Now The Real Curriculum Begins: Adulting 101 For New Grads

Forbes

20-05-2025

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Just last week, my youngest son Matt graduated from Baylor University. As he walked that stage—broad smile, degree in hand, future wide open—I felt incredibly proud and a little relieved. After all, this was the same kid who once told his first-grade teacher he'd "rather get drunk and die than learn to read."
And while Matt has always marched to the beat of his own drum, I'd like to think that some of my advice helped him get to this point. Not that he has listened to near as much as I'd like. Nor his siblings. But I keep offering wisdom—because every now and again, miracle of miracles, some actually lands.
So here are nine things I'd like to share with every newly minted grad embarking on their first post-student chapter in adulting.
As simple as it sounds, this is the hard part. Being an adult means taking full responsibility for your life. Not blaming your parents for their short comings, or your lousy boss, or anyone else for what's working or not working in your life. Even when you've been treated unfairly (and you will be at times), refuse to fall victim to a victim mindset that will only siphon the very agency you need to improve your situation.
There will be many things you cannot control on your path ahead. But the one thing you can control, is how you show up for life. So show up on time. Treat people well. Don't spend more than you earn. Pay back what you borrow. Promptly. Be polite. Get back to people. Look people in the eye. Extend your hand to shake first. Open the door. Send a follow-up note. Handwritten even better. Exercise your body. Eat good food to balance out the rest.
And when you mess up—and you will—own it, clean it up (master apologizing!), learn the lesson and move on. Most of all, be the kind of person others would want to recommend, work with, hang out with, and employ: reliable, respectful, generous, honest, ready to pitch in even when it's not your job. That's the kind of adult the world needs more of. This is all entirely in your control. If you do it (because many your age won't), you'll stand out in every room you enter.
Do you remember how stressed you were about choosing the right college?
Maybe you got it right. Maybe it wasn't the ideal fit. Either way, you still learned something. And hopefully one of those lessons is that there is no 'perfect' college, job, city, friend or partner. Some of your best growth will happen in places that don't fit. That's not failure—it's feedback.
Research by psychologist Barry Schwartz on 'maximizers' (those who try to make the perfect decision) vs. 'satisficers' (those who make a good enough choice and adjust) shows that maximizers experience lower satisfaction and more regret. Translation: don't overthink it. Choose, move, adjust. Make the best decision you can with what you know. Trust yourself to figure the rest out as you go along.
No one else on the entire planet has your mix of talents, opportunities, or interests. Nor has anyone had your exact same path. So do not try to walk anyone else's.
Ask yourself: What do you want? Not your parents. Not your professor. Not your friends or your social feed.
When I interviewed Bronnie Ware, a former palliative care nurse, on my Live Brave Podcast, she shared with me one of the biggest regrets of the dying:
'I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.'
Try out new things. Figure out what gives you energy. What aligns with your values. What stretches you. What broadens how you think and see the world and makes you proud of who you're becoming. And then follow that path—even if no one else quite understands it. And if you want to change it, change it and don't lock yourself into one narrow vision. Many of the most interesting careers didn't exist a decade ago. According to the World Economic Forum, 65% of today's primary school kids will work in jobs that don't yet exist.
Let yourself be surprised. Stay open to 'plot twists' in the story of your life. Hold onto your plans lightly. Just don't let what other people are doing with their lives determine what you'll do with your own
The world is more connected than ever—and yet young people like you are lonelier and more isolated than ever. Why? Because that phone you hold in your hand enables you to avoid the real work and awkward moments that are required to forge truly meaningful relationships.
So pick up the phone and make a call, even when it feels awkward. And when you go out, put your phones away and engage in real, sometimes slightly awkward, conversations that build trust and deepen emotional intimacy.
Yes, emotional intimacy – it's a thing. It's about being real, not photo-shopped. As I wrote in this previous column, there's a profound difference between an online social network and a real one.
I get it—why would anyone want to embrace their struggles? Surely it's better to avoid them, right?
Not so.
I'm not suggesting you go out of your way to make life harder than it already is. But I am saying that when you embrace your struggles, you expand your capacity to handle them. You build your bandwidth for life. You learn more about yourself. And you grow.
Because the truth is, we don't grow when everything goes our way. We grow when it doesn't.
There's a reason botanists put young plants in hot houses and gradually expose them to wider variations in temperature. It's how they develop the resilience they'll need to survive in the real world. The same goes for us.
As you step into the world, know this: challenges are guaranteed. But you'll navigate them far better if you don't rail against them. Instead, embrace them as part of your journey—lessons in the grand masterclass that is life.
We cannot thrive without the struggle. It's what introduces us to ourselves at the deepest level. It's what teaches us what we're made of.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHGiJPqg9ik
Life isn't linear. Yours will have many twists and turns. More than you might expect. Embrace them with curiosity, not self-pity; with adventure, not anxiety. As I've come to learn, sometimes the storms you think are ruining your path are really just revealing it.
