failure to launch personal path

Failure to Launch: Discovering Your Personal Path

failure to launch personal pathOnce there was a little girl who had dreams of becoming a doctor, a ballet dancer, and the president all at the same time. What she didn’t know at that age was that she would need skills, successes, and support to help her achieve those goals.

Fast-forward eighteen years, and this little girl is now struggling at college.

While once a straight-A student, she is barely passing the general education courses. At this rate, she can’t imagine succeeding in pre-med classes and has given up on that dream. She can hold a job but hasn’t stayed at one place for too long because nothing seems meaningful. She is aware of some interests but has no idea how to translate those into a college major or even a career. The harder she tries, the harder it all becomes. and no one around her can understand what she is doing or why she is doing it. Overall, there are now more losses than successes. She is lost, confused, and hopeless.

And then she finds us at Optimum Performance Institute.

Struggling with the idea that she needs treatment, she enters Optimum Performance Institute’s OPI Intensive begrudgingly and is initially resistant. As she starts to bond with her roommates, learns new skills, and sees all that Los Angeles has to offer, she starts to become more willing to trust the process. Her favorite part of the week are the days that she has yoga, and for the first time in a long time she realizes that she truly enjoys something. Her background in dance coupled with her awareness of body movement and natural abilities enable her to excel in the yoga classes.

Once she hits the integration phase of OPI Intensive and has access to the departments, in-office clubs, and individual activities, her old dreams start to shift towards realistic and achievable ones. She joins a local yoga studio and finds customer service related volunteering that helps to balance therapy, groups, and life in treatment. The education that was so critical to her continues to take a backseat. To her surprise, the more involved she gets with other areas of her life, the more she realizes that traditional college may not be the best route at this time. Once she transfers to Phase 2 of the program, she really starts to see her new goals take shape. She enrolls in and successfully completes a yoga teacher training program, swaps volunteer hours for free yoga, and becomes a teacher’s assistant while continuing to balance a real life and treatment.

She realizes that her failure to launch stemmed from not knowing what she was launching to. Through therapy, life coaching, and the departments here at Optimum Performance Institute, she recognized that she lost sight of her wants, needs, passions, confidence and self. She is now working part-time in an athletic apparel store while obtaining hours for her yoga teacher training and reports being genuinely happy.

For more information on OPI residential programs and our measures to help reduce Failure to Launch obstacles for young adults, call us at (888) 814-5985 or click HERE to submit an online form. We’ll be in touch promptly.