Money Makeover Series: Looking Forward to the Possibilities

Last time we checked in with Krystle, she was dealing with the loss of her job and therefore a whole new budget. However, she blew me away with her positivity and determination to turn the situation into something better than ever. And after our latest recap, it’s clear that she’s still on that upward trajectory! Read on to find out what Krystle’s been up to.

Diversifying the Possibilities

Krystle and I were previously focusing on redoing her budget while she looks for work and then deciding what she wanted in her career. Her last job taught her that what she really wants is to work in a college environment and help students reach their dreams.

Now, it could be very easy to say that Krystle’s next step would be to apply at every university job possible, but that’s not what she did. Krystle instinctively understood that she would need to diversify in order to succeed. In other words, she didn’t put all of her eggs into one basket. And now Krystle has some very exciting potential opportunities in front of her!

Adaptability for the Win

So what baskets has Krystle been putting her eggs in? Well, she found a temp agency to work with which focuses solely on her field of study – social work. She’s also been accepted into her alma mater’s master’s program in Adult and Higher Education with an Emphasis on Student Affairs. However, she doesn’t want to take out any more student loans so she applied to be a graduate assistant, which would require her to work for 20 hours a week and cover her tuition. She has interviews for the temp agency and the graduate assistant program this week!

That’s not all that Krystle has in the works. She found out about a program run by Americorps that helps high school students get into college and struggling college students stay. This program has several openings and Krystle listed event planning and workshops for high school students as her number one choice. This position would grant Krystle a small bit of living expenses as well as $5,000 to go to her current student loans. She’s already applied and plans to follow up with them this week.

What’s the lesson to learn from all this? Adaptability. At the end of the day, the more opportunities you seek out, the better chance something will work out. Krystle knew one important thing during this process: that she wanted to work in a high energy environment and help young adults achieve success. Then she looked for as many avenues to achieve that as possible. I’d say Krystle has a pretty exciting future ahead of her, no matter what opportunity works out – whether it be one of these or something we may not even know about yet!

Balancing Determination with Patience

Now that Krystle is preparing for her interviews, she has learned that she needs to do one more thing: balance determination with patience. Krystle has incredible passion, drive, and a no holds barred attitude. The only downfall is that this can also come with a healthy dose of impatience. (Something that I’m constantly battling in my own life.) Impatience can cause us to push too hard or choose too quickly, not letting nature play its course. Things take time to develop and sometimes we have to try more than once to succeed, which is why patience is so important.

As anxious as Krystle is to make a decision and move forward, there’s no telling what the best path for her may be just yet. The only thing she has control over is her ability to keep looking for and applying for great opportunities and then giving it her all in the interview process every time. Rushing a decision or allowing impatience to throw her off her game will only get in the way. That’s why she’s decided that right now her main focus has to be on patience, focus, and balancing her drive to succeed.

What We Could All Learn

I’ve learned some valuable lessons from working with Krystle over the past few months – even though it was supposed to be the other way around. She wasn’t in an easy situation from day one and things only seemed to get more difficult as the months went by. But now Krystle’s future looks more exciting and brighter than ever!

So many of us could have been in a similar situation and felt downtrodden or defeated. It’s tough to move forward when you’re just starting out and facing obstacles. But Krystle blew through every obstacle with a positive attitude, determination that can’t be beat, and true resilience. Not only that, she’s shown adaptability and creativity as she seeks out what’s next in her life. These are traits that everyone could use a dose of.

At the end of the day, we can plan a perfect budget and plot a five year life plan – but sometimes life calls the shots – and then even the best of intentions won’t help. All we can do is pick ourselves up, brush it off, and look forward, thinking about what we can learn from the past and how can we take those lessons into a brighter future. Our journeys should always evolve so a closed door is simply another step.

Remember, the ONLY thing we can ever control in life is the way we choose to handle what life throws at us. So why not spend a little bit of time deciding who we’d want to be in that moment and live it every single day?