16 Dec 2014

Growing up in Australia is an incredible experience and one of the greatest traditions for the Australian youth is the road trip. Whether it’s going to a festival, to schoolies or just deciding to pack your bags and see where you end up, the idea of good mates and an open road is too alluring for most to ignore. We’ve all been there, when someone suggests one and then discussions can last for hours about where you want to go, what you want to see and which poor soul has to volunteer their car. But while these plans will always differ, one thing remains constant, somewhere along the line something will go wrong. Flat tyre’s, kangaroo’s with a death wish or slightly weird hitchhikers can appear from nowhere and more often than not, when you look back at your trip it’s those moments and how you dealt with them that can make the best memories.

Now we know that “life is about the journey, not the destination” is one of the biggest cliches out there, so we promise that’s the only time you’ll read it in this article. But we want all you school leavers to realise that what you’re going through right now is just like an awesome road trip.

You’ve got your plan: get your marks, go to your university of choice, graduate from uni, do something you love, make some serious cash and retire at a decent age. This is just like the ‘perfect trip’ that you and your mates spent all those hours planning. And you know what? Sometimes that happens, which is awesome. But for the most of us, myself included you plan out that perfect ‘trip’ through life and then you get a flat tyre. So what do you do?

You need to be able to take a step back. No one likes the guy on the road trip who stresses about the small stuff. Flat tyre? No worries change it over. Car’s actually broken down? You can get it towed. The same goes for your day to day life. So many people don’t get the mark that they need to get into their degree of choice and think that it is quite literally the end of the world. There are a couple of things that they need to do

Take a step back. Like we said, stressing doesn’t help anything.

 

Once you’ve taken that step back, take another one. The further you can separate one small disappointment from impacting your whole life the better.

 

Now that you’ve realised you’re still going to kill it in life, you just need to consider your options.

So what are those options? You’ve heard them all before: alternative entry courses, gap year, bridging courses etc. Just like that road trip we spoke about before, you still have plenty of different options to get to where you want to be. What’s a slight detour if you still get to your destination.

Now none of this is ground breaking news, you all know that you have options even if you ignored them because you’re so set on “your plan.” What we wanted to do is to tell you this.

It’s great that you have a plan, that’s super constructive and imperative to success. But at the end of the day, you need to realise that a plan is something completely hypothetical. Do your best, but always understand that you can’t control everything and that’s not an indication on your own personal success.

So if you’ve just left school, or will be soon. Go out there and plan that perfect road trip through life, but never forget that every bump in the road has a solution.

And as always, if you’ve got any questions about alternative ways to get into university or how important your ATAR actually is, don’t hesitate to get in touch.