there is more out there, more than the monotony of stagnation, more than the critiques of others that say it can’t be done, and that you should accept it for what it is and give up. Envisioning a future gives you the purpose and strength to endure and persevere.
4. Accomplish short-term goals to achieve long-term goals
There are three types of goals:
- Short-term goals – easy to do
- Medium-term goals – hard to do
- Long-term goals – almost impossible to do
Focus on your short-term goals, as they impact your medium-term goals, which facilitate achieving your long-term goals.
How often, when sitting with an assignment, have you looked at it in its entirety and said that this is a mammoth undertaking, however, when you broke it up into different component sections, it became easier to do. The same can be said about life. We either focus on the big picture or stick inside the frame, unable to visualize the bigger picture. Pick your poison.
Throughout my academic career, I’ve learned tricks to cope with being inside the frame and being able to see the bigger picture because my goals mattered. Achieving the small goals, such as making a table of contents, can influence how you approach your assignment. Focus on short-term goals, they become habitual and second nature, which lets you tackle the medium-term goals.
When I received my study pack each semester, I colour-coded each module in very appealing colours. Whenever I saw a shade of that colour in my daily life, I’d think about that module and brainstorm ideas on how to tackle the assignment. I had achieved a short-term goal of how to focus on each module just by assigning it a colour. When I sat with that module, I’d think of all the colourful things I saw that day that jogged my memory, and the thoughts just flowed.
Assignments were short-term goals. Passing the exams for each module was a medium-term goal. Passing all the modules with good marks and completing my qualifications was a long-term goal.
When you structure goals, setting and achieving become easier.
5. Prioritize what keeps you happy
My mother always tells me, “Cris, no one can make you happy, only you can make yourself happy”. She’s right! You are responsible for your own happiness.
You can walk a mile for someone who wouldn’t even cross the street for you, so don’t depend on anyone else to make you happy. Don’t give them that power in your life.
Don’t get me wrong. I am happy to see family and friends, socialize, and go out and do fun stuff, but all those things bring temporary happiness.
I’m talking about doing things that KEEP you happy and prioritizing them. Prioritizing happy times that don’t need anyone else or any amount of money of note.
For me, that’s listening to music, sitting with my dogs, reading, journaling, doing arts and crafts, having a soak in the tub and watching a sunrise. It costs me nothing, but I derive immense joy from doing those things.
Prioritize what keeps you happy and do it often.
6. Be grateful for the bumps in life
If there were no bumps or hiccups, how would you learn and grow, how would you be able to help others, how would you keep yourself focused and motivated regardless of the circumstances?
In my master’s year, an assignment I worked on for three months got corrupted. The backup and cloud storage were corrupted as well. Basically, everything I had worked on for three months was gone, and the assignment was due at midnight that very same day. A big bump, but I completed it, submitted it, and passed. The marker’s comments said, “insufficient detail,” but I passed.
Another person would have begged for an extension, panicked, frozen or broken down and cried. I started choking with laughter, thinking to myself, who would ever believe this happened and that this is going to make one hell of a story someday.
I had some printed notes and some notes that I scribbled down here and there, which I pieced together in a 32-page assignment from scratch in less than a day. I must have smoked two packs of cigarettes that day, eaten Oreos and Smarties and drank a 2-litre Coke, but I got it done. Then, when it came time to submit it within the last two hours before the deadline, we had load shedding, so I sat with a headlight torch and completed the final touches and submitted my work.
That was one of the most memorable and rewarding days of my life. When I passed and read the marker’s comments, I smiled and said to myself, if he marked the original assignment, he would have said too many details.
Bumps bring experience, teach lessons, build character and resilience.
7. Control
Definition of control:
The power to influence or direct people’s behavior or course of events.
My definition of control:
Control is the power to influence your own behavior. Your thoughts influence your behavior, therefore controlling your thoughts, regulates your behavior.
Definition of behavior:
The way in which one acts or conducts oneself, especially towards others.
My definition of behavior:
The thoughts that you have about a person determines how you act around them.
Humility versus Pride
You may be a humble person that allows everyone to treat you with disrespect because they mistake your kindness for weakness.
Or…
You may be a proud person, in these instances, the most innocent of slights could be perceived as the one of the most sinful insults you have ever received which makes you overreact because you feel disrespected.
The cornerstone of both humility and pride is RESPECT.
Both the humble and the proud have a deep need to be respected. When you want to be able to control your behavior through your thoughts, be respectful to yourself and treat yourself with respect first.
Whether you are a humble wallflower or a pride of lions, respect each other, respect everyone’s uniqueness and don’t be a judgmental PRIG.
Definition of Prig:
A self-righteously moralistic person who behaves as if they are superior to others.
The foundation of control starts with controlling your thoughts and emotional responses to any situation. Once you get that under control, nothing will ever phase you.
Take stock of your life and all the things that you have overcome throughout your time here on earth. Be humbled by God’s grace in your experiential life and everything else will be a breeze.