While May is just another month for some, for others it marks the beginning of a new chapter: the first internship, the first real job, a new city. I was you not too long ago (today marks two years since I graduated college and moved to NYC to start my first corporate job). And while I won’t pretend I have it all figured out, I have learned and grown a lot during this time.

Here’s what I wish someone had told me before I started.

1. Be Patient With Yourself

You are adjusting to a new schedule, new people, new responsibilities, and possibly a whole new city. That is a lot at once, and no perfectly curated plan or routine is going to save you from that reality.

Adapting is a process. In my experience, it took me about three months to start finding my footing and closer to six to truly feel like I had it together (and even then, we never truly have it all figured out, but at least it started to feel good). What helped me most was embracing trial and error. You might think that working out in the morning will work perfectly for you, and then realize you’re completely crashing by 3PM. So you try exercising after work instead. You might plan to meal prep all five days of the week, and then discover you actually have lunch meetings and can’t bring your own food.

You won’t get it right the first time and you’re not supposed to. What matters is that you keep trying until you find a routine that truly works for you, not against you.

✦ My personal tips:

• Don’t go from zero to a hundred. If you want to add workouts to your routine, start with twice a week and be genuinely proud of that. If it feels sustainable, add a third day.

• Be flexible with yourself. What works in the summer might not work in the winter, and some months at work (depending on your industry) will naturally be more demanding than others. There is no such thing as a perfect routine.

• Give yourself the full 3 to 6 month window before you start judging how it’s going. You are not supposed to have it figured out yet. Don’t give up or convince yourself it’s too much to handle before you’ve truly given it a chance.

2. Never Lose Yourself in the Job

Work is going to consume a big part of you, especially at the beginning. But please hear me when I say this: your job cannot be your entire personality.

Protect your hobbies. Protect the things that make you feel like you (whether that’s working out, cooking, reading, going to concerts, whatever it is). Those are the things that keep you energized and grounded, and honestly, they make you better at your job too. You need to take care of yourself before you can show up fully for anything else (including work).

Never let the job take away the person you were before it started.

✦ My personal tips:

• Identify the two or three things outside of work that genuinely fill you up and make sure they have a place in your calendar.

• If you’re moving to a new city, it’s actually the perfect opportunity to build new hobbies and expand your world. Join a book club, visit museums on the weekends, say yes to lunch with your friend’s friend. Grow your circle.

3. Make Your Life Logistically Easier

This might actually be the most important one (and it took me longer than I’d like to admit to learn it).

The goal is to make your day to day as smooth as possible so that your energy goes toward the things that actually matter: your work, your relationships, your wellbeing.

Every small inconvenience you leave unaddressed is energy you could have spent on something that counts.

✦ My personal tips:

• Grocery delivery is worth every penny. Amazon Fresh or Whole Foods delivery through the Amazon app runs around $10/month for unlimited deliveries. It is one of the best investments you will make, set it up before your first week starts. I spent an entire year carrying heavy bags on a 10 minute walk, even in the middle of winter (it was exhausting and ate up so much of my precious weekend time).

• Meal prep on Sundays. Even just cooking a big protein and some sides gives you lunch options to take to work or easy dinners throughout the week without having to think about it every single day.

• Think hard about your commute before you sign a lease. If you’re in New York or any big city, map out the route realistically. How many transfers? How long is it door to door? A painful commute affects your mood and energy every single day (especially in the winter). Do not underestimate it.

• Find your go-to spots early (the coffee shop, the gym, the grocery store). Familiarity makes a new city feel like home faster than you’d think.

4. Invest in Your Work Relationships

Don’t just clock in, do your work, and clock out. The people around you at work will affect your life more than you expect (for better or for worse).

Get to know your team. Be curious about the people around you. Not only will you have someone to lean on during hard moments, but you’ll also find mentors, collaborators, and if you’re lucky, possibly lifelong friends.

Work feels completely different when you actually like the people you’re surrounded by (this is something I talk about with my friends often, and we all feel the same way).

✦ My personal tips:

• Say yes to team events, especially at the beginning. That’s where you get to see people outside of work mode, and where real connections actually start.

• During your first weeks, try not to bring your own lunch every day. Go out with your coworkers instead. Lunch outside the office (even if it’s just grabbing something and eating back at your desk together) is one of the easiest and most natural ways to build real connections. You can always start meal prepping once those relationships are established.

• Ask people about themselves and be genuinely curious. Everyone has a story, and most people love to share it.

5. Stop Comparing Your Timeline to Everyone Else’s

As the saying goes, comparison is the thief of joy.

