Success is Subjective: Real People. Raw Stories. Embracing a Non-Linear Life!

To go into the real world and fend for yourself as an emerging adult is one thing. To go into the real world, let alone college with social anxiety is a whole other ball game.  Mike Swenson, Clinical Director at The Recovery Academy, battled with high social anxiety as a young adult. His social anxiety caused him to avoid college and decide to join the marine court instead. Mike’s time in the mari...

It’s okay to question if you want to be an athlete, if you want to be in college, if you want to live where you are. It’s okay to question all of this stuff, whatever it is. Michael Gilpin, Community Outreach Specialist at Red Oak Recovery, has had his experience with questioning many areas of his life growing up. From deciding between becoming an athlete or an artist, to dropping out of college 3...

Life is a constant journey. With it comes many experiences, some good and some not so good. Yet, each experience has something to add to your life in some way.  Claire Chase, the Creator of the Resilience Thinking Method™ and Founder of Resilience By Design Consulting, LLC teaches people resiliency thinking, which is very similar to the way that she views success; as a constant process of transfor...

There is no set path that you need to follow. Whether that’s going straight to college out of high school. Not making it to college at all. Maybe not even getting the chance to finish high school because of a mental illness. Whatever the path is that you decide to take, make sure you’ve taken the time to dive into a range of things and have leaned into everything your heart feels led to. You don’t...

You might have many linear plans and goals, though life is not linear. Life isn’t designed to go according to plan. You may not have control of that, but you do have the ability to lean into the process and to continue to move forward. When you continue to move forward and grow, you give yourself the chance to bring change and impact wherever you have the opportunity to. Being a type A planner, Ch...

Whether it’s the pressure from family to finish school ‘on time’, the pressure you might be putting on yourself, or the expectation that you should be tough ‘enough’. Mental health and one’s overall wellbeing can be so overlooked when it’s put under a timeline. There is no set timeline on getting well. When that’s understood, real change is able to happen. Robert McCaslin, director of business dev...

An end goal isn’t always going to be what leads one to the path they are meant to be on. Things change. You change. Passions change. Ideas change. Goals change. Life is an adventure, especially when trying to figure out your career path. Instead of putting the pressure on yourself to have a concrete end goal, allow the journey you’re on to take you there. By embracing the adventure and sticking to...

Everyone seems to have their say in other people's lives. Whether it’s family, society, teachers, or peers. That push will only get you so far. At the end of the day if you don’t want it for yourself, the spark to work for it won’t be there. You have to want whatever it may be, more than the influence of being told by your parents, society, teachers or peers. There’s something about coming to...

2-4 years. That’s all it could take for a young adult to fully step into who they are after high school. Though, society says you’d be behind. Your peers are ‘ahead’ of you. This and that. When in reality, those few years that were taken to really emerge into all you are, what you love and who you are made to be, could save you 10+ years in something you were never meant to be in, in the first pla...

The number of people who don’t get the treatment they need, who are pushed aside, and the amount of suicide calls that happen daily, all because of the lack of conversations going on around mental health, substance abuse and recovery, is far too many. Just because mental health is less visible pain than physical health, doesn’t make it any less important. This is YOUR health we’re talking about. J...

The unknown can be a scary place. It’s natural to want to be in control and know the next step in just about every situation. Being confused with so many things in life, whether it be with your career, in your sexuality, with mental health...The unknown can cause so much stress, weighing you down, if you don’t eventually learn to be okay with it.  Kevin Molloy, 3x college dropout, a former client...

From the day a student steps foot on a high school campus and for some, even their entire childhood, they are told, “Where are you going to college? What are you going to major in? Take as many AP classes as you can, take as many activities that would look good on a college application, and get your GPA up as high as you can.” What about, “What do you enjoy? What are your career aspirations? What...

