5 whole years of Psychology Intake!

Hello everyone! Hope you've all been well, and making the most out of the last 16 days of 2025. I know I am.

As the above title states, my blog is officially 5 years old! (Well, as of the 12th of December). I was supposed to do this blog on the Friday just gone, but I had something on that day, which prevented me from being active on here. Anyway, I got time today, so 3 days late isn't too bad!

In this special blog, I just want to take a moment to reflect on why I wanted to start a blogging site, as well as what my intentions are with being a blogger & the content I create with all things psychology.

What was my reason for creating this blog? 

Back in 2019, I started growing a passionate interest for psychology. As of such, I began reading psychology articles to feed my brain with psychology facts. Fast forward onto 2020, where I had spent a large chunk of my time being at home, I wanted to gain a more deeper knowledge of psychology by doing a few courses on The Open University. 

And my learning thirst didn't stop there... My mind was craving after more psychology articles. By the 12th of December of that year, I plucked up the courage to create my own blogging site based on my growing passion for psychology. So here we are!

Did I want to use psychology towards anything?

Yes, I did. I want to be able to use psychology to work with people & their mental health. Although I wanted to go through a psychology degree at a university. Back then, I had to go through 3 courses at college to get towards studying a psychology degree at university. In other words, I was 3 years away from getting to that stage. During these 3 years, I have learned about the importance of exercising to uplift mental health & wellbeing, conformity, conditioning & Maslow's Needs.

However, 3 months prior to leaving college, all of that changed... I ended up not going the university route to undertake a psychology, as I was told by one of my college tutors that all it will be, is a subject on a piece of paper in a glass frame when I graduate. Instead, I went down a different route...

And that route was getting to work in education, as well as expanding my skills & morals into youth work. All in all, I'd definitely say that me inheriting all of this psychology knowledge & facts was 110% worth it! This is because I get to use it as a superpower to understand young people's behaviour. With that said - Goal achieved!🎉  

Always look back on how far you've come

Hello everyone! Just a quick one for today, as once again, worklife is taking over me at the moment. Well, as of this Monday. And I had a busy rest of July doing other non-work related things as well.

On the 16/7, I went for a walk from Weybridge - Walton-On-Thames via the Thames Path after a busy afternoon of doing "non-work related things". It was also just over a year ago since I have walked on that very same path, as I used to go to college in the area, and I used to like walking along that path alongside the Thames during long breaktimes or if I've finished early for the day.

It was also a coincidence that I wasn't feeling in the best of moods throughout most of that day by constantly worrying about things like finance & what will happen for me in the future.

However, whilst I was halfway along the pathway between Weybridge & Walton-On-Thames, I stopped very briefly, turned round, and that's when a truthful thought entered my mind. It just kept telling me: "Since I was last in this area, I've done & accomplished so much."

That thought was indeed nothing but true, as during the past year, I have: 

• Worked alongside the Surrey PCC & her Deputy on crime issues in Surrey with other SYC members

• Attended/ran the SYC conference with other SYC members in Woking to showcase all of our hard work we've done with tackling crime in Surrey, as well as gathering views from young people across Surrey to help shape our key findings as evidence

• Joined the IOPC Youth Panel, and began working with members all across the country to gather views of young people on their experiences of the police, criminal justice system & the police complaints system

• Did my own fitness challenge throughout July of last year to raise some money for Mind

• Attended 2 Surrey Police Training Workshops in Ewell with some IOPC members, where we provided the police better strategies when it came to dealing with young & vulnerable members of the public 

• Jumped out of a plane from a staggering height of 13,000ft to raise vital funds for Challengers (I was even joined by the CEO & her wife too!)

• Registered with an agency, where I worked as an LSA in a SEMH school from November - May, and gained a better understanding of how SEMH affects pupils. Not to mention the emotional & inspirational journey I had been on in those 6 months as well with the school, as it went from a instructured & failing environment to a safe & thriving place to learn. (More blog posts to come relating to this...)

