Who is riding the struggle bus when it comes to adulting?! HANDS UP! Mine is way up in the air believe me. Whether you have just finished school or started your first job, adulting is a tricky business. This is what I have learned so far in this game and how to survive (and potentially thrive in it). Let’s step up our adult game.
I think they need to start making a personal finance mandatory to graduate high school and college because IT IS SO IMPORTANT. Money runs the world we live in, it would be an awesome idea to know how to handle it. Having a budget is a great start to learning how to adult. Whether you use an excel sheet or a budget book you pick up at the dollar store, it is a huge help in the finance department. Making a list of your expenses and comparing to your income is a great way at tracking your financial progress. It was hella stressful making one at first, but it has helped me start to manage my money like an adult. In addition, I have an input/output sheet where I can track how much I am spending with my spending money. Yeah yeah, sounds like I am going overboard. But I am not going to fack with my money and shouldn’t either! We will be happier that way!
As you adult, we have to keep track of so many things in our day to day lives. My planner is beaten up because I use it so much. A planner is AN AMAZING way to stay organized and keep track of literally everything. I used to love those assignment notebooks we had throughout our K-12 days. I even started to put my after school activities in there just to stay organized. As a person who loses focus and gets overwhelmed easily, a planner has been a lifesaver throughout my whole life. As work obligations and social functions creep on us as adults it is important to stay on top of things. A planner is your super organized best friend. Get it.
Even though we may be adulting, it is okay to have fun! The key is having fun responsibly. In this point in our lives, we are learning to balance everything. It is okay to slip up sometimes as long as you get back on track. If we just went to work every day and did the same thing every day, we would all go insane in the membrane. It is important to take time to relax, recharge and have fun. Whether that be through activities you enjoyed when you younger such as playing games with friends to reading a book. As long as you have that time to destress and decompress, that is what matters.
From work to personal relationships, this tidbit can help us immensely in communicating with each other. I know I have lost friendships because of my inability to communicate to problem solve, during my arguments I just wanted to be validated and be right. It is okay to want to feel validated and right, we are human. But if we want to have successful and meaningful relationships with other people it is important to problem-solve. This means instead of looking at the situation from an emotional lense, taking a more logical approach to the situation. We can still recognize and validate our feelings through this approach, and it will be more likely to the problem will be solved when both parties reach a compromise. It is important to communicate and try to understand our own emotions so we are able to approach problems through a more objective lens.
Having a growth mindset means you are able to see yourself becoming a better person. It is easy to say you have a growth mindset, it is another thing to live it. This means when challenges come your way you will be able to identify the problem and overcome situations that occur in your life. Having a growth mindset means you believe in yourself. In order to succeed at adulting, you gotta have that confidence. It starts with a growth mindset.
Setting goals is the beginning of building the future you want for yourself. For me, in the past, I remember it was hard for me to set attainable goals and ways to measure my progress. A great way to make a realistic goal is but using the acronym SMART. Smart stands for Specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely. But using this acronym, you can make a goal that you can measure and will actually be motivated to do because you have developed a specific plan towards the goal. One step towards adulting forsure.
It is time to gather some information folks. It is important to know where to find things you need as you become an adult. You can record it in your phone, notebook or laptop. GET ORGANIZED. Whether it be for your work or personal life, finding resources that can help you in your day to day life is key. Go out and seek out help even if you do not need it, someday you will and will be happy you have the knowledge to access those resources.
Stay connected to your friends and family. It may be hard because of the busyness of life but try your best to stay in touch. It is important to maintain these connections and develop new ones as well. As you meet new people, you will learn so much from them. Developing new relationships with others will help us grow and keep us happy. Authentic human connections are key to happiness!
Never stop learning. Psychologists and scientists say our brain stop physically growing by age twenty-five, that does not mean we have to stop learning. We can continue to learn. It does not have to be something grand. It can be something really small, such as learning how to cook a meal. No matter what look at the world through the eyes of an eager pupil, ready to take it in and discover something new every day. It will help you grow, and keep life spicy.
Winging it is for school. When it comes to adulting, being prepared is what is cool. It’ll help you succeed in your work and personal life. Even though this is the case, I understand the whole lure of procrastination. I used to be the queen of procrastination. But procrastination won’t save this nation. A wise sage once told me that, “procrastination is the avoidance of a task due to fear of failure Attempting to see tasks as a challenge helps build motivation, and with perseverance, you will reach success.” BOOM. Stick that above your desk at work and live by it. If you stop procrastinating and come prepared to try and tackle the challenges as best as you can that in front of you, you will be successful. If not as first, someday you will be, because you have formula for success.
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