The stress of falling in line with family’s expectations mixed with the struggle of mental health, AND topped with the uncertainty on what to even do in life, as one transitions into adulthood, is all really heavy to deal with. How can I soak up my 20’s with all this weight on my shoulders? Do I have to do this all alone? Is it all even worth it? From hating school and only gaining 30 credits in a...

All the noise and opinions surrounding any given person in this world can become so loud to the point where extreme overwhelm and mental paralysis can occur. “Do this. Take this route. Go to this college. Take this course. Stay on this path.” Before you know it, you don’t even know what you’re passionate about, what you love to do—who you really are. You might even start to lose sight of a sense o...

Immigrating to the U.S. as a child and being surrounded by a predominantly white area all your life is already challenging enough. Now, add the pressure of being expected to be the first generation in the family to attend college into the mix of things. Is it possible to find what you love to do with so much pressure from family? Are the only professions that would appear successful is to become a...

There’s this heavy fear that if you don’t conform to the social conditioning around school, then you’ll automatically get outcasted. At times that may become true, but why care about what others may think about you? Not many 17 year olds even know what they want to do for the rest of their life. You have the choice to not take on that pressure of what other people say you need to do. Nobody is goi...

It is a privilege to experience life, the good and the bad. Sarah Watkins’ story is a beautiful reminder of that privilege and example of how to take life’s hiccups and turn them into motivators, and into a powerful story. Sarah Watkins, program manager for political party development at an international development nonprofit in Washington, DC, dealt with a huge hiccup in her early adulthood. Not...

Whether your passion is art, music, or even skateboarding, it’s worth fighting for. Wouldn’t you rather work hard to make your passion work instead of giving up early because it’s not ‘easy’ or traditional, and wonder for the rest of your life if you could’ve made it work? Zoe Bentyne is a yoga teacher, an artist, and an enthusiast of all things creative. Her passion for creating really grew in hi...

Maybe figuring out one thing to do with your entire life isn’t the goal. Perhaps it’s to find what you find passion and purpose in now and the rest will come together. John Sykes, Director of Marketing and Business Development at The Recovery Academy, found college to be one of the most exciting times of his life where he felt like he could really explore himself and life as a whole. Eventually th...

Better to take action and mess up than not do anything at all. Guy Dumas, has been working with young adults in wilderness therapy for over 30 years but his journey didn’t start out there. Following high school, Guy joined the military but after a misdiagnosis he was kicked out and left to figure out what to do next. Instead of choosing to sit in that defeat he decided to take action and try out a...

There are so many things that can happen that are completely out of anyone’s control. The only thing that you will always have control of is your reaction to what happens to you. When you do that, finding a sense of success usually comes naturally. Emma Byers, Community Engagement Coordinator at Turing School, didn’t envision her life to go the way it has. As she went into college, she was deceive...

Is it something that you love? Is it something that the world needs? Is it something that you can be paid for? Now, go do it. Decide on a dream you have, make it reality and inspire others with it. Wayne Watts, co-founder of The Dream Create Inspire Tour, does just that, dreams, puts it to action and inspires others to do the same. In each step of Wayne’s journey he hasn’t let others define succes...

Usually a career turns into something that consumes a big chunk of one’s time and entire life. Whatever you choose to pursue, ask yourself, is this something that I love enough to spend that much time doing? Kelly Dunbar, Director of Business Development at SUWS of the Carolinas, surely found a career that she finds joy in. Her career journey got  interrupted more than once in college by lack of s...

Whatever you choose to do as a profession, whether it includes college or not, there’s going to be some type of work required to get where you want to be. Are you willing to run, not walk, to make it work? Shayne Gallagher, co-founder and executive director of WinGate Wilderness Therapy, has done everything possible from the very beginning of his career. From being a field instructor trainer , pro...

Just because everyone else seems to have everything together in college, doesn’t mean they really do and it doesn’t mean that you have to. Everyone’s journey looks different and what works for one person might not feel like a fit for you, which is okay!  Aubrey Sutton, Admission and Development Coordinator at Building Bridges Treatment, spent most of her college experience feeling like it just was...