During my first year at Grand Valley State University, I had to work harder than I had ever had to work during high school. While I certainly believe that my previous education prepared me well for my future academic career, I still found college courses to be significantly more demanding than my high school courses.

Adding to the inherent difficulty of a university workload, I am also a Type A personality when it comes to school, and as a result, I worked extra diligently during my freshman year in order to pass my classes with the highest grades possible. I also made sure to take a few extra credits here and there so that I always had a full load.

This year, I started school with the same mentality – I planned to push myself academically and to do my best to succeed. I quickly encountered roadblocks, though. Some of my classes this year have been challenging in very different ways than last year’s classes, and I have had to learn how to make adjustments to accommodate these changes. In addition, I have had to learn the difficult lesson of knowing when to ease up on myself. After much deliberation and frustration, I may be dropping a class this semester. For the first time, I’m finally allowing myself to say, “This is too much to handle right now.”

I didn’t realize until recently how important it is to cut yourself a break sometimes. This seems to be a common conundrum: Students are oftentimes pressured (by both outside forces and themselves) to succeed in school, to succeed in their extracurricular activities, to succeed in their work lives, etc., all while taking on the fullest workloads possible.

With all of this focus on achieving success and comparatively little on managing stress, it’s no wonder that students like myself eventually get burned out as they inevitably neglect to maintain a balance between work and recreation. It’s in situations like these that we have to understand that it’s okay to take a step back, examine our respective situations and think of ways to simplify our schedules and our lives.

You don’t have to be the head of five different clubs, or take more credits than you can realistically handle, or even get an ‘A’ on every test. This is not to negate the importance of setting goals, of course. On the contrary, without goals, where would you get the motivation to achieve anything? The key is simply to set realistic goals, ones that push yourself while allowing for room to breathe and enjoy your time at Grand Valley State University.

Allow me to conclude with a piece of wisdom passed on from one of my professors this week. He told my fellow classmates and I that in order to survive college, we needed to do three things: We needed to get some real sleep, not merely an hour-long nap here and there; we needed to eat real food, not simply Ramen every night; and we needed to take real breaks, like watching a movie instead of just walking to the water fountain in-between study sessions.

Achieving college success is all about balance so that you can maintain your sanity.