Put a Bow On It
Done with college? Let's start off right!
If you’ve been following along, I’ve taken you on a little journey the past couple months relating to college. I’ve shown you what to prepare for as you enter college followed by how to make use of your years wisely, then taking it a step further, ways to optimize your days, and lastly this post, which is the icing to the cake. Now that you are done with undergrad, what should be your next steps?
Let me introduce you to the CLAIMS framework. This will serve as a mental model to all fresh grads to enrich life with purpose and dignity.
CLARITY: Have your intentions around your post grad life clearly written down. Let it not be vague, rather, measurable and personal. This doesn’t have to be around the specifics of your career. If you don’t have that developed yet, that’s ok. Write down job characteristics that would be important to you, or, cities you’d like to settle. It can be ANYTHING, but let it come from the heart.
LEARN: Obviously we are constrained by our experiences and what we know, however, from the goals you’ve written for yourself post grad, find ways to document them and iterate as you learn more things about yourself and your life. You don’t stop after draft 1. You build, reinvent, and articulate over it lifelong.
ASSUME: This is the stage where you attempt to connect as close as possible to your goals. It is no more just a fantasy. Live and breathe as if you are living your ideal post grad life. This means, whether you have a job or not, pursuing grad school or not, or simply taking a well deserved gap year, you should be living your current life like you would in your “ideal” life. Want to really work in LA but you are living in NY? Plan a solo trip where you can see how LA life is. Network with professionals working there. Do your homework, always.
IMAGINE: This step takes the above and drills deeper. With your ideal post grad life documented and iterated upon, what are things you can do right now within your control that’ll allow you to experience that? Create a vision board with pictures, colors and text giving you direction on what to focus on to make these a reality.
Ex: Coming out of undergrad I wanted $X salary however, was only offered $Y. I went back to my drawing board and wrote down my game plan so I can try and bump my salary by year end.
MEANING: As you are doing these exercises, don’t forget to connect it to the larger picture. Often, this spans beyond just yourself. While I went to the drawing board to figure out my game plan for the next year to achieve my desired salary, I was driven by the fact that more money means more decision making freedom, and that in turn means greater autonomy over my time. It wasn’t an easy decision, but connecting my goals to the larger picture meant I had to pursue grad school ASAP. It is a hard thing to do, but it had to be done. Here I am, balancing work and my part-time MBA. My own desire led to a tangible & executable to-do item.
SYNC: Align your current life with your ideal life. The ways in which you’d do that is to articulate with your near and dear ones your goals and what you are thinking. Don’t be afraid to say no to something if you know it isn’t aligned with your version of success. For every no, there are 10 yeses!
The beauty about this framework is that it is suitable for anybody and everybody. Just because you have a job coming out of undergrad doesn’t mean this exercise is useless. We all will always have a definition of success which is greater than where we are currently. Use that imagination and desire to your advantage. It is possible to reach it, but just takes some intentional work!
For more info on the CLAIMS framework, visit, https://www.forbes.com/sites/jodiecook/2025/11/10/the-6-step-framework-to-get-everything-you-want-in-life-and-business/
🙌🙌🙌❤️
Amazing work!