college is fun but adulting is better
Hey everyone, how's it going? My name is Mayuko, and welcome back to my channel. So I realize that it's July, which means that a lot of you have recently graduated college. And it made me think of the time in my own life when I graduated, and I kind of just had no idea how to adult exactly all throughout college. And like, even when I was in high school, applying to college, I feel like there was just like so many resources and pamphlets and stuff around me about how to do college. There were like seminars and things that kind of all explained, like how you get into college, and
then what do you do when you're there, and how to make the most of your experience. And getting in these days is like such a hard part of the process. Like it's gotten even more competitive over the last few years. So if you're applying to college right now, I feel for you, and once you get to college, however way you might get there, a lot of things are kind of set up for you. There's orientation events and icebreakers and roommate finders, and then throughout the
year, they provide like academic and career counseling. And they also show you like where's the best place to eat on campus or whatever. There's clubs and organizations that you can join with, like built in socialization, which makes it really easy to make friends college is like a super nice sleepaway camp or something. Except, of course, it costs about as much as a private jet to attend. And as you get ready to head off to college, you've probably heard a lot of
like this proverbial college wisdom from just about everyone around you. They'll give you a little tips and wax poetic, like how college is going to be so different from anything you've ever experienced in your life, you're not going to be able to get away with not studying in college, you better get ready for all the costs and all nighters, it's gonna be different in college, Just you wait. But the really crazy part is gonna be the party scene. And all of this adds up to the point that like when you're going to college, even if you're a little bit nervous, you just have so much information and advice at your fingertips that you kind of know what to expect. But then college comes to an end. And it feels like in contrast to all the advice you got in going to college, you get not nearly as much advice and wisdom about life after college, that crowd of wisdom givers and well wishers basically go silent. And that's the problem.
Because as difficult as college is for some people, what we really all need help with is what comes next, everyone talks about college in the same way. Because everyone who's gone to college knows more or less what it's like. It's one of the last real shared experiences that people can hold on to, before they scatter to the wind after graduation. After graduation. People do so many different things with their life, some of your friends graduate and immediately get
married and somehow buy a house within like a year. Others grow their hair long and live in a van for 18 months. And everyone in between does something slightly different traveling fancy jobs, finding themselves settling down, or none of the above. So you can't really make a pamphlet or like a pre written wise quote, for the wild variety of post college experiences. The closest we get to any proverbial wisdom with all of that are kind of like means that your cousin posts about like adulting on Facebook every once in a while. It's like people's experience vary so much that it's kind of impossible to prescribe, like general blanket advice that works for everybody. So no one kind of bothers I
suppose that's understandable. But sometimes it does feel a little intentional, like what it feels like sometimes it's like, Okay, bye Good luck with your life. But there are such intense things that happen after college. In fact, nearly all the difficulties we face things like emotional stress, financial stress, like big moves in career in life and stuff. They all happen after college. So naturally, one of the biggest things that I've heard from lots of people in their 20s, including myself is something called post college disillusionment, where colleges is like super magical moment, and everything's fun and super challenging. And you're just like, wow, there's like so much that the world and life has to offer, that after you graduate and you step out into the real world, it somehow feels a little disappointing. But it doesn't have to be that way. I think that life after college is without a doubt the best part of
life. Or at least it can be because life after college can be anything. You'd also love something like 80 years and college last for so it'd be smart to make the ad as good as before or better. So what do you do after college? What happens next? And what are some mindsets that are really helpful to have as you move into the longest phase of your life? Well, let's start with the positive is that you get to design your own life. There's a day that happens after your
