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Jennifer Leigh Coren (MEd ‘20) knows about pivots. After initially pursuing a career in musical theater, she moved to New York City after graduation and found herself jobless when the company she relocated for abruptly shuttered.
Now, she is a successful therapist, author, and creator helping her clients and followers navigate their own crossroads and challenges. In 2022, Coren published I Love Me More: lessons from a 20-something therapist, a book centered on post-college struggles and anxieties that will sound familiar to many 20- and 30-somethings.
“There was a lot of turbulence in my career journey and lots of changes and things that didn’t work out the way that I wanted it to,” Coren says. “But I think it brought me to where I am and makes you who you are as a human being.”
Here is Coren’s advice for new grads facing the next phase of their lives.
Identify your values
Coren shares that many of her clients feel that they have too many choices to make coming out of college and a lack of structure to guide those choices. Her first step is to help them narrow down their post-college options so that they feel less overwhelmed. To guide this work, Coren asks her clients to, first, take a step back and identify the personal values that are most important to them—and then let those values guide their post-college choices.
“‘Who am I?’ ‘What’s meaningful to me?’ ‘What lights me up?’” she offers as examples of questions guiding this exercise. “How do we gravitate toward a job or life outside of our job that feels meaningful?”
Reduce your screen time
Too much time spent on social media can negatively affect your mental health at any age, but Coren says that new grads are especially vulnerable to the pressure that comes with comparing themselves and their lives to what they see their peers are up to on platforms like TikTok or Instagram. She often encourages clients to reduce their screen time or set other boundaries around their social media usage—even taking a detox or deleting the apps altogether—to lessen these effects.
“There’s a reality where we look to other people to make sure we’re ‘doing OK’ or getting the validation that we’re exactly where we should be, especially in our twenties,” Coren says. “But everybody’s on their own timeline. Let’s go back to what your needs are and how you know what your needs are.”
Don’t be afraid to shift gears
Coren makes sure to emphasize to her clients that “not everything is forever” and that the job or path that they choose after college won’t necessarily be the one they’ll be doing for the next 40-plus years. In fact, that’s rarely the case—as she herself demonstrated in her own career path. Instead of always thinking 10 or more years into the future, she urges her clients to simply think about one next step or action to avoid our tendency to catastrophize during uncertain times.
“We can continue to rapidly change and grow, and that’s healthy and part of development,” she says. “So what’s next for you right now? Zoom in on where you are right now versus the future, because you can’t predict the future.”
Accept the imperfect
Finally, Coren makes it a point to remind her new college grad clients that they’ll one day look back on this time as “the best, the coolest, most profound time in your life, when you really figure out who you are.” If you’re going through it right now, she adds, it’s where you’re supposed to be. Instead of getting bogged down with the feeling that life doesn’t look exactly how you pictured it, she encourages clients to focus on the little wins that lead them to whatever is next.
“Accept that our puzzles are never going to be perfectly complete and it’s not about having all of those puzzle pieces fit together perfectly that creates happiness,” Coren says. “You get to create your own happiness today.”
