Unlearning Perfectionism & Overcoming Academic Anxiety
Author: Nikita Baxi
Nikita’s story is part of our youth Back-to-School Storytelling Campaign!
Unsinkable Youth is supported by Sun Life. #YouthMentalHealth
TW: This Unsinkable story discusses anxiety. If you're struggling, please reach out to the Crisis Text Line or Kids Help Phone.
.
.
.
As a psychology student at York University, life is a balancing game of responsibility and attempting to enjoy life. It’s overwhelming, and often feels like you’re learning to do everything all at once.
As someone with a lot of anxiety, I often feel the need to plan everything out. Without a list of what to do I can’t get anything done. This stems from my issues with perfectionism—I never wanted to let myself fail. My goal in school has always been to achieve straight As, be well-liked by my teachers, and further my career-related goals.
Summer Break
So when you shift from school to summer break—what do you do? Well, for someone like me, summer break brings up feelings of FOMO (fear of missing out), the idea that I’m not enjoying or doing enough. It also brings up feelings of laziness and unproductivity. When you look at time like this, it makes things feel like a race—that what you do is never enough unless you’re always busy.
Social media makes these feelings worse. Everyone’s familiar with the experience: you’re bored at home and all you wanna do is watch something mindless. So you hop on Instagram and suddenly you’re bombarded with a feed of photos of faces that you usually recognize–people from your old elementary school or high school, and while you’re at home, they’re on vacation having the time of their lives or achieving their dreams. Suddenly it’s 3am and you realize you’ve been obsessively scrolling for hours consuming random content, stalking people’s profiles, and watching an endless amount of stories of people you’re not really interested in. You end up just feeling bad about yourself–you wasted your time, you ruined your sleep, and now you feel like everyone else is enjoying life but you.
I used to spend a lot of time feeling bad on social media, but now I’ve learned to tune other people’s experience out. Everyone has different experiences, needs, priorities, and privileges. It’s important to remind yourself that every time you see something that upsets you.
If this is something you struggle with, remember that the goal isn’t to replace jealousy with happiness, but rather with an amicable indifference. Seeing others living their best life is good, but your focus should be on living yours. You know that you’re spending your summer break well when you feel satisfied with your personal development and happy with how your time is spent.
I still struggle with the need to be productive, but I value my downtime much more. I continue to work towards my goals, make money, and enjoy spending time with others–but my needs come first. Some days you just need to sit down and take a couple of breaths to avoid getting overwhelmed. There’s no need to feel bad if you didn’t do everything on your list that day or spent a day scrolling through Netflix instead reading that book you told yourself you’d finally get to.
Summer is the time for self-improvement and growth, don’t let your focus shift towards material things or other people–it’s all about you.
Planning a Future
As a kid, I was always hyper-vigilant about my future planning. Because of this, I neglected a lot of the present moments in my life. My anxiety made me feel like I had to plan every single thing out in my life, especially career-wise.
Despite this, I’ve gone through career goal changes myself—from veterinarian to writer to psychologist. The reality is: most students you meet don’t really have a career goal. They may have a specific interest in a field, but most people don’t actually end up where they thought they would. It’s okay to explore your options and not have one set career choice when you’re in high school.
When I was 13, I moved from Ontario, Canada to New Jersey, U.S.A to start as a freshman in high school. I dreaded every moment of the idea of having to restart my whole life, especially going into high school, a terrifying time of change and insecurity and self-discovery. Moving to a new country is never easy, but it was especially difficult to adjust when I was bombarded with new information and rules–tougher grading system, summer reading lists, Honours classes, AP classes, how to use lockers, hall passes, SAT prep, PARCC tests every year, weekly quizzes, exams 4 times a year with 8 classes everyday for 7 hours a day, volunteer experience, extracurriculars for college applications, letter of recommendation from teachers, college, college, COLLEGE. Everything was oriented towards the future–the need for Ivy League excellence.
I didn’t have nearly as much time as the other students did to be Ivy League material. It’s not even something I planned on…
And as someone who needed to plan every aspect of their life and know everything about every thing–it killed me. My life at the time revolved around academic excellence, and it was an extremely competitive high school with a lot of intelligent students who had been prepared for these experiences. Meanwhile, I was a year behind in everything–these kids already read Shakespeare in elementary, they knew everything about Algebra, and had been studying for the SATs since grade 6. It felt shameful to not be at their level, and if I wasn’t smart one, then who was I?
My anxiety was at an all-time high at this stage in my life. I dreaded going to sleep every school night–I hated the workload, I hated having to interact with strangers, and I hated how my world was turned upside down..
But in spite of everything, I did make friends, I did get As in all of my courses, I did pass the PARCC–I did all of it. I made it through day after day. High school is never an easy time or transition, and even more so when you’re in a totally new environment, but it taught me how resilient people can be. When you need to do something, you will do it.
