In one year I have been exposed to over 50 nonprofits, worked on urban agriculture, education, public health, and a variety of other projects, reached out to numerous professional mentors, and of course made 35 close friends. Being a Challenge Detroit fellow is a massive, very potent journey that is a once in a life-time experience allowing for enough creative energy to experiment and enough structure to flourish as a young professional.

I often hear young people discuss their fears about not making an impact, living up to their potential, or having creative, professional freedom. One year ago I graduated and I was fearful of the same open ends- part of my interest in joining Challenge Detroit was the ability to experiment professionally amongst a plethora of diverse, multi-disciplinary individuals and projects. Of course the lingering and unfair question of, “What do you want to do when you grow up?” will always be in the back of my mind, but now I have a new perspective on reaching out towards the next steps, which I would like to share as a parting gift to my fellow millennials.

Are you happy?

No one at age 24 is the best version of themselves. Boom. So just calm down. At this stage in life, why not just be happy and enjoy being 24? So if you are a go-getter, grab life by the horns kind of person like most fellows, it can be perturbing to feel like you aren’t “good enough” or getting somewhere. Journeys take time and the best ones take effort, so enjoy the ride. Being happy doesn’t mean being passive or not working hard, it means focusing your energy and taking time on the things you enjoy doing and the people you enjoy being with. If you are not happy, then why do it?

Every opportunity is a value added experience.

Maybe I view things this way because I am typically very optimistic, but every experience could be viewed as a “value added” token in life- pursue the ones with the most value added emotionally, professionally, and skillswise. In choosing my next big adventures, I always consider what value am I adding towards myself as a person. This can be done in more ways than one. I start with “What do I want to do?” and follow that up with “What skills am I lacking to accomplish this?”. For example, I would love to be an entrepreneur and start my own design firm. I already have the design skills, but I lack the business knowledge and experience. Therefore, I seek out opportunities that will develop that particular skillset.

The only barrier towards opportunity is not trying.

I think one of the greatest keys to success is just trying. No matter how talented, smart, or suave you happen to be, that golden opportunity will be out of reach if you don’t put yourself out there. Whether its applying for an award, presenting at a conference, asking that really cool guy who does that really cool stuff to have coffee, no matter how far away you think you are from deserving those opportunities, you will never get them if you don’t try. And people can see when you try, which is a “value added” token in itself. Also, reach out for as many opportunities as possible. The greatest hurdle in any professional growth when you are starting out, is realizing you don’t have total control over every outcome. Ok, whew! Deep breath. Its cool though! Because once your over the hurdle its a lot less pressure. Opportunities naturally present themselves if you search them out, and they might be unexpected or not what you were looking for, but perfect! So all you have to do is try and things will happen.

Make your time reflective of your interests.

To wrap this up, time is a distributable asset and should be spent as such. If you value your family, creativity, design, education, spend your time there, even if it is just extracurricular. If you want to end up being a particular something, like a startup design think tank, educator, maker guru, then hopefully, eventually, if you do it enough, people will know you can, and they will pay you to do it.

Bonne chance!