• Attended/ran the IOPC Youth Panel Conference up in Leeds, where we showcased all of our work on how we are making the police complaints system better for people to access, as well as how we are working with police forces across the country to form better working relationships with communities, young & vulnerable people

• Just for fun, I travelled to every major place in Kent that I haven't been to yet within just 1 week

• Went up to Parliament with a few members of the Surrey Youth Commission & the Hertfordshire Youth Commission, where we were joined by the Deputy PCC to have a round table discussion with some MP's about how vulnerable young people must be prioritzed by the government

That's definitely quite a few accomplishments I will be forever proud of! It made me feel a whole lot better about myself too by looking back at how far I've come to where I'm at now.

The morale of the story is: "Always look back on how far you've come, as it will help you to appreciate your accomplishments in the present moment."

If you've made it this far into the post, then thank you so much for taking the time to read through this, and I'll hopefully be back soon!

*I began this post on the 31/7, but didn't finish it until the 2/8*

It's all about the focus

Before you all ask yourself by looking at the title, this is NOT a chosen quote I have picked from the internet for a QOTD, this is just a post that I have decided to do (with the chosen post title) as I made some choices that I wasn't proud of at the beginning of this week, as well as what I nearly ended up doing because of how I was feeling. This was what had inspired me to make this post.

My outcome for this post, is to make everyone reading not feel alone if they are going through something similar, or need some encouragement to keep focusing on achieving what they want to do in life regardless of how long & time consuming it is taking them. What I am about to tell you is not exception.

For the past 4 years, I have been dreaming of a career in the policing. Around the same time, I began developing my passion for psychology, and wish to do something in that industry as well. And because they both combine well together, I chose to do Public Services at college due to there being a ton of psychology involved in that industry. 

That journey to get to where I currently am now had started at doing a L1 Sport & Public Services course, where I got to learn more about what policing is actually like, rather than the stereotypical catching criminals, as well as learn about the basic fitness elements. During the COVID-19 lockdown, all I was doing until I had finished for that summer break was creating online posters on Word promoting sport activities. I thought I wouldn't be able to get through it during that lockdown, but I just got on with it like my future ambition depended on it. I even signed up to the OpenUniversity to get a few psychology related qualifications under my belt as well, just to get me prepared for my future. (Which was going to uni back then)

I then made an easy progression onto the L2 course doing the same thing, but it was more to do with sport & fitness. By that time, I felt confident enough to create my own blogging website to share my then & now knowledge of psychology to an audience. Especially during the 3rd COVID-19 lockdown, where I couldn't do anything else besides coursework for 3 months. I was mainly doing a lot of coursework & practical sport & fitness that relate to mental health, which I really enjoyed learning about, as well as doing. Let me tell you, doing what I did during that 3rd lockdown felt like the hardest thing I had to go through, let alone embrace, but I knew it was important that I get through it, because of I didn't, I wouldn't be able to progress onto doing L3 Public Services.

When I did get onto my 1st year of L3 Public Services, I felt like I've already accomplished a major achievement, just by simply being on the course itself. However, I never expected the FULL-ON assignment workload which layed ahead of me during my excitementfor the first 2 months. I remember feeling the struggle of the workload around halfway through the academic year due to falling behind with my assignments. Luckily, I managed to knuckle down in my free time, so it prevented me from making that mistake again. Before long, summer had hit, and I was able to relax with a sense of relief,  knowing that I have already done well enough to progress onto the 2nd year. In that time, I suddenly wanted a career in the Royal Navy. (After finishing uni)

Because I did the 1st year, I was able to do the 2nd year of my L3 Public Services course. Again, this felt like I've already accomplished a major achievement for just progressing onto the 2nd year. I made sure to get onto doing course right away, so it gave me plenty of time work through them calmly without feeling any pressure to rush them. However, that all changed at the beginning of January, where I had new assignments come out every 2 weeks. From then up until May, I was literally neck deep in coursework that I had no choice but to take a hiatus for 3 months. I also made the decision to not go to uni in that time frame too. Although I still thought it was worth going to 2 open events back in December just to see what uni life would be like.

Overall, I would say that I have experienced some high stress levels throughout my whole L3 course in Public Services. This was because I felt like my whole future depended on getting a decent grade at the end of it, or else I would be screwed.

Back in March, I was reccomended by my tutor that I take the SC route into policing, instead of doing the uni route, so I didn't have to stress over UCAS points, which worked out for me. Also around that time, I was employed by Disability Challengers as a part-time play/youth worker. (A job I'm very proud to have for reasons that shall be explained in another post) Back then was because I was still in the mind of going to uni, and thought this job would pay off my student loan.

