Between the ages of 18 and 25, is a time of great change. This is usually the time when people leave home, go to university or college – sometimes in a city other than the one in which they grew up, and/or start working.
For some people, it is also the first time they have serious relationship, which may be accompanied by the first time of living with someone outside of their family.
These changes come with their share of decisions to be made and new responsibilities!
Why is this time in life so stressful?
For most people, becoming an adult generally goes well, even with some challenges along the way – no one is safe from making the wrong decision at a particular time, it’s all part of learning to live independently – mistakes can be good as they help us to learn and make different choices.
However, for some young adults, they can find it more difficult to take on new responsibilities and make decisions, which for them can even be a source of anxiety.
Although this is part of the “normal” course of life, not everyone has gets the same sense of responsibility and level of independence at this age. Disorganisation and being unable to manage the responsibilities of adult life can even become the source of a sense of emptiness, or even great distress. This can have a big impact on a person’s mental health.
10 Reasons why adulting can be hard
We have to support ourselves (and our own family).
We have to clean more than just our room.
Paying bills, insurance, and taxes.
We have to be our own alarm clock.
We have to feed ourselves, and any other people/pets in our household.
We have to budget our money to get ahead in life.
Scheduling and managing our own time.
Getting oil changes and any other maintenance that needs to be done on our vehicles.
Feeling like we never have enough free time.
The pressure to succeed and keep up with everyone else around us.
Contributing factors
Some things that can lead to becoming an adult difficult:
Overprotective parents or guardians: An overprotected young person has fewer opportunities to make decisions or deal with difficult choices.
Making choices on our own help us to develop and prepare for the challenges of adult life.
Lifestyle: Some people attach too much importance to pleasure, this can mean they avoid making important decisions or taking on simple responsibilities.
Fear or disgust of taking responsibility: It can look like a good option for some to remain in a young person’s mentality – a time when there are fewer and easier decisions to be made. This mindset can even lead to denial of responsibility.
Feeling like you can’t handle becoming an adult
For some people it can be difficult to feel like they can handle becoming an adult from the outset, this can leave them feeling overwhelmed with even the thought of becoming one.
If you are one of many who hate being an adult, you might want to consider if you are engaging in all-or-nothing thinking. All-or-nothing thinking is what we believe we are experiencing. This often involves using absolute terms, such as always or never responses when making decisions. Thinking this way can stop our ability to see the alternatives in a situation or solutions to a problem.
There is also, being hard on yourself. We’re all guilty of being hard on ourselves from time to time. We are all perfectly imperfect. We cannot expect to be perfect and happy all the time.
We must accept: No person will ever be perfect, and you will never be perfect (and that is okay!) As much as we would all like to be perfect, it’s just simply impossible to do everything and be perfect 100% of the time. But, that doesn’t mean we cannot be successful by striving to do our best, to the best of our abilities.
Feeling Like You Can’t Handle Adulthood
Adulthood isn’t for the faint of heart, and with that being said, can make us feel overwhelmed more often than not. If you are one of many who hate being an adult, you might want to consider if you are engaging in all-or-nothing thinking. All-or-nothing thinking is a cognitive distortion, which is when our mind distorts the events we see, and gives us a not-so-objective interpretation to what we are experiencing. This often involves using absolute terms, such as always or never, The problem with this is that it can hinder our ability to see the alternatives in a situation or solutions to a problem.
Another thing to consider is how hard on yourself you are being. Oftentimes we use phrases such as: “I have to, I should, or I must do _____”, which makes us have rigid rules around our responsibilities and in turn can impact our self-worth. In the long term, we start measuring our self-worth based on how hard we work, how much we take on or do, and how much we have achieved.
Humans are perfectly imperfect. We cannot expect to be perfect and happy all the time in this life with the 4 human defects. We must accept: I will never be perfect, and you will never be perfect (and that is okay!) As much as we would like to be perfect, it’s just simply impossible to do everything and be perfect 100% of the time while we inhabit these physical bodies. But, that doesn’t mean we cannot be successful by striving to do our prescribed duties to the best of our abilities and also be at peace within ourselves.
How to come to terms with becoming an adult
Stop comparing – your life does not have to follow a certain timeline. We all fall victim to unknowingly following timelines of when we should start and finish school, have that ideal career, get married, have a family and so on. We believe that if we fail to do these things, we feel like we are disappointing everyone. If we have family members who put pressure on us or have certain expectations (maybe based on culture and/or religion), then we can choose how much we want to let this have an effect on us by setting our own boundaries.
No one else, but ourselves, puts pressure on us to achieve all of these things. And this pressure can lead to hating being an adult.
Life will be full of ups and downs and our plans and goals may not end up exactly how we wanted them to turn out. This is okay. This is your life and it should be lived at your own pace. Try to avoid comparisons and keep in mind, you are your own timeline and practice working through the ups and downs. They come and go.
Top-tips
Take responsibility. You have to take responsibility for where you are in your life right now. There is no doubt that you may have most definitely dealt with some hardships and misfortunes in your life, however nothing will change if you keep complaining about it or putting blame on others. You have a choice to take responsibility and make something of your life. Nothing changes if nothing changes.
Live within your means. Spending beyond your means is not sustainable. Practice gratitude and appreciate what you do have. You are better off spending less money and staying within your means. By doing so, you can have financial freedom which is much more empowering and gratifying than constantly trying to keep up with others and live outside of your means.
Start saving for retirement. If you don’t already have a retirement plan-then get one immediately. The sooner you put money into a pension, the longer your money has to sit and accumulate interest which then allows you to comfortably retire on.
Allow yourself to sit with difficult or painful emotions. We often find ourselves avoiding feeling emotions such as: sadness, anger, shame, guilt, and grief. The problem with this is that it creates more suffering for us in the long run. How many times have you tried to avoid feeling a difficult emotion and it went away temporarily, but then came back exaggerated when you were reminded of it again? Unfortunately, it’s happened to all of us at one time or another-but we can choose differently. When we can sit with our pain long enough, we can cultivate compassion and kindness for ourselves which can help reduce suffering.
Clarify your values. Goals are a part of adulthood and are the destination, while values guide you how to get to your destination. Values are the road to our destinations. To identify what your values are, you can start by noticing what bothers you, what you don’t like, what annoys you, and so on. On a more positive note, you can also notice what inspires you. Paying attention to your anger and your inspiration helps you reflect on what’s important to you, which in turn can inform your decisions as you figure out not only what, but who you want to be as you grow up.
Embrace being an adult
Being an adult means doing things that are monotonous and even frustrating at times on a daily basis. Nonetheless, being an adult means having autonomy. Whether it’s choosing what we want to eat for dinner, how we want to make money, where we want to live, who we want to love, whether or not we want to have children-being an adult gives us the freedom to choose which is actually a beautiful thing, don’t you think?
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