Jessie Pinto, Immaculata Chapter, Class of 2028

Learning to prioritize my own mental health while supporting others has been very difficult for me to learn to balance. Once I got to college, I felt like all the responsibilities in my life just doubled, and so did the number of people in my daily life. It can become very overwhelming trying to learn how to take care of all these new people in your life, family, and leave room for yourself. Something that I tried to remind myself to do while at school was to pick one thing for myself every day. For me, exercising was very important, so every day I would try to fit at least a walk into my day. It might not have always been as long as I would have liked, or I didn’t feel like it, but I would try to do it anyway. This also helped me create good boundaries with other priorities in my life. For example, if I didn’t have time for my walk, I know that meant I probably didn’t have time for doing something for someone else.

This was extremely difficult for me at first because I hate saying no to other people. I will do anything for the people I care about, but I have learned that if I don’t pour into myself, I won't have anything to give to everyone else, and they deserve a better version of myself. I have learned that planning out my days and trying my best to stay organized helps me get all the things done in a day that I want and need to, and it helps me have more time to be there for others. I am not perfect at this; knowing my priorities and making sure I have time for one thing for myself in a day has made a big difference in my college experience.