As another school year begins…….

High school graduates are soon heading off to college and college graduates have entered the real world.  Both of these transitions represent two of the most intense times of our lives.  We are leaving a comfort zone of friends, family and the known while heading into the unknown.  We may be excited as can be about it all–but nonetheless, it is a very unsettling time requiring tremendous learning, new choices, establishing new patterns and social contacts.

Did you know that 40% of freshman drop out of college? (and never go back!) Did you know that depression rates skyrocket after college graduation.  What’s going on here?

As a counselor I have worked extensively with the 18-24 age bracket.  It is very important to show them that they are still working to form their SELF.  Boundaries are not fully developed and the SELF is unsure of so many pieces of their Life Puzzle.  In this overwhelming state, with lots of choices to be made, many in this age bracket shut down and feel defeated. I love working with them and showing them how to turn defeat into an adventure of living instead.

NOT DONE @ 21 !!!!

One of the chief complaints I heard from so many of these young adults was their belief/feeling that they were “behind”.  That somehow by 21 they needed to have figured it all out and that was not happening!  As I mulled on this more and more, I felt compelled to make this issue more visible and talked about. With several clients, I had “dialogues” about this issue.  I turned those dialogues into a short booklet I’ve put together called “Not done @ 21—building wholeness in a 100 year life”.

In the ND@21 booklet, I have two main goals:

1. Show 18-24 year olds that they don’t need to rush to achieve a life’s worth of accomplishments by 21 or 25 (or 35!).  That there’s plenty of time to build a great life.  So turn down this self-imposed pressure because it isn’t helping. We talk about how to strengthen SELF as that enables one to be able to calm down and fully see that there’s a lifetime to design a life using a wholeness framework.

2. That this generation can assume that they are going to live to 100! So, not only do they not want to ‘finish’ by 21, they actually want to broaden the view to realize that their life is likely to last 100 years.  Why not use all of these years as the scope for defining your life instead of rushing to ‘get done’ by 21.

Free copy?ND@21 thumbnailI’m offering a free copy to the first 25 readers of this blog.  Email me at Ann@lifepuzzle.com!