Alright, you've gotten your first job straight out of school. Awesome, congrats! Time to make a difference, right? Time to jump right in the first day and prove your worth, and show those top execs that you deserved a seat at the big boy and girl table a long time ago, you just had to go through the formalities first. Paid vacations, paid sick days, big boy and girl money!
Sound familiar to you?
This was me not two months ago. Fresh out of college with a BBA in Management, minor in Marketing and a head full of steam to begin building a life for myself post-education and making myself a vital member of a successful team. Five months off of graduating college, I land my first supervisor position, and I think I am making excellent time. I'll be running this company in about two hours, watch me!
And then two months passed, and I was still in the same position. What's going on here? Why am I not progressing? I don't even feel as though I am learning anything useful that can help make business decisions. Why do I feel like such a failure all of a sudden? Am I even apart of the right company? Did I mess up somewhere in the last seven months?
Mercy, the questions I had running through my head. It was exhausting mentally, emotionally, and physically. There is something to be said about how agonizing stagnation can feel, especially from a career perspective. Pair that with a college graduate who lacks any kind of patience when it comes to making a difference, and you have a stressed-out young person on your hands, aka me.
I once watched a YouTube video of one of my favorite speakers and authors, Simon Sinek, speak about millennials and how essentially we had not yet been taught the idea of "patience" and how it basically destroys millennials to not have instant gratification.
Entrepreneur (and wine aficionado) Gary Vaynerchuk once said "Practice macro-patience and micro-speed."
I couldn't agree more with both of these mentalities. Once I heard them, I immediately began rethinking how I looked at my progress. I always considered myself a patient person and never cared to rush anything. I also know that when I got my first job straight out of college, I knew it was an entry-level position, and I wanted to do whatever I could, as fast as I could, to separate myself from the rest of my peers and get the promotion when it finally came time for management to decide who the lucky winner was. Once, I got the position, I immediately began working on what I could to start separating myself from my newer peers for the next advancement.
By the way, I write all of this while still holding the same position. So, you know, keep that in mind.
What I realized is something that I probably already knew but wanted so badly to ignore and pretend simply wasn't real: Patience really is necessary when it comes to your career. I realized I was fitting the mold of what both Sinek and Gary Vee were describing and referring to.
I believe there is something to be said about anyone that shows tenacity and aggressiveness in the work area. Anyone that is ready and willing to give their all to their company, learn everything they can, work as hard as they can, and for as long as they can, until they can reach a level of fulfillment is an employee that I would want on my payroll. However, what I think millennials and other generations need to realize is that patience is a virtue in both our professional and personal lives.
To millennials who are making their way through college or have just left college and are staring at the world with big, bulging, frightened eyes, I give you this piece of advice: This is going to take time. I once had a professor and mentor tell me when I was asking for career advice that "Your first job most likely will not be your last." That made a lot of sense to me. The global economy is shifting from a "find a job and stay there 50 years until retirement" to what's being commonly referred to as a "gig economy." So the possibility that your first job being your only job is highly unlikely. So don't get discouraged.
Patience is a talent that college never taught me, and it probably never will teach it as far as I can tell. Patience is something that is simply developed over time. That or someone slaps you (metaphorically speaking) with it when you are about to be at your wit's end. Regardless, it is something that should be preached everywhere, because it simply will not happen as fast you would like it to. Rome wasn't built in a day, young men and women. It took time, planning, learning, trial and error, and development. And your career will, too.
Instead, you should use this time to do several things while you practice patience:
1. Get to know your management group.
You will find that many managers and supervisors ARE actually looking to see who actually cares about their job and the company they are with.
2. Ask questions and talk with people who have been with the company much longer than you have.
Ask questions to people who have been around the block with the company for years and have seen all kinds of personalities, people, situations, and business changes within the company that is willing to share oodles of information with you.
3. TALK LESS, LISTEN MORE.
Other than patience, I have yet to learn a lesson that has stuck with me more than to listen more than talk. You are a new employee who actually might not know all that you think you know, especially when it comes to the management group and longer-tenured employees in the company. You never want to come across as egotistical, but instead curious and more than willing to listen to everything, even if you don't particularly agree with it. No need to make enemies, right?
4. Always continue learning.
There is always a new method to learn, a different way to handle things, new training to be done, and better relationships to be built while you are in this position, so why not make the most of it? After all, it's what you've done for the past 17 years of your life anyway, right?
5. Enjoy the experience.
Above everything else, just try and enjoy the experience you are earning. Some of it may seem monotonous and a bit silly, but I promise you that there are better things you could be doing other than wallowing around wondering why people aren't asking you about strategic goals for the next ten years.
Patience is something I am still learning to master every day, and some days it is harder to exercise than others. But there are so many things that I can do for my self-development that being negative and feeling cheated won't allow me to see. In a way, it excites me, and I truly think that it should excite other fresh, young millennial minds as well. It will just take a little time.