College is supposed to help you learn who you are, what you care about, and what you want to focus on in the next chapter of your life. But a lot of the young adults I work with tell me that somewhere around sophomore year (or, for some people, before they graduate high school), the pressure to figure out their entire career before they’ve even left campus starts growing.

Career anxiety can show up in a lot of different ways, especially when you’re already juggling classes, relationships, finances, and the rest of college life. Learning how to drop perfectionism, learn from your mistakes, and let go of things that are beyond your control can help you feel more hopeful about the future.

College Students and Career Stress

There are a million things you’re expected to do before you graduate if you want to secure a job or internship. You’re researching and applying for positions, updating your resume, trying to make your LinkedIn profile sound impressive, going to career fairs, practicing interview questions, watching your friends announce their offers, and attempting not to panic. It can be a whirlwind of stress and anxiety that keeps building.

You might be worried about:

Whether you’ll be able to find a job in an increasingly competitive market
Paying student loans or supporting yourself after graduation
Whether AI will change or eliminate the career you’re preparing for
Writing a resume that actually stands out
Having enough experience to compete with other applicants
Interviewing well and knowing how to “sell” yourself
Finding an internship that will actually help your career
Choosing a career when you aren’t even sure what you want yet
Finding a job somewhere you actually want to live
Disappointing your parents or professors if your plans don’t work out
Feeling like everyone else has their future figured out while you’re still trying to figure out yours

And then there’s the pressure to make the right choices.

That can be especially difficult for perfectionists and anxious young adults. If you start believing that one internship, one job offer, or one post-graduation decision will determine the rest of your life, every application suddenly feels incredibly high-stakes.

That makes you more susceptible to academic burnout, depressive symptoms, and generalized anxiety.

No wonder you’re stressed.

Remember That Your First Job Is Not Your Entire Career

One of the hardest parts of being a teen and a young adult is that you’re often expected to make decisions about your future before you have much experience to inform those decisions.

You might be thinking, What if I choose the wrong career? What if I move somewhere and hate it? What if I take the wrong internship and fall behind everyone else? What if I can’t find anything and have to live in my parents’ basement forever?

Those thoughts can keep you stuck in a spiral of fight-or-flight. The pressure to get everything right combined with the anticipatory anxiety of sitting with uncertainty is hard. But uncertainty is also inevitable. You’re allowed to learn as you go. In fact, you have to.

Anxiety keeps you focused on a tiny perspective. See if you can zoom out.

Your first internship doesn’t have to be (and probably won’t be) the perfect internship. Your first job probably isn’t your forever job. You might discover that the industry you thought you wanted isn’t actually a good fit. You could realize you want to live somewhere completely different. You may change your mind about what matters to you.

Young adulthood involves a lot of decision-making and change. It’s totally normal to feel uncertain while you’re figuring out big questions about your identity, your priorities, and the kind of life you actually want.

Being able to move through those questions, trust your intuition, and transition through changes when they come up is all you need to do. Of course, that’s easier said than done. It means you have to learn to tolerate discomfort and soothe yourself through distress and limbo. But that’s a skill you can learn and hone.

Don't Let the Job Search Become Your Entire Life

When you’re anxious about your future, it’s easy to convince yourself that you should be doing more.

You could apply to another internship. Rewrite your resume one more time. Check LinkedIn again. Search for another job posting. Compare your experience to someone else’s. Read another article about what employers are looking for.

But spending hours trying to tinker with your future can keep you stuck worrying about it without actually feeling any more prepared.

Obviously, you need to set aside time to write your resume, apply for jobs, and check postings. But obsessing over rewrites, tiny details, and comparisons is probably only going to exacerbate your anxiety.

So give your job search some boundaries.

Try chunking up your week into blocks of pre-determined tasks. Maybe you spend an hour applying for internships on Tuesday and Thursday. Maybe Friday is your networking day. Maybe you check your email or posting sites at specific times rather than refreshing your inbox throughout the day.

Your future isn’t going anywhere, and you still get to live your current life. Go to class. See your friends. Exercise. Watch something stupid. Sleep. Have a weekend where you don’t look at LinkedIn. You do not need to earn your right to relax by first solving your entire future.

Watch for the Anxiety-Perfectionism-Procrastination Cycle

Sometimes career anxiety doesn’t make you more productive. Just like with any kind of anxiety, it can make you avoid the thing altogether.

You know you need to apply for internships, but you can’t figure out how to make your resume perfect enough. You keep researching companies instead of submitting applications. You stare at a blank cover letter because you’re terrified of saying the wrong thing.

Then you feel guilty for procrastinating, which makes you even more anxious, which makes it even harder to start.

This is the anxiety-perfectionism-procrastination cycle, and it’s a pattern I see often with clients. When you believe you have to get something exactly right, starting can feel risky.

Instead of asking yourself, “What am I supposed to do with my life?” ask “What’s the next thing I want to explore?”

And then break this down into your everyday life. You don’t need to figure out your 5-year plan. How about you figure out one teeny tiny thing you can do next?

Focus on What You Can Actually Control

There are a lot of parts of your life you won’t be able to control. This includes your job search.

You can’t control how many people apply for an internship. You can’t control whether a recruiter responds. You can’t control the economy, changes in technology, or whether another candidate has more experience.

The only thing you can control how you respond.

You can:

Prepare for an interview the best you can
Ask for feedback
Reach out to someone in your field
Use your school’s career resources
Take care of yourself when the process gets discouraging

Focusing on what’s within your locus of control can help you loosen your grip on what’s not.

Practice Failing Head-First

If you’re brave enough to put yourself out there and be vulnerable in the world, failure is inevitable. That’s a beautiful thing, because staying small out of fear shrinks your world down to a tiny pinprick.

What would happen if you got curious about failure? What’s the worst that could happen if the thing you want doesn’t come to fruition?

Nobody likes the idea of failure, but it can teach you a lot about resiliency and endurance. You learn you can handle disappointment and unexpected changes: the more you fail, the less afraid you’ll be to mess up, and the more chances you’ll take.

Plus, when you put yourself allow yourself to fail, you recognize that your worth doesn’t come from getting everything perfect all the time. When you get rejected, you can let yourself be disappointed without turning that rejection into a story about who you are.

Therapy for Young Adults

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by internships, job applications, graduation, and the pressure to know what comes next, take a pause here. Unclench your jaw. Slow down a little.

You don't have to have it all figured out. You aren’t behind because you don’t have your entire career or the next 5 years of your life mapped out yet. What happens after graduation isn’t a determination of your worth or your success. You can make decisions without knowing exactly where they will lead.

If career anxiety is making it difficult to enjoy college, focus on your classes, sleep, make decisions, or feel hopeful about the future, therapy can give you a place to slow down and work through what’s underneath that anxiety.

At Carino Counseling, I work with young adults who are navigating anxiety, perfectionism, career uncertainty, and the transition into adulthood. If you want to feel more grounded while you figure out what comes next, you can learn more and schedule a free consultation right here.