Five For Your First Five: Own Your Career and Life After College

"Dr. Allison McWilliams has hit the nail right on the head and provides focused, effective and actionable ideas for recent college grads who are getting too much inspiration and too little useable help addressing the substantial challenge of building their lives after college. Much of the literature for this audience patronizingly over-compliments them ("You are amazing and can do anything!') or over-criticizes them ("Today's young adults are so entitled - they're impossible!"). Neither of these categorizations is accurate or helpful - quite the opposite. Dr. McWilliams distills her substantial experience in working in some of the most advanced career-preparatory institutions in the country well by picking five key areas for grads to focus their efforts in building a life they own and can love. Her assessments of what's needed directly complements our decade-plus of work in the Stanford Life Design Lab. Her counsel spans the wide swath of necessary critical skills ranging from forming deep habits of personal reflection to navigating the tactical constraints of that tough first job out of college many grads will get. She tells it like it is without making assumptions or judgments about her reader and balances artfully conversing with her reader and challenging them via exercises to do the work. Like Dr. McWilliams, our team believes that successfully journeying those first five years after graduation (and defining what success is wisely!) is terrifically important. If you love anyone who is currently or about to be in those five years, do them the kindness of giving them this book."

~Dave Evans, Co-Author, New York Times #1 Bestseller Designing Your Life, and Co-Founder, Stanford Life Design Lab

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Young adults making their way from college to life-after-college face a multitude of decisions, challenges, and opportunities. How do you build skills and experiences that will benefit you in the future, when you are on the lowest rung of the professional ladder, or in a job that doesn't seem to be going anywhere? How do you balance creating a life with professional demands when your time is not your own? How do you ensure you are practicing self-care - physically, mentally, financially, and emotionally - when you don't know what the resources are to do that? How do you build community and find friends? How do you build your network and find mentors? And, how do you take ownership for what comes next?

These and many others are the questions that all young professionals should be asking themselves, especially in the critical first five years out of college. This is the time when you will discover more about yourself than at any other point in your life. You will discover strengths, interests, and beliefs that will guide your future career and life decisions. You will learn professional and life skills and habits that will be the foundation for your future professional selves. You will begin to discern what matters to you, and begin to define what a meaningful life looks like, for you. And, you largely will be expected to do all of this work on your own. Where do you begin?

FIVE FOR YOUR FIRST FIVE is based on twenty years of experience working with college students and young adults as they make this sometimes challenging and overwhelming transition from college to life-after-college. It combines real-life stories and experiences, from young adults who have already navigated through these waters, with tools, strategies, discussion, and reflection questions. The reader is encouraged to do real, intentional work while exploring the five key areas: Do the Work, Build a Life, Create Community, Practice Reflection, and Own What's Next. Part workbook, part wise counselor and mentor, FIVE FOR YOUR FIRST FIVE provides meaningful insight into what can happen when you truly take ownership for your career and life.

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