"I write to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see, and what it means."

— Joan Didion

It's hard to make time to write, when there are so many other, louder demands for our attention. The expectations currently being imposed on teenage girls are particularly intense. But when we’re so busy “checking all the boxes” that society tells us we must check, we forget the most important box, the necessity of self-awareness. Now more ever, young women need the time and space to cultivate a clear, confident sense of who they are, what they value, and how to become the leaders of their own lives.

​

Nowhere is this omission more obvious than when it comes to writing college essays. For reasons I don't entirely understand, there is a massive disconnect between the education we get in high school relative to the actual demands of college and life. When it comes time to write the college essay, teens tell me it “feels like a bait-and-switch,” in that they have been educated to follow the rules for analytical essay-writing—and now "suddenly" are being asked to write introspectively and philosophically about who they are and what matters to them. If you've ever read the prompts from the Common App, they are ALL about self-awareness, the very quality most teens don't have time to cultivate.

​

I have been helping kids with their college essays for over a decade years now—and I continue to feel saddened (and a bit angry) about how profoundly unprepared most kids are, the kids who have never written at The Intuitive Writing Project before. The reason I am able to help kids write great essays is because I am able to engage them in psychological discussions about their values, interests, and passions, the very things most kids have never had time to think about before. By contrast, all the writers of The Intuitive Writing Project fly through their college essays with ease—because every week they grow their self-awareness muscle, learning to write and think introspectively about who they are and who they want to become. (I'm so confident about the power of our programs, I offer free college essay coaching to any parent who has enrolled their child in at least six months of weekly, writing classes.)

​

As we learn with age, the secret to creating a meaningful life is to know who are and what matters to us. In my experience, the quickest, most enjoyable method for achieving this awareness is a regular writing practice. If your daughter writes in a journal every night, she will be golden. But if she is like most kids—overwhelmed with the demands of homework and extracurricular activities and then collapsing into bed every night (late) without any time for self-reflection—she will pay the price for that later. The price we pay for NOT making time to write shows up, first, in the struggle to write an effective college essay, and then in the challenge to find the right major and the most aligned career, potentially leading to years of frustration, misalignment, and unhappiness.

 

When we spend the day checking the boxes society assigns us, all we really learn is how to follow orders and defer to authority. But if you want your daughter to become a leader, if you want her to develop the confidence and critical thinking skills she needs achieve great things, give her the time and space she needs to write on a weekly basis—ideally as part of a supportive community at The Intuitive Writing Project.