But don't just take it from me—research by the American Psychological Association finds that our ability to adapt to what life brings our way is one of the strongest predictors of long-term success and wellbeing.
You will fail. Welcome to the club.
But here's the secret: the people who look like they're winning? They've failed more than you. They just didn't let it define them and learned to mine the nuggets of gold when they tripped up or life knocked them down.
Jerry Seinfeld froze during his first-ever stand-up performance and was booed off stage. He showed up again the next night. J.K. Rowling was rejected by 12 publishers before someone finally took a chance on Harry Potter. Greta Gerwig—director of Barbie, Little Women, and Lady Bird (one of my favorites)—was rejected by every single graduate film school she applied to.
Just as your worth was no defined by your GPA or SAT score, be careful not to let your identity be too attached to any job or paycheck or perks (or rejection letters). Many do and they spend their entire life feeling insecure because of it.
As positive psychologist Martin Seligman found in his research, people who explain their failures as temporary and specific—rather than personal and permanent—are far more likely to bounce back, press on, and ultimately succeed.
Failure is an event, not a verdict on your potential. It doesn't mean you don't have what it takes. It means you're learning what it takes. Mine for the treasure when you trip. It's what will make all the difference over the long run.
There are many people who know things that you don't because they've lived longer or just had experience you haven't had. Likely both.
Be proactive in getting the advice of many people. Not just those with whom you feel a natural affinity, but those who you don't. People who come from very different paths. Who look different. Dress different. Speak different. Vote different.
And when you're talking to them, park your opinions and listen - truly listen - for what you can learn and for what you might be wrong about. Despite all your studies, you really don't know very much about the world and likely even less about the human condition. Be curious about people. Be willing to change your mind. Don't let your ego's desire to assert your superior intellect or moral virtue keep you from learning something that might help you chart a wiser way forward.
Your worldview is just that. Yours. And I'll wager a large bet that you've got a lot more blind spots than you know.
That said, if some well-meaning adult—except me, of course—is giving you advice and it just doesn't fit, pop it on your mental shelf, tune into your intuition, and trust your gut. No one else knows exactly what is right for you. Just don't be pig-headed about it.
This may sound contrary to what I just wrote, but be careful not to believe everything you tell yourself. It's not all true.
You've been fed a lot of information over many years—online, offline, from experts and influencers, from teachers and parents—and much of it will have served you. But don't park your critical thinking. In fact, now that you're out in adultland during a time when many people gravitate to echo chambers, you need to practice it more than ever.
If everyone around you is saying the same thing, go spend time with people who are saying just the opposite.
And if you're stuck on a negative talk track about yourself—focused on your deficits, how you are just not smart enough, outgoing enough, connected enough (fill-in-the-blank enough)—then ask yourself what might be possible if you never bought into this false narrative again. Then act on that thought.
The biggest barrier you are going to face over the rest of your life is the narrative you're spinning inside your own head.
If you catch yourself thinking 'I'm not good enough,' 'I don't belong,' or 'I have to have it all figured out'—pause. Challenge that. Your mind's job is to keep you safe, not to help you soar. That's your job.
As I wrote in my latest book The Courage Gap (an excellent gift for any new grad—no bias, of course), our stories can keep us stuck, stressed, and living a smaller life than we have it within us to live. So challenge yours regularly, and if the story you are telling yourself is not making you feel even a little bit better or braver, rewrite it.
If there's one thing I hope you take with you, it's this:
It's the chances you don't take that you'll regret the most.
So be careful that you don't live too safely, and tip toe your way through the next sixty years to arrive perfectly coiffed at your death.
Too often, we know what we need to do—speak up, reach out, take the leap, change direction - but we don't act on it.
Between the life you have now and the life you could create is a gap. Fear will continually strive to widen that gap —fear of failing, of looking foolish, of not being enough, of falling flat on your face in front of your friends.
It will take many brave steps to close it.
This isn't about eradicating your fear. (Nor should you try. After all, you'd have likely done even more dumb things in your teens without it.) Rather, it's embracing your fear as the clarion call toward your growth, defying your doubts, and stepping bravely… nervously… awkwardly… forward anyway. Because the most important bet you'll ever make is the one you make on yourself.
Twenty years from now, it's unlikely that the most successful people from your graduation class will be the ones who got the top grades (chances are, they will still be the most stressed). More likely, it will be those who worked hard and backed themselves, again and again, and didn't let their fears, their failures, or their frenemies define them.
Your future is a wide, open canvas. And you're holding the paintbrush. Not every stroke will be perfect. Some will be darker, some lighter. But it's the contrast that creates the masterpiece that will one day be your life.
So don't wait until you have it all figured out.
Brave the awkward. Take the chance. Bet on yourself.
We need your leadership.
Dr Margie Warrell is a leadership advisor and a keynote speaker focused on equipping leaders to cultivate and scale courage across their organizations. Her latest book is The Courage Gap. Follow on LinkedIn.