My first year out of college was one of the toughest that I faced up to that point in my life.

I started my first professional job as an engineer.  I moved to a different state and begin to carve out a life for myself.  But after a month or so, I was like, "Hey why is it so hard to make friends all of a sudden," and I really started to feel the loneliness.  And that actually got worse as the months went along.

My wife had a similar experience.  In fact a lot of people will tell you that their first few years out of school were really tough. 

Why is that? 

First of all, in school you were surrounded by people your own age, and you had a lot in common with them.  So it was easy to make friends.  When you get into the "real world" your peers in your age group is just a small percentage of the people you need to interact with, say, on a new job.  So making friends requires a lot more work.

Second, because your pool of potential friends was large when you were in school, you didn't really need to deal with people that weren’t easy to get along with.  If someone has a difficult personality you just moved on to find a better friend.  But in the real world your pool of candidates is much smaller so you can't afford to be as picky.  And you’ll have to learn to deal with those difficult people.

And then third, in school you really didn't need to understand the basics of forming friendships.  The educational system is an artificial environment, and friendships just happen naturally.  Now that you're on your own you're going to have to be a lot more intentional, and learn those basic fundamentals.

So how do you do that? 

Well you’ll need to educate yourself.   I've made available a free ebook for you on this subject.  It's short (it's less than twenty pages so it's an easy read), and it's called, “How to Make the Friends You've Always Wanted."

When you read it, you’ll better understand how friendships progress and how to set appropriate expectations.  And it's loaded with practical tips to improve your social skills.  You can download it using this link http://www.petecoaching.com/download/friendship

It's going to take some work, practice, and adjustments on your part to build your friendship base up to where you want it to be.  But when you're armed with good knowledge it’s much easier. 

I want you to succeed and not make the same mistakes that I did.  So I'm wishing you all the best, and especially to the new class of 2015!