Month: August 2020

Why I’m Doing A Week-Long Meditation Challenge

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The last few weeks I have been entirely too stressed out. Between work assignments, deadlines, and getting ready to go back to school, my stress levels have been through the roof. It seems that as I’ve gotten busier, I’ve neglected some of my wellness habits. I’ve definitely been slacking on my on my meditation and journaling and I’m feeling the effects. I used to meditate every few days or so and I really enjoyed how my life was when that was the case.

There’s this quote that says “You should sit in meditation for 20 minutes a day. Unless you’re too busy, then you should sit for an hour.” I figured now is the perfect time to try and get back into the habit of meditating and even more so to do it daily. What better way to do so than a meditation challenge? By making it into a challenge, I will more than likely feel more motivated to do so just as I was more motivated to workout when I made it a personal challenge to close my apple watch rings every day!

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The challenge will consist of the following:

  • Meditating 10 minutes every morning before using my phone
  • Meditating 10 minutes every night before I go to sleep
  • Meditating every day for 1 week.

I’m excited to dedicate 20 minutes a day to meditating for the next week (starting tomorrow). I know the benefits will be great and I really hope to be able to stick to it! I can do it. If you’d like to follow along with me, follow me on Instagram: @musingsofmara. I will also have the following template on there and update it every day! Hopefully in the next few days, you read a blog about me sticking to it and not a blog similar to my failed attempt at a yoga challenge (read about it here). Wish me luck!

Do you practice meditation? Have you ever wanted to? Let me know in the comments below!

 

How To Prepare for A Successful First Semester of Virtual Law School

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We are basically half-way through which means that those of us in school are getting ready to go back to school! If you’re reading this, you may even be getting ready to start your first semester of law school in general (online, at that!) First of all, congratulations! Getting into law school is no easy feat, and you’ve made it this far! However, things are about to get really real so make sure you sit down, get comfortable, and read this post with some tips to help you succeed in your fist semester of virtual law school.

Tips for Virtual Law School

Set Alarms/Reminders for Your Classes

When you’re in a law school building, it’s kind of impossible to forget to go to class because you either know people who are in your class or everyone else is going to class so you know you probably have a class too. With virtual law school in the comfort of your own home, it’s soooo easy to forget you have class. This probably sounds ridiculous, but this happened to many of my friends last semester! I personally set a few reminders (30 mins and 5 mins before) so I can give myself enough time to remember to eat before class, fill up my water bottle, use the bathroom, and everything else I need to do before class begins. I try to mimic what I would do before my in-person classes as closely as possible.

Create A Schedule For Your Non-Class Responsibilities

It’s easy to set aside time for the classes that you have to be present for. The harder part of your first semester of law school is making time for everything else and making sure you don’t neglect anything else. I was guilty of this my first two months of law school. I barely had a schedule that didn’t consist of reading for class, writing case briefs, and attending those classes. It literally took over my life. Don’t be like me. You want to put in enough effort but not let it consume you. The semesters where I did better grade wise were definitely the semesters when I made time for my hobbies, family, friends, me-time, and whatever. If it’s scheduled, it will be easier to adhere to.

Go To Virtual Office Hours (and schedule other appointments after that)

It’s already hard enough to stand out to your professors when classes are in person. Virtual law school makes it even harder! One benefit of virtual law school is that some professors have made themselves even more available to talk to students at different times since they are at home. Your first semester of law school is super challenging and I distinctly remember doing better in the classes that I made an effort to attend office hours. Professors can answer questions and help you understand things you are having trouble grasping. They should want you to succeed so make sure you help them help you. Even if it’s not for grades, it’s also good for future letters of recommendation. They might not even write you one if they don’t feel like they know you well enough to vouch for you, so make them know who you are!

Use Google Calendar

I love a good google calendar. While I also love a good paper planner, google calendar gives you flexibility to move things around in case something comes up. You can still keep the time blocks and whatever else you put in the description. This one is pretty straight-forward and it will help you keep a google schedule. If you are a visual person like me, seeing everything laid out helps you do everything you need to do.

Plan Out Your Me Time (preferably unplugged)

I already mentioned this earlier but it’s so important it needs repeating. Plan your me-time. Plan your me-time. PLAN YOUR ME-TIME! It is so easy to neglect your own personal needs during your first semester of law school. Don’t do it! You will inevitably burn out at some point and it will be hard to bounce back once that happens. Since law school will be entirely online, I recommend your me-time include doing something that’s not related to technology at all. Take a walk. Read a book not related to law school. Maybe even listen to music (this is kinda technology but as long as you’re not also on your phone it’s okay.) Meditate. Whatever you need to do, do it! It will help with your preservation in the long run.

