High ROI Life Skills for Starting Out
Part of bringing you’re a-game to work is having a functioning, non-chaotic life outside of it. While you will absolutely pick a lot of this up on the fly post-graduation, here are 5 non-technical skills to build up once you’re out in the wild.
1. Maintaining Relationships: I took the ease of maintaining relationships during school for granted. I lived with my best friend, and was in the same building as 70% of my social and academic group. Most of my family lived within 40 minutes of campus, and staying in touch with my nearest and dearest was easy. This drastically changed after I moved out of state for my first post-grad job. I had to learn how to prioritize and facilitate my closest relationships, and you will too. Set up regular cadences of calls with family. Get your friend groups together in someone’s city every year. Take advantage of times when everyone has time off. It won’t happen if you don’t make it happen.
2. Financial Planning: I am gutted at how badly we fail young people when it comes to financial literacy. Money has somehow become both a cultural taboo and an idol, which leaves nobody prepared and everyone stressed out. While I am not a financial expert, here are some basics to get you started.
· Spend less than you make (which implies you need to know both how much you spend, and how much you make)
· Build and maintain an emergency fund (3-6 months of living expenses)
· Pay off high interest debt
· Save/invest part of EVERY paycheck
· Get your hands on some financial expert’s work. I highly recommend I Will Teach You to be Rich by Ramit Sethi, and Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel
3. Cooking: Learn to cook. It doesn’t have to be fancy, it doesn’t have to take a ton of time, but one of the best things for your physical and financial health is to get into your kitchen. If you’re a total newbie, here are some places to get started.
4. Making New Friends: Our society has never been lonelier, and it is killing us. You have to get connected to new people as an adult. That can be through work, rec sports leagues, your place of worship, hobbies, the gym, whatever, but you have to do it. Will it be awkward and painful and weird at first? Yes. But it is also so, so worth it.
5. Stress Management: Let’s face it: part of being a high achiever is periods of high stress. While creating a low stress life is an admirable goal, learning how to handle yourself when life turns up the heat is critical. Exercise, meditation, therapy, routine, sleeping enough, and healthy social connections can all be good places to start when you’re finding out what works for you.
Are there any I missed? What skills do you wish you had developed earlier? Let me know at YourSTEMMentorBlog@gmail.com!