I Used a Gap Year To Change My Identity. And It Worked!

In college, I didn’t make progress on the interests I told myself I cared about. For me, those interests were writing and entrepreneurship.

Sure, I got a blog up, but I only wrote a few posts.

Sure, I took an entrepreneurship class, but I never started anything.

At the beginning of my senior year, I looked back on college, and man. I realized I made little to no progress on my dreams.

My interests took a backseat to exploring and spending time with people, which to be honest, I don’t regret. But, my choices came with a set of tradeoffs, which I have to live with.

But senior year fall quarter, I felt scared. I felt scared I would let myself down, again. I felt scared because I didn’t trust myself to execute on these interests I held dear.

From this place of fear, I started to consider a gap year.

I wanted to make time to write and work on entrepreneurship. And I set some tangible goals for myself. But those goals aren’t important.

What was important was my intangible goal:

I wanted to change how I saw myself.

During college, I didn’t see myself as someone who wrote, or someone who worked on side projects.

But I thought, with a gap year, with the purpose of seeing myself as a writer and entrepreneur, it would be possible to go into full time work, and work on my interests on the side.

Now, I failed many tangible goals this gap year. I’m not pleased with my specific progress on my interests. But man, that intangible goal of seeing myself differently? Knocked it out of the park.

I can’t begin to describe what a personal victory for me that is. I’m giddy just thinking about it.

If you have bucket list items you’ve put off, and you’re in the financial position to do a gap year like this, you should consider a gap year. You might just come out a different person.

If you’re interested in doing a gap year, reach out to me rishid97@gmail.com, and I have some more thoughts I can share with you. Let me know!