It’s not all miserable either, I have many memories of good teachers, fun times at school events, hanging out with friends, learning exciting things, and figuring out who I was past the academics. High school is the perfect time to create your own identity and explore your interests. My advice? Take the opportunities given to you, have fun whenever you can, find people worth your time, and have confidence in yourself.
When I entered university, I went in with a different mentality: make myself uncomfortable. I talked to people first, I asked questions in class, and I let myself be a little lost sometimes. And it was great.
Many people change university programs or enter a different career than they thought they would. Transitioning from high school to university is complicated and hard, and it’s okay to be unsure and not have all the answers. Most of my professors switched programs or took extra years to complete their undergraduate degree. The important thing is to be open to experiences and changes that may guide you in the right direction—don’t feel set on one option your whole life. Going with the flow sometimes is a great thing. There’s great freedom in flexibility.
Each of these transition periods during adolescence are definitely scary—we don’t know what the future holds for us or how well we’ll adjust. High school is one of the most difficult times, but when you open yourself up to new experiences and growth, it’s rewarding. I do things now that I couldn’t imagine myself ever doing, and that development feels amazing.
Things get better when you stop asking if you can do something, and instead tell yourself that you can.
Taking Care of Your Mental Health
My habits of overthinking and feeling overly-stressed negatively affected my mental and physical health. As this continued, I realized that I desperately needed a change. Daily late nights studying or working, chronic stress, and other issues were changing me for the worse. I couldn’t continue to be the person who saw all of their worth in their academic achievements, how often they did something fun over the summer, or how productive they were in their downtime. Racing a race I didn’t need to led me to completely burn out.
I soon understood that the way I was handling my priorities did nothing to benefit me. All of my worrying was unnecessary and my overwhelming anxiety didn’t help me achieve any of my goals. To overcome this, I had to get comfortable with the idea that life unfolds at different paces for everyone, and I didn’t just need to know it, I needed to accept it.
Understanding that we all have a unique journey in life (and that setbacks don't define us) is a powerful revelation. This shift in perspective allowed me to see that there's always a way to move forward, even when it feels like life has gone off course. Embracing this notion offered me solace during times of uncertainty and empowered me to overcome obstacles.
I never used to be a positive thinker, instead considering myself a realist–and this started when I had the ability to form coherent thoughts. It has been a life-long thing for me to be a pessimist, always assuming the worst will happen and looking at the negative aspects of situations. This thinking isn’t healthy, it may have been the cause of my anxiety, always needing to be prepared for every horrible situation. Now I make sure to practice repeating things that uplift me and boost confidence in my abilities, rather than dragging myself down with feelings of uncertainty and fear.
When I’m overwhelmed, I tell myself:
There is a way through this.
Do your best with the resources you have available.
One thing I especially remind myself of whenever I feel anxious about my future is something my father says a lot: “The only end to your journey is death, so instead of looking towards the destination, you need to enjoy what’s in this moment. Soon it’ll be behind you.”
Though it seems a little unnerving, every time I feel myself overplanning, I remind myself to be present in the now. Achieving your goals is great, but stop immediately looking towards the next achievement and take the time to celebrate.
My tips for students to improve their mental health during the back-to-school season:
Come up with repeatable phrases that calm you down when you get overwhelmed.
Reduce social media use OR change the way you use it.
Avoid doom scrolling and stalking others’ profiles. Look only at things that interest you and make you feel good.
Treat your profile as a digital album. Post things that make you happy. Don’t focus on followers, likes, or what others will think of you. Your social media should be a tool for your happiness.
Watch things that make you feel good, post things that make you feel good, and talk to people who make you feel good. Forget about everything else.
Find a balance between present-moment happiness and goal-oriented behaviour.
Get uncomfortable—discomfort means growth, and without that there’s no improvement.
Be open to failure and rejection.
Do something you enjoy at least once a day—it helps keep you positive.
For a student’s support system:
● Encourage candid conversations about their emotions.
● Offer unconditional support.
● Keep them interested in activities they enjoy.
● Take interest in topics they like.
Transitions are tough, and having someone to talk to and express passions to is a great way to keep students engaged, positive, and energetic.
To Be Unsinkable
To me, being Unsinkable means pushing yourself to be the best version of yourself and being in-tune with your emotions. Becoming Unsinkable is a journey marked by both stumbling blocks and soaring successes. Triumph over adversity isn't about avoiding challenges, but about confronting them head-on. Embracing vulnerability and self-reflection is an assertion of strength.
Placing less emphasis on academic achievements and more on the process of growth and knowledge expansion has been transformative. It's a shift in focus from the destination to the path itself. As I progressed from one phase to another, I realized that the most meaningful milestones weren't defined by academic achievements but by the insights gained, the connections forged, and the personal growth experienced. The key is to find joy in the journey, to embrace the flows of life, and to understand that each transition is a step towards a stronger, wiser, and more resilient self.
Know that each period of change—academically or personally—is an opportunity to build the strength to rise, the courage to adapt, and the grace to thrive.
.
.
.
Connect with Nikita @nikitabaxi on Instagram!
.
.
.