I graduated from college just over a month ago.
Scrolling through LinkedIn has made it feel like everyone in my graduating class has a crazy internship or is traveling the world. My LinkedIn feed is a constant bombardment of people posting about their big-time internships or announcing they’re teaching English in a foreign country for a year. It is completely and utterly overwhelming and discouraging — especially when I’m still in the same town getting denied from minimum wage part-time jobs.
As an insanely competitive person, changing my mindset hasn’t been easy, but post-grad is not a competition. I’ve spent the last month reminding myself that what’s meant for me will find me as long as I continue to put in the effort. Dwelling on what other people are doing only sets me up for failure. Now, my goals revolve only around competing with myself: doing what I can today to set myself up for success the next day.
I’m staying in my college town for another year and learning to appreciate it from a new perspective. I’ve been going on walks more often — exploring neighborhoods and parts of town I didn’t know existed, finding new books at Little Free Libraries and taking time to take better care of myself now that I’m not consumed by the stress of college courses.
I do what I can when I can. I can’t drop everything and travel the world or even move to a new state right now, but I can complete a few online certificates and apply for remote internships while saving money working part-time… and I can start a blog.
Thanks for reading,
Riley
