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Your internship is a whirlwind, between work, building relationships with your team, and learning to navigate new work environments.  As you approach its end, here are some tips for maintaining your mental health so you can finish strong, and maximize the chance of getting a full-time offer (if, that is what you want - we'll address that in future weeks).

The 100 Week Sprint team

Got 5 minutes? Away from colleagues, take a few deep breaths, and let your brain completely idle between back-to-back meetings to reclaim some mental rest.

Got 30 minutes? Take a trusted colleague out to coffee, to discuss anything that has been mentally weighing on you.

Got an hour? Do an online yoga or meditation session, in order to gather your thoughts and regain mental energy you can later re-direct to work.

Managing your mental health

Hit the midway point of your summer internship role? You’ve likely reached the "mid-summer slump." The initial adrenaline of earlier has faded, your final presentation may still be weeks away, and a month of non-stop networking, financial modeling, and building of presentation decks is catching up to you. For many of our clients who have come before you, the natural response to this fatigue is to push harder. However, we have learned from them, and our own internship experiences, that doubling down on brute-force effort is a route to burnout, reducing your chances for a return offer.

To protect mental stamina without impacting deliverables, we advise transitioning from "saying yes" to a stronger focus on what is already on your plate as you approach the end of your internship. Ruthlessly manage your calendar: protect your deep-work windows, prioritize the work your group actually hired you to solve, and become more comfortable with "good enough" for less critical tasks. Creating rituals like a 15-minute phone-free walk (bonus points if you find someone to do it with) will help you regain energy.

To self-assess your competence at work, track your "wins" in your resume or an ad-hoc database. Track your micro-achievements weekly, from cleanly structuring a messy data set to earning validation from a Director during a meeting. This will provide a data-backed antidote to imposter syndrome, and help you identify performance gaps that you still have time to fill (reminder that hoping someone doesn't notice rarely if ever works).

For HBR's advice on managing burnout, click here.

Recruiting for Consulting? Looking for extra practice?

We're excited to launch "Case Preparation for Consulting Careers", a package that offers 10 hours of time with SCG staff experienced in delivering cases at major consulting firms, preparing you for consulting case interviews. It's designed to give you extra practice and a nuanced perspective on consulting recruiting from our professional interviewers to maximize your chance of recruiting success.

Sign up now to get started!

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