This list is by no means all-inclusive but it does consist of things I personally find really important going into your first semester of virtual law school. Talk to other 2Ls and 3Ls at your school to gain their insight on your specific school. Good luck this semester and if your school is still giving out grades, may the curve be ever in your favor!

Are there any other law school topics you want to learn more about? Let me know in the comments below!

5 Must-Read Personal Development Books for Millennials Trying To Get Their Life Together

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Do you want to know what is one of the biggest things I love about summer and what I miss about the two years I took off from school? I miss having time to read for leisure instead of for work or school. When I was a child, I loved reading! I stopped reading for fun once I started college and started again once I graduated. However, once I started law school, I stopped again. It’s just a cycle at this point.

Tomorrow is National Book Lover’s Day and while I don’t prioritize reading all the time, I definitely still consider myself a book lover. I have a bookshelf full of books and I’ve read most of them (still working on it). I think reading (or listening, shoutout to audiobooks) books enables us to expand our perspectives and grow as people. This is so important to me and who I strive to be as a person. Books are essential for personal development.

When I took my two years off before law school, I was definitely obsessed with the self-help/personal development genre. Even now I would say that I am always working on my own personal development and trying to help others do the same. In light of this goal, I have decided to compose a list of some of my favorites in the self-help and personal development genre.

Here are my favorites:

The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz

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I revisit this book at least once a year, sometimes more than that depending on the type of year I’m having. When I used to work at a Recreation Center, I printed out the Four Agreements and posted it in the area where all the staff would keep their stuff. It helped me keep them in mind when I had to deal with particularly mean community members or even when I was frustrated with a co-worker. I also thought it might be useful to others. This book is one of my favorites because Don Miguel Ruiz provides such wonderful insight on just living a better life. I know that when I started applying to the Four Agreements to my life (still a work in progress because I’m human after all) my life had way less inner turmoil and bullshit with other people. It’s truly a great book that I recommend to anyone who will ask.

You Are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life by Jen Sincero

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I really enjoyed reading this book. I think Sincero does a good job of making herself appealing to younger aged millennials like me by writing about self-help in a very relatable and basic language. I found her book hilarious because she has a knack for cussing while delivering her points (anyone who knows me knows that’s my MO as well). I found this book a little bit more exciting than other books of its genre. Sincero is very good at narrating her life experiences and teaching concepts from them. While there were some parts of it that I didn’t necessarily agree with, (I do not like the way some modern self-help books discuss things like depression) the overall concepts of the book were extremely helpful for me during my post-grad journey and even when I revisited it later. I realized that certain parts stick out to me depending on what is happening in my life at the time. This is definitely a book to pick up if you want to get into self-help books and have a wild sense of humor!

Year of Yes: How to Dance It Out, Stand In the Sun and Be Your Own Person by Shonda Rhimes

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Okay so this book is by Shonda Rhimes aka the mastermind behind Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal, and How To Get Away With Murder. I really enjoyed this book because it encouraged me to take more chances in my own life and not hold myself back once I read it. Rhimes wrote this book because her daughter told her “you never say yes to anything” and that was a wake-up call for her. Truth be told I haven’t read this book since 2018 and I probably could stand to read it again. Due to her daughter’s assertion, Rhimes took on a year of saying Yes to everything, even the things that terrified her. The book details her life during that period and gives us an up close & personal view of how that new resolution played out. Now that I’m writing this, I’ve decided I’m going to re-read it! I will give a more detailed post on it in the future. Hold me to it!

The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter–And How to Make the Most of Them Now by Meg Jay, PhD

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The thing I enjoyed about this book was how much applicable advice it has for twentysomethings going through the post-grad struggle. From finding a job, to relationships and marriage, and even family planning, this book touches on topics that many of us like to put off as some abstract thing in the distant future when really…the future will be here before we even have time to blink. I also like this book because for once, there is a book talking to twentysomethings instead of about us. I wrote a more detailed review of this book here if you’d like to know some of my favorite quotes and parts of the book.

Eat That Frog! 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time by Brian Tracy

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This book is one of the shorter personal development books I’ve read but make no mistake, it teaches you a lot in less than 200 pages. What I really enjoyed about Tracy’s book is that it does not have any fluff and gets straight the point. Often times in self-development books they take many many words to say something that could be effectively understood in less words. Tracy does this and that’s why I decided I must re-read this book again just because it was so good at teaching me something. I honestly couldn’t put the book down and finished it in only 2 days. It’s based on careers and businesses but you definitely can take the concepts and apply them to any area in life. If you need help to leave procrastinating as a thing in the past, check this book out!

