 So you decided to be a doctor and you also got into med school, but now you're both excited and terrified because med school starts soon. Trust me guys, I get it. I've been there in this video. I'm going to tell you the key important things you need to remember and to do during your first week, months and semesters of med school to really succeed and also enjoy the process. Let's get into it after this intro. All right guys, what is going on? Lux here from MD journey helping you succeed on your medical journey with less stress. Now if you are new to this channel, my name is Lux. I am a first year internal medicine resident in this full platform is helping students just like you to strive on their medical journey and not to survive. So if you enjoy that message and you enjoy this video, first of all, give the video like and subscribe to the channel for more content just like this. But I want to help you who's watching this video and say I got into med school. I'm super excited, but I'm looking and scouring all corners of the internet for all the tips that I need to do well and survive. And in this video, guys, again, I'm going to give you the tips to not only survive, but to strive. So let's get into it. So the very first tip guys that I have for you is to remember this. You belong. One of the first things you'll probably identify or learn about is that imposter syndrome. And it is so frequent around med students around residents and around doctors. We will look around every person around us who's both brilliant, talented and forget that we are also brilliant and talented. So when you have to look at your classmates and realize how much people have done, how well they're going to do, remember that you are also doing well. You are also brilliant and you are meant to be a doctor. Somebody thought so. A personal statement was convincing enough and more important, you believe yourself to be good enough. So keep that in mind. You belong. So if you can, and it's hard, stop looking around. And one of the best tips that I've ever gotten as a med student was don't worry about what everyone else is doing because your success can still happen no matter how well they're doing, you can too. So just remember you belong, work hard. It's going to be challenging. You're going to have hills and valleys that you belong. Now tip number two to remember, and this is not for all of you, but this is for some of you, is to get out of this mode of trying to impress people. A lot of times when you're around personality, like med students, type A personalities, some of us like to stick your chest out because we like to show that we belong. It goes back to the first tip, but sometimes it gets to be a little bit of a game where you keep trying to push your chest out and eventually you have to hold your breath and it's no longer fun. And honestly, people aren't even paying attention. So these are also the students that are just not satisfied and they don't feel content and they usually in their medical journeys or at least their medical school experience kind of feeling jaded. They feel like, you know, people don't appreciate them. But the best way to avoid feeling under-appreciated is stop looking for attention. Stop looking to impress people, stop trying to, you know, rest on your accolades, how well your classes are doing, how well your board scores were, things of that. You need to take a step back. It's really a practice of humility. Again, there are smart people all around you. There are likely people who are going to look at you and saying, I want to be that guy or that gal. And it's okay to have that attention, but you have to remember not to look around and try to just one up people. It creates a recipe for disaster. And more importantly, you are never satisfied. So remember that stop trying to impress others. Now the third tip guys is probably my favorite and that is prepared to fail because it can lead to early success. Now the med school population is very common for this, which is we avoid to do things that are outside of a comfort zone because we're happy with the results that we've got. But sometimes we avoid taking leaps because we're, you know, we just don't want to fail or look silly. But when you are prepared to fail, when you are trying different things and you're tinkering, you're making adjustments, whether that's when you're studying how you interact with your patients, your relationships, everything in that school, your productivity, things will get better. You will find things that work and keep them things that don't work and never try them again. But I found in my four years, I tinkered so much with my study, my productivity, and now I can look at all the things that I've learned in those four years. And I also have classmates who refuse to make changes because they're afraid of what change would do to them. So they're still near how they started the med student. And that's not the point of the four years. Get better, be okay to fail because in the failure is the lesson and in the lesson is the success. So be okay to fail. It's part of the journey. Learn from the failure and try to make more and more of them so that way you can succeed faster and faster. Now I have three more tips for you. So tip number four is to focus on dials versus switches. Now you will likely do this during your first month. You will try to come in with a study plan most likely. And then by week one or week two, you're going to have a totally different study plan. That's because maybe you were finding it to be unproductive, you think you were inefficient, it was taking too long or even worse, grades didn't come out the way you wanted. And you're just going to just do a complete 180. But instead guys, to avoid kind of chasing your tail and making an adjustment saying, crap, that didn't work. Making a full another adjustment and realizing this also doesn't work and then getting in that ball of stress, make minimal changes. That's why you need to change the dial and not just switch. But let me give you an example. For example, you may be struggling with your studying, but instead of completely redoing your study regimen, instead you can focus on one or two things that you realize maybe can use some improvement and make those adjustments and then evaluate your results, how you feel a couple of days or weeks from now. Because then you can say, did this work? And if it did, keep it, if it didn't take it away and try something different. This is so much better than what I was doing my first couple of months, which led to an excessive amount of stress. Is that I would do one study routine, I'd get maybe decent results and then I'd see my classmates do something else. And I'm like, well, I should try that. And so I would totally give away what was kind of working and then try something that I wasn't sure. So just remember dials over switches. Don't make drastic 180 degree turns. Now the next tip guys is probably important for any of you guys that love saving money. I'm assuming that's all of y'all. And that's to avoid buying things. Now when you start med school, you will see your classmates buy everything under the sun, all the resources, all the platforms, all the flashcards. They'll tell you about how amazing it is because they read about it and read it, student doctor, forum, YouTube. And you may think that it's going to be your kind of golden goose to succeed in that school. But I promise you it's going to be okay. In fact, during your first month of med school, try to go without a resource. Then after that month, try to identify, you know, maybe I need help in this topic and try to see what resources really can do trick for you. So hold off on buying anything that even includes things on my website. You know, I don't want you to drastically make a purchase. Once you identify that you need help with this, then go out and see if you can find a resource or guide to help you. So save some money, you know, either you can spend it on something better later or just save it and use it at another time. Now last tip guys, and I promise you since you made it here, I want you to listen up. This is super important. You come first. Med school will do such a good job of taking pieces of your life, but it only if you let it. So it will take your free time. It will take your sanity. It will take control of your stress and I promise you it will make you stressed out. It will take your weekends. It will take your mornings. It will take your evenings. But again, only if you let it, you come first and you don't deserve to be an unhealthy doctor. And more importantly, your patients don't deserve to have one who's unhealthy as well. So make sure you're doing everything you can to put yourself first. That includes making sure there's something scheduled in your day for you. It can be 30 minutes to an hour scheduled at first. It can be exercise. It can be just time to relax and do something you enjoy. Make sure you're sleeping well. Make sure you're eating well. Don't do junk food throughout med school. It turns out to be pretty bad. But all that is just to say, make sure you take care of yourself before you are focusing on a career or taking care of other people. But with that being said guys, those are my most important tips for new med students, people that just want to know like what should I do my first week? What do I need to have in mind? And hopefully you guys enjoyed it. Now, if you guys have more questions, you know, add tons of answers from experience. So make sure you comment down below. And if you did enjoy this video, make sure you give it a like. That's all I ask for you to kind of help out the channel is to give some likes, comment, tell me what you like. And if you're gracious enough and subscribe to this channel. But thank you so much for being a part of my journey. Hopefully I've been a little help on yours. If you are starting medical schools soon, first of all, I want to say congratulations. You're part of a very exciting field, a very exciting profession. And I wish you all the best. Let me know if there's any way I can help you. But I will see you guys in the next video. Take care guys.