Fast forward onto this month, I am not working in the Police Force just yet. This is because I feel like I should just settle down after everything that has happened from January - June. Especially with my job at Disability Challengers, as I want to put my focus on that more during the time being as well. 

*This was where my poor choice occurred*

I was reccomended to do extra credit at college by doing a L2 Health & Social Care course. Because I have done a L3 course, I feel like it's pointless doing a L2 course afterwards, so I wanted to drop out of education by looking for full-time work that would work round my Disability Challengers job. This led me to bunking off college in order to attend job interviews. Even then, I thought I was getting somewhere, but after lengthy conversations with a few people, I realised my choice was getting me nowhere, but trouble.

This was also where common sense hit me by saying that the more time I spend in education, the more qualifications I will have. Plus, the more qualifications, the more likely I will get into my dream career. I then vowed to myself that from next week onwards, will be clean slate. To make this happen, I must embrace my situation by just keeping my head down, and getting on with everything without backtracking my focus.

That pretty much concludes my long arse journey progression talk. I hope this has given you all courage to be more open about your journey progression as well.

Remember, IT'S ALL ABOUT THE FOCUS!

Onwards & upwards.✊🏻

Why facing your fears makes your mind feel more powerful

Hello everyone! This was something that I did with my work colleagues at Challengers this past Saturday. (9/9/23) If you want to find out more, click on this link to view: Basingstoke Team Abseil Spinnaker Tower for Disability Challengers

And because there is psychology involved with facing your fears, I thought about mixing in my facing my fears experience along with talking about the benefits & outcomes in the same post.

*An action shot of me abseiling down Spinnaker Tower in Portsmouth, UK*

My personal experience with facing my fears:

Let me tell you, it's not very often that I get to abseil from something that is stood tall at 100m! 

Prior to my abseiling experience with my work colleagues, I have always been jittery about dangling over a height. Hence, I rarely got to do any abseiling at all. What I mean when I say being jittery about heights, is me being up a height where I can look down it. 

However, as soon as I saw the opportunity to sign up to the Spinnaker Tower abseil, in aid of raising money for work, I immediately jumped at the chance. This was mainly because I wanted to challenge myself by abseiling from a height of 100m. Besides, if I didn't do this, I knew I was only going to regret it.

Fast forward to when I was abseiling down the tower, the waiting by the abseiling platform (where I waited to be clipped up to my abseiling rope) was a bit nerve-racking, as I had to wait for 2 of my colleagues to go down first. Once I got the rope clip on process out of the way, I proceeded to position myself onto the tower wall. (Where I was abseiling down) I thought to myself: "The quicker I get going with my abseil, the less time I will have feeling nervous." Although, as a matter of fact, I was actually feeling excited/nervous combined.

The second I hit the floor, I felt so accomplished & mentally powerful that I feel like I can do anything involving heights!

Benefits & outcomes:

As well as debriefing about my personal experience with facing my fears, I will say hands down that being able to face your own fears (whatever they may be) head on, will make you feel more powerful in physical appearance & in mind. With that said, being scared is good for the mindset, as the feeling helps it to grow stronger.

I suppose the overall benefit of facing your fears, would be to do them more often, as if they suddenly became second nature to you. An example of this would be climbing up a 40ft height everyday.

If you've reached this far in reading this lengthy post, all I can say is well done, as well as thank you. And I hope this post has taught you all something new by feeling inspired to go out & face your fears.

How moral support can feel so positive & rewarding

Evening everyone! I thought about doing 1 of these posts that I literally come up with at the top of my head. And this post shall be linked to what I was doing yesterday.

So, 2 weeks prior, I got an email from the Samaritans Events Volunteer team, asking if I would be happy to cheer on cyclists who were undertaking the RideLondon event. Of course I gladly responded with a yes! I then yesterday headed up to Stratford City, East London, to hunt for the Samaritans cheering point.

This was now my 2nd time I got to volunteer at a major event with Samaritans!

As I arrived at my cheering point by the cycling track at the 95th mileage, I was warmly greeted by all of the rest of the Samaritans Events Volunteers, who clearly looked happy to be giving up their free time to come and cheer on the cyclists in aid of a good cause. I proceeded to get stuck in.

