If you’re feeling a little cursed by admissions stress, it just might be your lucky day!

13 Killer Tips to Bring Mindfulness to Your Admissions Journey:

1. Focus on what you CAN control like your grades, essays, who you ask for letters of recommendation, and your activities, not what you CAN’T control like the colleges’ institutional needs or other students’ applications.

2. Lean into your fears and acknowledge them. Allow yourself to work through them.

3. Stay grounded in the present. Don’t let the past or the future drag you away.

4. Take long walks outside. Even in the cold. Be in nature.

5. Consider what is important to you. Dig in and get to know yourself as you think about what you are looking for in a college.

6. Find stillness. No screen or schoolwork. No video games or social media. Just sit.

7. Breathe. Breathe naturally. Focus on your breath for a few minutes and allow your thoughts to be.

8. Welcome to being Human! Recognize that it’s ok to be stressed out during a life-changing event (and during the middle of a pandemic? that’s leveling up with the stress levels..)

9. Get comfortable with discomfort. Rather than resist those feelings, allow them to come and go.

10. You are not your thoughts. You are not your feelings. You are the observer. You are not exasperated, sad, desolate, or joyful. You feel those things.

11. Recognize that your thoughts and feelings are ephemeral, not eternal. They will come and go. Whether they’re happy and excited or pissed off and angry, they’re going to pass.

12. Have dance parties in your room and sing as loud as you can.

13. Breathe. Breathe again. Count to four on your inhale and four on your exhale.