graduation ceremony after all the events and work requirements like meetings and stuff are over, after everyone is finished congratulating you, and basically going back to their lives where you wake up in the bed and realize that you're totally on your own. There's no one to really tell you what to do no classes to go to no homework, no dining, all, nothing. And you'll come to realize that there are literally going to be hundreds of those days. And you have to ask yourself, what are you going to do with them? That's one of the weirdly scary things about post college life is the first time we're given the opportunity to truly design and build your lives from the ground up. And it can feel overwhelming. But if you approach it kind of slowly, and like systematically, that freedom can turn into the best thing ever. And you'll come to really appreciate it like I think it's a blessing in disguise, take my word for it, I've been adulting for a while, and it gets easier. So let's take
it step by step. There's your work life and your personal life, both of which are obviously important for different reasons. Inside of those are things like your mental and physical health, and ways to spend time like hobbies and a social life, you likely actually already has some sort of structure that worked for you in college, obviously, it's going to be changing a lot now. But think of the systems and structures that you liked, and really helped you. And kind of build off of that, because you already have something you can work off of. And that's going to give you like a bit of stability and familiarity during this time. So let's start with work. Maybe you work full time, or maybe you're freelance, but either way, you get to decide how much of your life you want to spend on work. So what do you want
your work life to look like? a strict nine to five? Or are you more of a 12 hour day hustler that wants work to be a bigger part of their life? Do you want to invest all of your energy into work, or do just enough to succeed? Both options are totally valid, of course, you just have to choose which one you like. Or if you prefer something in between, like you can log off at 5pm or invest a few more hours per day and stay on longer to build your foundational work skills. And this plays right into figuring out your own personalized work life balance. Or in other words, how do you want to balance your work life from your personal life. And I gotta say, I know it's easy to like go full throttle when you're first start work. But I really encourage you to pay attention to your body and mind during this time, when they
feel out of sorts, like definitely take a break. We might not really know or like max capacity yet. But we all know what it feels to be overextended and overwhelmed. So take some pre emptive steps like check in with yourself to make sure that you don't get there, the things you do in both parts of your life will influence how the other feels. So
find out what works well for you. Maybe it's a glass of water in the morning, a walk break in the middle of the day, eating a healthy lunch, or turning off your email notifications after work, which is what I do. And nobody getting an email from me after five o'clock. It does take like actual work to manage your own energy and times that you have plenty of both in and outside of work. So just be patient in figuring out what works for you. Remember, though, that you get to decide what your balance looks like. So when it comes to personal life, one such shift that you're probably going to feel from college life is maintaining a social life. This might be like the first time
in your life, which I know it was for me, where you can't rely on the built in socialization systems that existed in school, you used to be with people your age around you all the time, whether that be like in class or like you lived in the dorms or whatever. But now everyone's in a different job and maybe even in different cities. And it's easy to fall in a pattern of going to work going home and going to work again with like nothing in between. If you're super outgoing and social in college, don't be surprised if you start to feel a little lonely especially as things start out. But
it's totally possible to build an entirely new network of friends after college and just like everything else in the strange new life, it's all completely up to you. I've actually found that like post college it's kind of easier to make friends maybe it's because people in your same age range are like easy to talk to and like the superficial cliques and like clubs and stuff that existed in school kind of start to melt away when you're an adult you know once you get the hang of it it becomes really easy to find common ground with like people in kind of your age group because you've experienced similar things before and I think part of why it becomes easier to make friends is like everybody's just trying to make it work like life's hard for everyone and like no one cares anymore about things like cliques and stuff and you know if making friends take some time that's okay too. You don't need to immediately find like your best friend five ever right away. Because I found that in adulthood, like connections and like how you meet friends like becomes increasingly web like, as in I meet like one person, and then they introduced me to like two other people, and then it kind of like spiders out from there. Of course, it won't be as easy to actually find time to hang out because of like work and like other life
things. But it is possible. I think we all know, especially after this long quarantine, that in the age of the internet, geographic constraints are not a big deal. When it comes to maintaining friendships, just give it a little effort, schedule your Hangouts and utilize your weekends when you can, you'll be glad you did. So once you start working on