Where we were stood at, we could see that some of the cyclists looked done for the day, let alone done with the race. Our job was to ensure those tired cyclists powered on past us by feeding positive & motivational words into their mindset. Doing so served a single accomplishment of keeping those cyclists going through the pain barrier.

Without that hard-core moral support, those cyclists wouldn't be going anywhere, as they won't have any verbal fuel from cheerers to motivate their mindsets to accomplish something big as cycling 100 miles across London. This is why I think it's important that charities come together to bring their support for people doing challenging sporting events, as these people don't do them for nothing.

Now, some of you could be wondering why the hell I was at a major event up in London. It's not like I was up there just for the fun of it. Or just to see the cycling event. This was something that I had chose to be a part of, because I wanted to be involved with a charity I am passionate about. Plus, I genuinely feel positive when it comes to doing things for a community.

*This position wasn't where I was standing with the Samaritans stall*

My 2nd university open event experience (10/12/2022)

I was originally going to make this post last night, but I became too occupied with watching the England V France football game. Sadly, the Lions lost, courtesy of the French. And let's also not forget Harry Kane's missed penalty.

Anyway, yesterday's experience was almost similar compared to last Saturday's experience. Although, I got to do some different things in this experience this time around. Here's my full takeaway of my 2nd open uni open day experience from start - finish...

I arrived in Portsmouth shortly after midday to begin my 2nd university open event experience. Once I got myself checked in, I immediately looked for the building within the uni campus that I needed to go to. Fortunately, I didn't have too much of a far walk to get to the Psychology building, where the course talk will be talking place. The King Henry Building to be more specific.

When I made my way into The King Henry Building, I went looking for the room I needed to be in for the course talk. Just like at Solent, there was a presentation that was talking about how psychology plays an important role in society. Or in other words, how psychology can shape the world. I was nothing but fascinated by the amount of examples that the lecturer was telling us of the examples of work placements involved.

Unlike any other university, this one in particular, has a lot of top reasons to study here statistics. It has even been ranked one of the best for specializing in Psychology!

Once we were done with the course talk in the lecture room, there was a tour guide who was keenly waiting outside to take us round the Psychology area. As it turns out, the tour guide is currently doing his 2nd year in Psychology at this university. We first went upstairs to tour round the Psychology equipment rooms. The first one had a human head sitting on a counter wearing a EEG brainwave cap. The second room we went into had an eye traking monitor inside. We also went into a room under construction process, which will become a laboratory. The rest of the rooms downstairs were just research rooms.

The last & favourable bit of the tour was going into a huge lab room downstairs, where research projects take place. What's best about them, apparently, is where students on the course get to carry out a research project on their own! I'll admit, I like the idea of carrying out a research project. (If I ever get the chance to do one...!)

The tour/open event experience concluded after that. Like before at Solent, I was satisfied with the amount of experience I had managed to takeaway.

My 1st university open event experience (3/12/2022)

OMG, I have just had one of the best experiences of my life! What I've experienced today has really opened my eyes to how psychology can go a long way into the world. It's not just my eyes that have opened up to everything I had seen today, my mind has also widely opened up to the mass amount of psychology careers there are out there.

To prevent me from rambling on anymore, I'll go straight into the story from start - finish...

 

2 weeks ago today, (19/11/2022) I booked myself to go to my 1st ever university open event. Fast forward to after a fortnight of excitement later... I had the morning pleasure of trekking down to Solent University in Southampton for what was unknowingly an eye-opening experience.

As I arrived at the building entrance, I was greeted by a member of the open event team who kindly made me feel welcome by handing me an open event programme. From that moment, I was deciding what to go and see. Whilst curiously scrolling through my programme, I saw that there was a psychology talk happening in one of the rooms on the 1st floor. Of course I chose to venture up there!