I have friends who loved their first job and have stayed for years. I have friends who knew within six months it wasn’t right and left. I have friends who moved to a new city and absolutely thrived, and others who realized it wasn’t for them and moved back home. Every single one of them made the right choice for them.

These years are about exploring. About trying, learning, and sometimes moving on to the next thing. They’re about putting yourself out there, giving things a real chance, and being honest with yourself about what’s working and what isn’t.

It is completely okay to not get it right on the first try. What’s not okay is staying somewhere that isn’t serving you and doing nothing about it.

✦ My personal tips:

• Build a support circle you can be truly vulnerable with. Having a small group of friends who are navigating this same season of life (people you can actually talk to about what’s hard and what isn’t working) is everything. Their experiences will help put your own into perspective, and going through it together is so much better than going through it alone.

• Check in with yourself every once in a while. Is this growing me? Am I learning? Do I feel like I can thrive here? Those answers matter, and no one is going to find them for you.

• Give things a real chance before you decide, but also trust yourself when something genuinely isn’t right. You’ll know the difference.

6. Treat Your Time Like Your Most Valuable Asset (Because It Is)

When you first start working, it is going to feel like time has completely disappeared. Like there aren’t enough hours in the day for anything outside of work. I felt that too.

But here’s what I’ve learned: the way you spend your time outside of work matters just as much as what you do during it. Your weekends are sacred. Use them intentionally.

✦ My personal tips:

• Plan your weekends ahead of time. Decide which night you’re going out and which you’re staying in. Block off when you’re doing laundry, grocery shopping, resetting. When you plan it, you actually do it and you stop wasting time you don’t have.

• Give yourself permission to say no. In college, going out every weekend might have been your normal. This is a different season. Saying no to something that would drain you isn’t antisocial, it’s self-care.

• Build a weekend rhythm that includes all three: social time, solo reset time, and at least one thing that genuinely excites you. That balance looks different for everyone. You have to find yours.

If you’re about to start your first internship or your first real job this summer, you’ve got this. On the days it feels hard (because it will), remember that so many other girls are going through it right alongside you. Come back and read this whenever you need it.

Best, Ana Luisa

1. I’m a very happy person (this I already knew).

2. People around me notice it.

I’m only telling you this to give you a reason to take the advice I’m about to give you seriously.

I’m going to share with you 3 ways in which you can live a happier life. Because even though happiness is not something one should force, I do believe we have to be intentional about it.

1. Treat every day as a gift ( because it is).

The first thought I have every morning, as soon as I open my eyes, is “thank you God for one more day.”

You need to switch your mindset from “another day” to “one day less.”

The reality is that everything in life is temporary:

• The city you live in today might not be the city you’ll live in forever.

• The people you see every day will not be around forever.

• The goals, the worries, and all that goes through your head won’t be the same forever.

• Life itself is not forever.

When you start to look at life this way, you naturally start to live it happier because do you really want to waste one day being grumpy, getting annoyed by the smallest inconvenience, or complaining about insignificant things? I don’t think so.

2. Find joy in the smallest of things.

You don’t want to be someone who is only happy when they travel, when the weekend comes, or when the long-distance boyfriend visits. Girl, life is too short to save happiness for “special” occasions.

You need to find happiness in the ordinary things:

• a perfectly brewed coffee.

• when the sun comes out after days of rain.

• when a new episode of your show comes out.

• when you get to have an extra hour of sleep.

• when your friends share good news with you.

A good way to keep yourself accountable is to, at the end of each day, write down 3 things that made you happy. As the saying goes, “find joy in the simple things and life will always be fulfilling.”

3. Find one positive thing among the negative.

This, to me, is the hardest one out of the 3.

I’m not saying that when something negative happens you’ll be saying, “this is great.”

The idea is that when you are confronted with a negative situation, you are able to find 1 positive thing within the negative that you can lean into.

Below are 2 examples that happen to me more often than I would like:

1. The subway closes on your face and now you need to wait 10 minutes for the next one.
   Ideal? Definitely not. But what if the next train comes and it’s much emptier, so now you get to sit down? Instead of complaining about the wait or that you are now late, focus on the fact that you were able to sit down (which doesn’t happen often during rush hour).

2. You meal-prepped for work and left the food at home.
   Ideal? Definitely not. But what if instead of complaining and being in a bad mood, you decide to focus on the fact that maybe today you join your coworkers for lunch? Or maybe today you get to try a new place you’ve been eyeing?

Just try to find one thing to turn the “not so ideal” situations upside down, and you’ll see how much happier you become.

I hope this reflection helps you live a more intentional and happier life.

If you liked it, share it with someone you love who needs to hear this.

With love,

Ana Luisa