I was honoured to have the chance to be elected as the Peer Support Leader of the class, a position where I am supposed to learn to observe my friends' emotions and to always lend a helping hand or listening ear when I feel that any of them require it. As such, I got the opportunity to participate in this workshop to hone my skills of the appropriate things to do or say. It was a fulfilling 3-day workshop when I got to learn a lot from the experienced trainer about human behaviour.

The very first factor I learn about being a good peer support leader was empathetic listening. Sometimes, people may approach you and share with you their problems. That does not mean you are the best problem-solver. Most of the times, they just need someone there to connect with them and validate their feelings. In the first part of the workshop, we learned to be active listeners. A quote used by Stephen Covey which I found useful would be "Listen with the intent to understand, not with the intent to reply". I observed some of the tips as well to be an active listener such as avoiding judgement, paraphrasing what they say to show we are listening, using positive body languages etc. After being an active listener, what we cannot miss out would be asking questions. Afterwards, we also learn the difference between asking open questions and close questions to allow others to have a better chance to share what they wish to.

The second part of the workshop was slightly something different as we transit from being listeners to learning about coping mechanisms. We learnt about some examples of challenges we may face at this period of time such as overwhelming responsibilities and friendship problems. We learnt how to think at an optimistic point of view and using an 'ABCDE' model. Most of the times, when we are faced with an event that does not happen accordingly, we will tend to put the blame onto ourselves. However, it not always the case. We learn to identify possible reasons to dispute our belief that we brought upon those consequences. For example, when we did not do so well for a test we studied really hard for, it can be because the difficulty of the paper was raised up.

For me, I have had the chance to apply these skills to one of my friends who was facing problems at times trying to commit to his/her CCA and studying at the same time. I provided a listening ear and paraphrased to affirm what he/she was saying. I found it useful because I could see that he definitely was feeling better after being able to share his feelings.

Overall, the Peer Support Leader workshop was definitely a different experience for me as I explore some really cool human behaviour. Initially, I thought that whatever I am thinking and going through may be only for me. After this course, I realised that there are so many other people that goes through the same thought process. Everybody has different levels of stress. To some, A levels may seem the whole world to them and thus they feel very burnt out hoping to perform their best. To some, they may take it lighter and better. The key to all these is to find your coping mechanisms. Be it exercising or going out with your friends, all these does not waste your time from doing work but instead, it allows your body to take a break and to function more effectively the next time.