your baseline, and you start feeling like both your work and personal life is like starting to get kind of like a good balance or like you're on your way, then you might start thinking about your life in kind of more of a macro sense. And even though it might be scary, it's kind of a good time to start thinking about what life you want to live, and what kind of effort Do you need to put in to make that happen. And one of the most important things I've learned after graduating from college is that you get out what you put in, there's a version of your life where like, you're pretty happy, you have a pretty stable job, you enjoy your normal life, but you feel like you're not quite as happy as you could be. And if you don't want to live like that, it's up to you to put in the effort to make your life better. The difference between like your pre adulting life and now is that you're 100% responsible for how you want to use your energy in life, in all of the energy you put into something is going to be all the energy you get out of something, if that makes sense. Sure, school is also kind of like that though. If you put in more effort, you'll probably learn more and get better grades. But there isn't a syllabus anymore. There aren't calendars and guides for how exactly
to spend your time, no one's gonna make decisions for you or give you what you need unless you work for it. So you have to figure out a lot on your own. Now, for a lot of you, I know this is going to be like the first time you're ever steering your ship. And I know that can be really scary and daunting, but I assure you, it gets better with time, just move towards the things that mean something to you or bring goodness to your life in some way. For example, start to think about like routines that you want to build into your life that will benefit you like focusing on exercising or your nutrition. Okay, so I want to make an assumption here about you all, college probably took care of like food for
you, you might have had a meal card and like a cafeteria and like different dining halls, you could go to at like 2am. And as a result, it's likely and totally fine if all you can make is like butter noodles. And like garlic bread. I'm also sorry if that's the wrong assumption. I'm just making an assumption here for the video. But I have to say there are some serious advantages that come with being able to cook your own food, you're more in control than you've ever been before, like the health content and like choosing what goes into your food and like choosing what you want to eat when you get to like cook when you want and add the ingredients that you want. Like that's so powerful. After I learned how to cook for myself in earnest and building the skills to do so. I'm pretty frickin happy with the food that I can make.
Now, I'm not trying to say I'm like a pro level chef by any means. But for my imaginary restaurant, we're the only customers me, I think I know my audience pretty well. We're responsible for keeping ourselves nourished and healthy. So I encourage you to find what works for you. This is your life, and you can live how you want to. So try investing and putting your effort and energy into this and reap the rewards. You'll also at some point have to start thinking about like real type adulting things, but I mean, like what even really is adulting I guess it's just like being able to take charge and like owning up to and like taking responsibility for like your life stuff. You'll start seeing taxes taking out a paycheck. And you'll like learn what a W nine is and stuff like that. It's all like, honestly, I
think it's really boring and like kind of complicated, but it's okay, we all figure it out when we need to spend an afternoon googling, like, what is a 401k. And I'll tell you like, you'll be glad that you did. That's one of those things that if you do earlier on and you like contribute to your 401k as early as possible, you really will get to reap the rewards later on. And when you get like really confused or overwhelmed by any of these kind of like adulty things. Remember, it's okay to ask for help. The first couple of years in any new phase of life, in my opinion is all about growing and learning. Technically, you're never gonna like stop growing and learning. But I think like in the early years, like post grad is when it's like the most intense because you're just building your own foundation for how to do this because everything's new. Everything's gonna be a little overwhelming, but that's okay, too. So there's probably going to be times where you're like, I don't know what I'm doing, but it's okay. You're not supposed to like a
lot of people don't know what they're doing, especially when they're starting out, you probably heard a lot of people say that because it's true, like it's true. So really, and it took me like a really long time to realize this. Ask for help when you need it, like people like to help other people, like people love to explain things that they're interested in, or they know well, and like you get to benefit because you get to learn from their life experiences. And don't worry too much about like, if you're bothering someone, if you are, then they'll tell you so like, don't worry too much. And just like go for it. In fact, if you're in like a field or workplace where you have a manager specifically assigned to you lean on them, asked for like weekly one on ones and follow ups and check ins as much as you want to, or maybe a little more than you think you need to share with someone else that you need help does require a bit of vulnerability. And I know