Inside one of their rooms to begin with, myself & a load of other people were warmly introduced to 2 of the psychology lectures. Both of whom, seemed experienced enough with years of being in the psychology industry. Hence, their industry knowledge was, needles to say, phenomenal! The male & female lectures hosted a quiz activity, which was to basically test everyone's knowledge of psychology. The first being to name as many famous psychologists as possible. Fortunately for me, I was able to name a few. At the same time, however, I do need to brush up my knowledge of famous psychologists a bit better if I want to expand my knowledge. The various other questions we did was based upon reading people's emotions through the look in their eyes. I couldn't remember the purpose of what the other questions were aimed at, but I had found them fascinating nonetheless. After the psychology quiz, the male lecturer was telling us something that made me view psychology from a whole different angle. It went along the lines of: "Psychology is not just about mental health". I absolutely agree with what the male lecture was saying, as psychology has an overall purpose of behaviour of anything. When I say 'anything' I am talking about animal behaviour as well.

One of the 3rd year students who was doing a psychology degree in counselling, was happily sharing her own personal experience of her time studying at the university. She was even highlighting her time studying abroad in Canada. The remainder of her talk was all about doing work placements around the university area. I think it was safe to say that the female student was enthusiastic throughout her time speaking!

The female lecturer was then going through Levels 4 - 6, explaining what different psychology degree modules will typically be taught. It was amazing to see how many of these degree courses have psychology alongside them. They all consisted of: Sport Psychology, Psychology & Counselling, Criminology & Psychology, Sociology & Psychology or just Psychology on its own.

Afterwards, we all went into the room next door to be shown a little fun psychological experiment. 3 people had volunteered themselves to be hooked up to this special piece of machinery, which was connected to the room computer. The computer screen was displaying these graphical lines that illustrated how calm these 3 people were, while sitting in the chair doing self-humiliating things. The 1st person had to count back from 280 in 3's. The 2nd person had to bravely sing a Christmas song in front of all of us watching. I can't remember what the 3rd person did.

All in all, the small psychology taster activities were very eye-opening, which really helped me to further widen my passion for psychology to a better level. Literally, the second I had walked out of the building, my motivation was kicked into overdrive. I was just now so keen to get myself into the psychology industry like never before!

To top everything off, I will be attending the open event at Portsmouth University the following Saturday. I expect more or less the same from today's open event at Solent, but it could be different anything. Regardless, I shall very much be looking forward to it!    

My best nostalgic moment of all time

It's been a week since my last appearance, due to me focusing finishing College for the summer and going out to work. But here I am again in my free time, looking for ideas for my upcoming posts, when... ker-ching! I know what to post today!

As the above title states, this is a happend something which relates to ME, so it's not going to be a public educational post.

However, please do feel free to read if you are interested.

On this day in 2018... (29th June)

At 3:15pm, I was walking around my School car park trying to look for my taxi, when I happen to see my first ever taxi escort (when I was in reception class) having a conversation with my current escort; Kay.

Although, I've technically seen her around for 3 months by then, but when I first saw her for the first time in which seemed like a decade ago, I was like: "No way! That can't be her, my first ever escort who I haven't seen for ages!" Her name was Lee by the way.

Whilst Kay and Lee were enjoying their conversation, I walked up behind Lee's back and tapped her on the shoulder, then said: "Is your name Lee?" She replied with: "Yes." Then I asked if she knew who I was and replied with: "Yeah, I think so? You do look familiar"

I began to tell her who I was and how she used to be my first ever taxi escort during my first 2 years of School. Her next reaction made music to my ears, as she said: "Oh yes! You've grown so much since then!"

I sense in my head, this is right when she started getting flashbacks in of all these memories of when she used to be my first ever taxi escort, by playing with my toys before School started and tickling the palms of my hands whenever I slept in the taxi on my way home. I can tell by her reactions that she was just as happily heartwhelmed as I was when we began sharing our nostalgic memories to one another.

After our introduction, I said to Lee: "I saw you come back 3 months ago, and I wanted to go up to say hello to you, but I thought you wouldn't recognize me." She replied back with: "Well so you should, as I would've recognized you!"

I added on that our text driver used to be called Mel and if Lee still remembers her back then, which she does.

Finally, she said: "Aww, bless you. You've really made my weekend now that you've told me all that." As she still couldn't believe how much I've changed during all these years since we last saw each other, but Lee hasn't changed one bit, which made me recognize her in the first place. I was honestly amazed how she still looked the same the whole time.

I remember thinking to myself that this nostalgic moment made my weekend too.😊

That's the end of that.

Thank you for taking your time to read through my happy nostalgic story. Please feel free to let me know about what your thoughts are on it and I shall be back very soon with a normal educational post.