Finding Your Feet in the World After Education – Guest Post

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Maddie Astle

Blogger at mind the gap graduates

I’m Maddie, a 22-year old living in London and working in Public Relations. I graduated from the University of Leicester in 2019, with a degree in Criminology. After finishing university, I moved straight to London without a job, and really felt the impacts of post-graduate depression. I started a job which I quit within a month because of a toxic environment and then I started a new role but struggled to adapt to adult life. 

As a result, I started my blog – Mind The Gap Graduates – to help myself and other people reading it to adjust to the world of work and adulthood. I cover topics of careers, finances and self-care. It’s made things a lot easier to know that I wasn’t alone in my feelings and how I was struggling to adapt to work and the independence that the real world gives us.

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Leaving school or university can be difficult in many ways, especially when it comes to knowing what direction to take our lives now we’re not guided by qualifications or the ‘norm’. It can be a challenge to find our feet in the world and may take some time, and this is completely okay. 

Here are some ideas of how you can settle into the world of adulthood, and not feel too lost about things.

Set Yourself Some Rough Goals

As we leave the structure of education, there are a lot more opportunities available to us, but often significantly less guidance and support. I’d recommend opening up a big notebook or using a whiteboard to scribble down, loosely, all of the things you’d like to achieve in the next year or maybe even five years. It’s a strange time where some people are being promoted in their jobs, others are getting married or buying houses, and you can feel a bit behind or unsure. Make sure that you really get to know what you want from your twenties and don’t be influenced by what others are doing.

Find Your Passions

When people ask the question ‘so, what career do you want?’, it’s important that our answers are guided by our interests and passions. Following a career path without any motivation or love for it could lead to burnout and disengagement which is not good. As above, take some time to work out your passions, interests and hobbies and see if there’s a career that incorporates these things. It might be that you enjoy painting or design, so a career in interiors design might really take your fancy. Or maybe you absolutely love animals, so working with them in some form of another would be a dream.

Work does not have to be boring or something you dislike, and when there are so many options in today’s world, everyone can find something they love.

Don’t Compare Yourself To Other People

It’s really difficult to go from being at the same stage in life as your friends, to being really far from it. Our peers were always working toward the same qualifications, even doing the same homework as us, so we were able to ask questions and feel ‘on track’. But now, we’re all left to our own devices, choosing different routes and this can lead to comparison. It’s so important to not compare ourselves to others, as we all want different things and shouldn’t put ourselves down because of what someone else might have achieved before us.  Have faith with your own goals and plans, and don’t worry about anyone else. It’s much easier said than done but with a bit of practice and more confidence in our own ability, you can be rid of comparison.  
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I hope you the article provided better persepective in searching your way after education. If this article helped you or think will help your loved ones, please do share it with them and leave a comment below with your thoughts. Do subscribe to get access to my free library or resources. 

Have a lovely day!

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