sometimes it can be scary, because it can feel like a sign of weakness. But in reality, I think it's like one of the strongest things that you can do. Telling someone your worries can actually help to deepen the relationship you have with them, because it's a great opportunity for you and another person to really get to know each other and develop a shared experience. So remember, you're not alone in all of this. Life is not meant to be done alone. And there are plenty of people who can help you out in tough times if you ask for it. And this help is actually so important. Because
during this time, more than anything, the subject that you're going to be learning the most about is yourself right now is the time to learn who you really are. So when you're going through this, like big huge change, you're probably going to feel like all this like adulting. And like realness is like getting thrown at you. And again, it's gonna be kind of overwhelming. And it'll feel like a lot of things are happening very fast. And to be fair it is. But given that you get to design your own life, and you get to put your energy where you want to, and that you can lean on others for help. This entire process really is here to help you learn who you really are, and what kind of life you want to
live through all the trial and error and like the mistakes and like trying to get out of your comfort zone thing. Like you'll realize what's for you and not for you. They're also probably the things that you're like, this is not for me right now. But maybe it'll be for me a few years from now, these are all such important cues to listen and look out
for, because that's going to help inform you where you want to steer your ship. So I think it's really important during this time to make sure you're reflecting every so often on your own feelings and experiences. Maybe you'll set up a journaling practice to write your own thoughts and feelings or a thought will randomly cross your mind while you're commuting to work. Whatever the method, you will get to know yourself really well during this process, doing this work will actually make it a lot easier to deal with the ups and downs of work. And then also make big life decisions when they happen. And you know what self discovery process can take a long time. It's normal to feel pressure to figure out
yourself overnight and to like know what you like and don't like and what you want your career with life to be like, but you don't have to. So it's totally okay, if you don't have that figured out just yet. In fact, it's normal if you don't like I mean, I'm, I'm still figuring out myself if I'm honest. Like I just remember I felt like I needed to have like a view or like an opinion on everything right after graduation. But you don't have to like there's enough things in our life right now that like create anxiety that we don't have to add this huge like existential thing to our list. If we don't have to remember how much time you really have, like you have a lot longer than four years. So you've probably noticed a trend in all these pieces of advice. That's because it honestly all boils down to one thing. In
this moment, you've started your journey and becoming more you than you've ever been before. Whether it's like the people that you hang out with or the area you live or the food you cook, or the type of career you have. You're in the driver's seat, that is a seriously powerful thing. And you'll soon realize adulthood is the best. So have fun figuring it all out. Because you know what? It'll all be okay.
Thank you so much for watching to the very end, and I hope you liked this video. So I believe that one of the most underrated tenants of adulting is to continuing to learn even after graduation. And one of the best resources I found to help you do that is Brilliant, who is the sponsor of today's video. So you've heard me talk about Brilliant like all the time, like they sponsor a lot of my videos, and I've told you a lot about what their platform is and what they do. In case you didn't know, Brilliant is a website and app built off the principle of active problem solving. You learn
best while doing and solving in real time. So jump right into solving problems and be coached bit by bit until before you realize it. You've learned a new subject in STEM, so It has actually upped their interactivity level on their platform to a whole new level. Take this lesson about like the Pythagorean theorem. For example, you might remember from school what the formula is, but in this lesson, you're moving around triangles and actually proving that a squared plus b squared is equal to c squared. It's pretty cool
stuff. And I think I would have understood like all of my STEM classes much better if there were stuff like this. And you know what, there's more where that came from. So if you'd like to join me and a community of 8 million learners and educators today, click the link in the description box down below or visit Brilliant.org/hellomayuko Alright everybody. Thanks again, and I'll see you next time. Bye!!! (Thanks for reading!)
2021-07-17 07:00
