For many matriculants, the final day of school feels a lot like the end of a 12-year prison sentence. The bell rings one last time on over a decade of ups and downs, raging hormones, detention and daydreaming, and so many hours of studying and exam-ing and stressing. There’s loads of career advice for school leavers out there, a sea of voices to tune in and out of. It’s an overwhelming noise that may be drowning out the still small voice within that already knows what path to take. 

This is the part where we quote Steve Jobs

For many school-leavers, the most daunting element of this time is in deciding what to do next. This decision, made at such a tender age and on the cusp of having run a 12-year gauntlet of intense education, will essentially affect the rest of your life. You can hate your life, or love it. All because of this moment. Until you die. 

No pressure, right? 

In the words of the late Steve Jobs, Founder of Apple, Inc.: “The only way to do great work is to love what you do.”

If you’re in doubt about your future, start there. 

In recent years, guidance counselors who help with career advice for school leavers have drawn attention to the power of daydreaming, or “relaxed attention”, in exploring the possible futures awaiting down alternative paths. Our regimental school systems tend to steer clear of this type of thinking, producing matriculants who can’t think creatively or critically for themselves, incapable of envisioning a life doing what they love. 

The sweet spot between dreams and reality

We get it. We’re not trying to oversimplify what may feel like the biggest decision of your life, and we know that not all dreams will pay the bills someday. But the art of daydreaming, allowing your mind to wander, may broaden your vision until one of those dreams overlaps with what’s possible in reality. 

And that’s the sweet spot – you should go there.