How to find your niche in high school — Part 2

Catch up on the first five tips to finding your niche by reading the first part of this post!

Step Six: Make a list of what you want
What you decide will be helpful will all depend on the activity you’ve chosen to engage in, and they will be different for everyone. That’s okay! It could take days or months or years but the important part is that you have a plan — and a portfolio! — that you can share with others once it’s complete.

Step Seven: Take a break from planning and relax
You’ll be putting in a lot of time and effort into making sure you can enjoy your activity, but don’t forget it’s okay to take a day or two off from planning and enjoy what’s happening in the moment. It’s not always about the future!

Step Eight: Double check all the work you’ve done so far.
Making sure you’ve got your information all set up and in order. Have you signed up for that class yet? Made a resumé or portfolio? Had someone review your work? Before you jump all in, make sure you’re prepared to get started.

Step Nine: Get anything you’ll need ready to go, and get excited!
You’ve gone through eight full steps to get ready and learn as much as you can about the fun activity you’re close to starting, so get excited and get ready to start.

Step Ten: Get to it!
Document the first day you start your journey to make your goal achievable, then and document all the days in between if possible. Leave yourself little sticky notes saying something positive to keep you going, then keep at it until you get where you want to be!

I hope these ten easy steps help some of you the way they helped me. Having something fun and relaxing to fall back on after a busy week at school, or a hard day at work is always a good thing. Plus, you might just be perfecting a skill that will become your career later down the line! Whether you find your niche right away or it takes some trial and errors before you find “it,” keep attempting to find something that works for you, no matter how long or short of a time you have. Everyone deserves to have a little me time after all!.

Written by Jenna F., a junior at Churchville-Chili Senior High School in Rochester, N.Y. She is 16 (going on 17), and is Vice President of the Robotics team at her high school. As soon as she graduates from school, she hope to go off to college and double major in Literature and Marketing.