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Photo Courtesy of ralph and jenny (flickr)

It’s time to make something happen. After graduating college the tendency is to get a random job and hope for the best. Really? I think you can do better.

Let’s take a minute and consider two things: 1) what graduation means to you and, more importantly, 2) why so many people think getting a job is the most logical next step.

Graduation = New Job? . . . . No

First, graduation from college is an enormous accomplishment in formal education. However, graduation is not a free pass into the business world. A college degree is just one marker of success on a resume or life achievement list. A diploma is just a piece of paper that says you spent a lot of time in the library. It doesn’t necessarily mean you know how to do anything practical in the real world. That may sound a little harsh, but just wait, it gets worse. The real world is not a hand-holding best-friend that will let you cry on its shoulder when times get tough. If you’re lost in the real world you will have one person to rely on, you. Your friends are going to grad school in another state or enrolled in an online masters program. Your family is still at home and nothing has changed since high school. You are now on your own and you will need a butt-kicking plan to make things happen.

You Don’t Know Everything – In Fact, You Know Nothing

Secondly, college is a wonderful thing, but it’s over. You now have an amazing opportunity to start fresh with a new life plan.For most people, that new life plan is a job. Why? Because their parents told them to. Because their friend got an “amazing” offer at some big corporation and they think $40k will change their life forever. Because they have nothing better to do with their time besides drinking themselves into a coma, again.

If you want to use your college degree to further your career, that’s one option. You can also do . . well . . anything else in the entire world! Seriously, getting a job immediately after college is what everyone else does, but they are only doing that because everyone else is doing it. If you want to live an engaging life, one that actually means something to you, this may be the best opportunity in your life to take some seriously bold action.

Get Out of the U.S.

I’m a huge fan of studying abroad. I spent 4 months in Prague and traveled all over Eastern Europe. Why did I go? Because I could. Nothing more. I wanted to do it and I knew it may not ever happen if I didn’t act quickly. Those four months were easily the most phenomenal months of my life. It’s hard not to write an entire book on my experiences abroad because there were so many wonderful moments. What this means for you is that after graduation you have the same opportunity to take yourself anywhere. Join the Peace Corps, move to Africa for two years, volunteer on a boat heading to Japan, or any other crazy adventure that sounds too good to pass up.

If this blog post is inspiring you, just click on the links to the left or at the bottom of the post and share it with someone who you think would find it valuable as well. I’d appreciate it and I think he or she would as well.

Don’t Start Working for the Man

You don’t have to travel to make life exciting, though I firmly believe travel will open your eyes faster than most experiences. You can also open your entrepreneurial eyes. Getting a random job is the fast track to mediocrity. Starting a business is the fast track to making a thousand mistakes, all of which you will learn the best life lessons from. What I’m encouraging you to do is fail. Starting a business will force you to expand your thinking and creativity more than a classroom assignment. Real world practicality is an entirely different beast than academic theory. Anything you can do that will get your out of the house and into the world will be an eye-opening opportunity to learn more about yourself and the rest of the human race.

Paint a Picture, Build a House, Make a Dirty Movie

If you didn’t spend enough time in the Fine Arts building during college, this is your change to open your soul just a bit. Now that the rigor of weekly assignments, test, projects, and presentations are over with, you can actually take the time to breathe and get creative. Some of my best creative work only became available to me after I took a mental break from the chaos of school. I felt a huge weight lift off my shoulders and I was able to expand my right brand further than ever. This time period may offer an exquisite opportunity to write a book, design a fashionable line of clothing, or join an improv troupe.

Stop Reading and Start . . . Reading

Remember how you use to read books, for fun? Yeah, I forgot about that too. College professors forced me to read so much junk that I forgot good books actually existed. Yes, the books I read in school taught me some useful stuff, but not the stuff I really wanted to learn. In the first six months after college I officially read zero books. In the next six months I read an average of a book a week. What changed? I figured out that reading is actually one of the most fantastic ways to improve your life, expand your mind, and open up your life to so many new things. Here I am four years later and reading is still a huge part of my life, enough so that I wrote my own book. You don’t have to become an author to reap the benefits of great literature or personal development books. But, leaders are readers. The best minds have always voluntarily fed their brains with the best literary works in existence. Believe me when I say that once you find a niche of books that fascinate you, you will not be able to put them down.

Run All the Way Home

College destroyed my body. Correction, I destroyed my body and used college as the excuse to do so. One of my greatest personal revolutions occurred because of my unwillingness to take care of myself during school. I never saw the need to to the gym instead of the bars until after graduation. My doctor enlightened me to that fact a “24-beers a week diet” wouldn’t do me any good, ever. I needed a change and it only happened at all because I chose to make a change. No one came to my rescue. There was no intervention. I simply decided that I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. The rest is history. I now run ultra marathons, eat a diet that consists of only organic fruits, vegetables, and spring water, and make my personal health a priority over almost everything else. What this means for you is that if college made a mess of your body, now is a great time to reinvent yourself.

But Jeff, I Want to Get a Job – I NEED A JOB!!

OK, maybe you’re already supporting yourself. Maybe you have three kids, your parents don’t help at all financially, and you will starve without an income source. If you are completely unable to make any of the above ideas a reality in your life today, you will need to become very familiar with Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Start at the bottom and work your way up, one step at a time. Paying the electric bill is more important than self-actualization, at least for now. I recognize that everyone has bills to pay and practical needs to fulfill. However, those basic necessities have a tendency to take over your life, if  you let them. The trick is to stay focused on a long-term goal that gets you out of the rat race and into a lifestyle that fosters enormous growth. In this case, personal development books are your best friend. It’s time to kick it up a notch and keep your laser beam focus on a goal that inspires you more than anything else.

Fill the Void With Something Meaningful

Life after college is an enormous blank slate. Nothing has to be done a certain way. Family traditions, societal norms, and peer pressure can all take a back seat to you doing whatever you want, how you want to, when you want to. If your life has been dictated by someone else up to this point, this is your chance to rebuild your entire life from scratch.

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Don’t forget to check out my new revolutionary eBook for conquering life after college!

The Clueless Graduate,

Jeff & Tessa Sanders

Jeff Sanders


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