By Amy Goodwin – Liverpool Rise 29 Learner

Reaching the midpoint of the Liverpool Rise 29 programme provided the perfect opportunity to reflect on our expectations at the start of the programme, and how these translated into reality. Speaking to my lovely cohort, I wanted to get a sense not only of how their mindsets may have shifted, but the why behind that shift. When asked how they felt at the start, people named a handful of grounded and pretty rational fears: what if I don’t have a degree, what if it’s corporate and strict, what if I’m bad with people, what if it’s simply the wrong fit. The reality turned out to be different – just not in the way we expected.  

Because for many of us, these fears didn’t just… disappear. At this informal midpoint check-in, people still named anxieties, still sometimes felt unsure of themselves. And yet a shift has occurred nonetheless – the emotion didn’t change; what changed was what we did with it.  

From Individual Doubt to Shared Experience

Our collective move towards feeling more confident and capable didn’t come from an individual decision to simply stop feeling anxious. It came from finding out other people felt the same way. It came from the realisation that all of the fears we saw as individual flaws are, in fact, shared. To quote Ragavi: “we’re all in the same boat”. Throughout the programme so far, business owners, industry specialists and the cohort alike have shared in the perspective that building a career isn’t easy, and simply naming this aloud transforms anxiety into an aha moment because we all feel it. This version of networking isn’t just “meeting contacts”, but is a mechanism through which our fears got shared, and therefore felt more manageable.  

During the first six weeks of Agent Academy, we have experienced a less transactional version of networking. We’ve organically created a sense of community. By showing up week by week, and by learning more about the group around us, the group stopped being a room of strangers and started being something we could rely on. Members of the cohort mentioned the benefits of routine and leaning on a familiar group of people to help move from being independent young people paddling alone to a crew in the same boat.  

What Kept us Grounded

So what helped people stay grounded during the first half of the programme and this transitional period? Jordan mentioned the importance of routine (especially for neurodivergent people), Ragavi and Yasmin swear by meditation (music to my ears as a yoga teacher) and everyone enjoyed listening to the wisdom of our guest speakers, who make our future careers feel possible. One piece of advice that stuck with me, though, was from Aidas, who said –  “the one thing that’s helped my mental wellbeing is to just turn up and get involved…even when I don’t want to”. The takeaway? Show up nervous, but show up anyway. 

The Real Wellbeing Win

The wellbeing win from Agent Academy halfway through the programme turned out not to be getting rid of limiting feelings and beliefs, but not having to manage them alone. The network we create is worth more than just a healthy-looking LinkedIn: the programme creates community. For recent graduates and young people existing in a time of high unemployment and increasingly remote workplaces, it’s easy to feel like you’re alone in it all, isolated on your own dinghy and excluded from the wider world of work. Everyone’s out there, paddling their own patch of water, assuming everyone else already found land. Opportunities like Agent Academy, though, help the dinghies find each other. The relief isn’t finding land. It’s realising you’re not the only one still at sea, and climbing into the same boat.  

Interested in joining our next Rise cohort? Visit https://www.agentacademy.org.uk/rise/ to find out more.