OnCourse SOAR: Our Mission and Goals

OnCourse SOAR Overview

Early adulthood can be a lonely and confusing time. We ask young adults to pivot quickly from being learners, guided and nurtured by parents, teachers and coaches, to productive, independent wage-earners.

OnCourse SOAR is a customized, 12-month program for Young Adults that provides the life skills’ training, the personalized guidance, and the support structure to optimize the transition into mature adulthood. SOAR integrates experiential retreats, online video classes on crucial life skills, monthly peer group meetings, 1-on-1 monthly coaching calls, quarterly parental guidance calls, and anytime personal support. SOAR inspires Young Adults to move confidently from their current reality, through their fears, blocks and challenges, to a vibrant, new way of living.

Participants are committed young adults, who are making the transition from dependence to self-responsibility. They are often well educated and have had exposure to world-level experiences and opportunities. They have high-achieving, caring parents who long for them to be happy and to find success.

However, they also live in a high stress, tech-driven, social-media-influenced society that values conformity, materialism, and transactional relationships. They often struggle to live independently and responsibly, and to make tradeoffs between big-vision ideals and getting a job. At times, they question their uniqueness, worth, and direction. They find that post-collegiate adult life doesn’t come with a personalized, multi-year plan with detailed course overviews, assignments with accountability, a team of supporting guides/mentors, and a precise growth measurement system. Instead, these young adults often feel they are on their own to navigate the course of their lives, make their mark on the world, and live as working independents.

Through the OnCourse SOAR program participants have the opportunity to develop and deepen key attributes and abilities in four foundational life domains:

Grounding and Direction:

• A calm centeredness: I know and embrace who I am
• A sense of vision and direction: I know where I am going
• Enduring core values; an unwavering inner compass
• An innate sense of gratitude
• A healthy balance of humility and self-confidence

Action and Discipline:

• Truth, directness, and fairness in interactions with others
• The confidence and commitment to set priorities, develop plans, and make agreements with clear deliverables, timeframes and accountability
• An understanding and full use of my natural and developed talents in a passion-filled vocation
• The humility to face and navigate life’s unfairness, imperfections, and fragility without blaming or complaining, taking 100% responsibility for my life
• The curiosity and openness to learn from mistakes, failures, or betrayals, and move on with determination

Awareness and Discernment

• The ability to adapt communication to be best understood by others
• Objectivity and stability in times of tension or crisis
• Trust intuition
• The courage to go into and through fear; neither denying fear nor being consumed by fear
• Resilience and flexibility to adapt or change based on insights from others

Authentic Relationships

• A natural, deeper connection with others
• A welcoming, nurturing, and empathic attitude toward others without enabling or rescuing
• A healthy relationship with money, possessions, and substances
• Emotional openness, and accessibility
• Healthy sensual awareness and expression

The transition to mature adulthood calls participants into the crucible of introspection and self-actualization. Their management of this phase will have a long and profound impact on their future. OnCourse SOAR provides a stable launching pad for dedicated Young Adults to address and transition out of their current realities so they can courageously identify and embrace new realities.

Below are several examples of dynamics in which Young Adult candidates may have the opportunity to establish a new reality:

STORIES (Current Realities)		DEEPEST WANTS (New Realities)
I’ve been cared for or enabled most of my life, and am not sure how to be entirely independent		I am a responsible, self-reliant, financially-independent adult
I struggle to maintain self-love and self-acceptance		I accept my humanity and like who I am
Despite parental guidance throughout my life, I still question my foundational values and beliefs		I have a strong inner compass, and know and act on what I stand for
I am missing clear direction for the next stage of my life and feel "stuck"		I am confident in myself and empowered about my life journey
I lack confidence or carry baggage in my relationships with my parents, my siblings, or within my extended family		I accept and embrace my role within my family, and have authentic relationships with family members
I feel the need to measure up to my parents’ success and am afraid that I’ll disappoint the people around me		I embrace my talents and pursue a life that is aligned with my highest values and passions
I struggle to initiate or be in a loving partner relationship … or … to heal or draw boundaries in a dysfunctional relationship		I show up authentically either in … or not in … a loving partner relationship