Life Coach Rachel Ritlop Shares Valuable Career And Life Advice To Millennials

Rachel Ritlop, millennial career and business coach and founder of The Confused Millennial, shares advice to her fellow millennials on everything from career to life in general. Ritlop went to graduate school with the dream of becoming a therapist, and after getting the career she thought she wanted, she was fired not once, but twice, in less than one month. Ritlop turned what could have been a spiral into a depression into her own coaching business for millennials. We talked to Ritlop to learn the lessons getting fired taught her as well as epic career advice every millennial need to know. Read below for her interview:

We love your site The Confused Millenial and many of The Life Currency (TLC) readers can likely relate to the phrase "confused millennial." What's one thing you would want every self-described confused millennials to know?

Rachel Ritlop: That it's okay to be confused. I remember when I first started getting traction on Twitter, I would get a lot of trolls asking me, "what are you confused about?" as if it is something to feel ashamed of or like you are less than others. I wrote a post about the meaning behind my blog name (www.theconfusedmillennial.com/why-am-i-the-confused-millennial/) where I talked about the fact that it's okay to be confused. It means we are learning, growing, and pushing ourselves to be better. 

You describe The Confused Millennial as the perfect place for balancing work and life, or adulting and chilling. How does a millennial best achieve both their adulting and chilling goals? 

KK: I think it's about making sure you are putting in effort and attention to all of the areas in your life. Sometimes it can be easy to become consumed by a Netflix show, or work, or a significant other that the other things fall off. I try to keep the articles balanced in all areas of our lives because we are multi-dimensional people who need different parts of our soul tended to throughout any given week. 

You did an article on your site about writing your life mission statement. What exactly is a life mission statement, and why should every millennial have one?

KK: Your life's mission statement is like a personal statement for college or a mission statement for a business - only for your life. It's the statement you want to be remembered by. Nobody want's to be remembered for being the guy in the office for 60 hours a week with nothing to show for it. By having a personal mission statement, it's easier to prioritize different areas of your life or make those big life-changing decisions we all are faced with at some point or another. 

You were fired twice before you launched your site. What did you learn from being fired? 

KK: That I am not meant to work for others. Haha but seriously, I was fired twice because I was so unhappy and miserable to work with. I knew I should've quit my jobs, but I felt like I couldn't. I know other millennials out there struggling just to find a job after college and I was lucky enough to have job offers coming at me left and right - I thought I was being selfish. But the reality is that my gut was right, and I needed to listen to it and follow my passion of helping others in my own business. It wasn't until after I got fired I realized that it's okay to ask for more out of life than a 9-5 you hate, even if it's one others may covet. 

Any other valuable career lessons you've learned you want to share? Or other advice you're dying to share with the TLC reader?

KK: Don't worry about being called a job hopper in your twenties (or even early thirties). This is a rare time in most people's lives where they get to explore their wants without the sway of parents or professors. Get to know yourself, try a lot of things out, and make your career decisions based on that.