Goodbye High School & College! 😃
Hello Adulthood! 😳
Graduation is one of the most rewarding accomplishments in life. It's the culmination of hard work, dedication, focus, overcoming obstacles and outlasting struggles. It is also that special time when you are the subject of the celebration, because you Finished! This moment of celebration with fellow grads, family, and friends is an amazing experience, but it will be short lived, because this ending is also just the beginning.
You are now thrusting into adulthood, which yields a more intense and rewarding season of challenges, growth and understanding. As an adult you will have much greater opportunity and greater capacity to make sense of all your previous experiences, both good and bad. Wisdom and confidence will enable you to use your past, your present and the possibilities of your future to thrive in fulfilling the purposes for which you were created.
As you step into this new season of your life, here are 4 “Are You Ready” questions to ponder.
1. Are You Ready to consider a newly designed alliance with your parents or your caregivers? This could prove to be a very significant choice, because after all, making your own decisions is a two-sided coin, including both the Luxury of making your decisions (Heads) and the Responsibility of making your decisions (Tails). This new adjustment to the relationship allows each party to share what they need and expect from the other. It can also include clarity concerning what to expect if either party chooses to stop short of the agreed upon expectations. This process typically requires a series of conversations over time. Most would deem the process very difficult, but let me remind you that mutual agreements on the front end will minimize disagreements on the back end.
2. Are You Ready to consider a mentor/guide to help you along the way, someone who cares about your wellbeing and success? As crucial as it was to have guidance, especially in the earlier years of your childhood, it is also crucial that you have guidance in the early years of your adulthood. In most cases, parents will still be available for some guidance, but the addition of a mentor whom you choose for yourself, could prove very helpful in the long run. It's good to have an unbiased voice of wisdom and reason to help build confidence in your decision making.
3. Are You Ready to embrace ownership, risks, failures and successes at a whole new level?Success has hidden costs, and adult life will remind you of this truth frequently.
One of those costs is the necessity of taking substantial risks without guarantees: The truth of the matter is that there's no progress without risks, and risks often have no guarantees.
Intense ownership is another significant cost, and with the word intense I mean a passionate commitment to own your choices, and in some cases the choices of those who are under the influence of your leadership. This is a lesson adulthood requires you to learn as soon as possible. It feels yucky at first, but you get accustomed to it after a while.
It is essential that you grasp the importance of learning how to respond to both success and failure. There is an upside and a downside to both, and proper balance requires that you: Avoid letting success go to your head.
Avoid letting failure do the same.
Avoid allowing success to alter your heart.
Avoid allowing failure do the same.
In other words, know who you are and live out of the truth of that fact. Resist the urge to live according to feelings generated by successes and failures.
4. Are You Ready to consider a Coach, not to guide you, but to help you build confidence in your capacity to guide and govern?
Consider periodically inviting a Coach into your process to provide you with necessary questions, challenges, and insights that will encourage you to explore things you would not be capable of convincing yourself to explore on your own. Research proves that it’s hard, if not impossible to do alone. Coaching can help you find your own solutions, so that you can deposit those wins into your own emotional account, rather than someone else’s.
So, CONGRATS again to all of you! We salute you!
You Are Ready!
Now, go be who you were created and shaped to be!
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