Have you read any of these books? Do you have another book I didn’t mention that helped you get your life together? Leave a recommendation in the comments below!

Lessons I Learned From Blogging Every Weekday For A Month

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Hey readers! It’s been a while (compared to blogging every weekend)! I hope you are doing as well as can be given everything going on. As I’ve mentioned many times (here, here, and here), last month I participated in Mattie James’ Consistency Challenge for blogging. We had to blog every Mon-Fri and I talked about how hard it was on my last post. However, I did say that I learned a lot about blogging on that post as well and I figured I might as well share these things with my readers.

Before I tell you the lessons I learned, I want to l talk a little bit more about the challenge (just a little, I promise). The grand prize was $1,000 and while I didn’t win the money, I did have some other personal wins! My analytics improved across the board and it really helped me re-discover myself as a blogger. Here are some before and after of my analytics.

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Isn’t that wild? My monthly views went from 397 to 598. My visitors went from 234 to 397 (also kinda strange that number appears twice). My likes went from 9 all the way to 65 and my comments went from 4 a month to 17! Now, I would like to increase these numbers, but I also know where I fell short as well. I’m going to talk about that on the next part of the blog.

I know many of you are have started your own blogs or are interested in starting one. The rest of this post will have some lessons I learned along the way during my 4-week blogging challenge. Hopefully you can learn from my mistakes and improve your own blog as well!

Lesson #1: Writing a blog post every day is not sustainable (not for me, at least)

I love writing blogs. I actually enjoy writing blogs more than I enjoy writing most things these days. Even though they’re longer writing blogs is even easier than writing Instagram captions for me. All of that being said, writing a blog every day because I failed to plan a head was draining! This was especially true when I had a particularly busy week at work that was loaded with dense legal research. I definitely do not recommend trying to write a blog every day. I knew this already and even talked about “batch work” in a previous post, but this challenge really hammered in on that point for me. NEVER AGAIN!

Lesson #2: Promoting your blog posts is just as important as writing it!

This sound so obvious but there was a point towards the end of the challenge when I was barely finishing the posts at 11:50pm and promoting my posts on Instagram just fell to the wayside. What was the point? It was already midnight and by the next day I had a different post to write. I honestly slacked on my entire Instagram the entire month of July but that’s a whole different blog post for another day (actually no, but you get my point). I also realized that I should have been promoting on ALL of my social media platforms, not just Instagram. My blog posts actually started to get quite a few RTs on Twitter which really helped me reach a wider audience. I definitely want to start incorporating Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram when I promote my blog posts. More things I have to learn, yay!

Lesson #3: I learned what type of posts I enjoy writing

You probably raised your eyebrow when you read this but surprise surprise, prior to this challenge I had a rough idea about the type of content I thought I should make (it hasn’t really changed) but this challenge helped me realize which content is actually the easiest for me to write/which content I enjoy writing about the most. The content I had the easiest time writing was all related to helping other bloggers, law students, and wellness related topics (most of the time). Now that I know this, I can plan these posts super in advance and get as many of them written as possible when I’m feeling inspired or on a roll. It certainly doesn’t hurt to know what kind of content you enjoy writing for your blog.

Lesson #4: I also learned which content I struggle with writing (even though I enjoy it)

During the challenge, I decided to make each day a different theme and kept those post on those days just so I wouldn’t get too overwhelmed. Mondays were blogging/content creation, Tuesdays were law school posts, Wednesday were wellness posts, Thursday were fitness posts, and Friday were personal development posts. It never failed….every Thursday and Friday I struggled on deciding what freaking fitness and personal development topics I wanted to blog about. It was actually so annoying. However, now that I know that sometimes I struggle with this type of content, I can be sure to brainstorm for those specific posts way in advance so that I’m not stuck when it comes time to write about them. I just have to work harder if I want to keep writing about those topics, which is fine! I actually have some ideas already planned for the next few weeks. Win!

Blogging every week day was a little too much for me but I DO want to start blogging 3x a week. I feel that doing this will help me grow my audience and ultimately help me reach more people and thus help more people! While the challenge did kick my ass, I’m so glad I participated in it! I recommend any aspiring blogger try it and see what you learn about yourself and your blogging style at the end of 4 weeks. Try it!\

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