While reading the prompt for this assignment, I thought to myself, “Finally, a valid excuse to step away from everything I have to do and just think to myself.” In the first five minutes, I couldn’t stop thinking about how much work I had to do over the next week or two. Trying to piece everything together and schedule my work hour by hour, stressing out about how many textbook chapters I had to read. After five minutes, I thought to myself, “Why are you using this time to stress about school rather than using this time to self-reflect on how you have been doing?” Before coming back to school, I was really excited to come back to school. I realized in the time taken off that I was looking forward to having a routine again. At home, I found myself in my bed for hours, feeling unmotivated and too tired to do anything. At school, I feel motivated to do my work and after I complete it, I feel rewarded. It’s a constant cycle of working hard and feeling accomplished after successfully completing everything. This sense of accomplishment keeps me content and excited for the next day. During this time of self-reflection, I realized that I work better in a environment where I have a lot to do and am constantly motivated towards success.

This time also made me feel much better about my major change. Originally when I told my family that I wanted to pursue a career in Dietetics, they did not support me and wanted me to stick with a Business major. This was really hard for me at first because my family’s opinion is extremely important to me and I did not want to let them down. However, being with my thoughts made me notice how my work ethic has changed since last semester. I go about my assignments a different way, thinking of how to fully understand a question given to me rather than finding the quickest way to finish the assignment. It also came to my attention how I genuinely enjoy reading my nutrition textbook and love learning new things that I didn’t already know. This consciousness made me extremely proud of myself for pursuing something that I knew I wanted to do. Furthermore, it secured the thoughts of doubt that I had about going against what my family wanted me to do and doing what I thought would be best for me. Although my mom fully supports my decision now, I am pleased that I took something upon myself even if I didn’t have the support from her at the time.

I genuinely enjoyed this assignment because it gave me a chance to step away from all of the hecticness and reflect on my choices and actions over the past month. I noticed that I tend to focus on the present and future, rather than analyzing my choices and thoughts of the past. Not only is it interesting to see how the past has influenced the present, but I also see how important it is for my mental health to analyze and self-reflect. This allows me to see what habits and actions have worked best for me as an individual. After this self-reflection, I now have a new confidence in my decisions and know that my gut-feeling is an extraordinary reliable source.