What Does Real Adulting Look Like?
If you feel overwhelmed on a regular basis, you may need to adjust your beliefs about what true adulting should look like.
Throughout your life, you've subconsciously gathered bits and pieces of evidence of what being an adult entails and what good, responsible adults do and don't do.
By the time you actually become an adult, you've created a handbook on adulting without even realizing it.
This handbook is filled with rules you came up with based on observing and experiencing (at different ages) the adults around you. Your parents, teachers, aunts, uncles, TV characters, friends, and strangers all influenced, and continue to influence, the guidelines in your manual.
The problem is, most of us don't know this manual exists so we never question the guidelines, which are often unrealistic.
I work mostly with women and have found that almost every woman has an unrealistic expectation of what she should be able to accomplish as an adult. Whether that be in a day, a month, a year, or her life time.
They often think they should have it “all together”. They should look physically attractive, their house should always be tidy, their kids should listen to them and like each other, they should keep their spouse happy, should exercise regularly, eat perfectly healthy, remember everyone's birthdays, make everyone feel special, spend frugally, never age, put everyone's needs before their's, and be able to work at the same capacity every day.
This is insane, unrealistic, and often the main source of discontent and unhappiness in a woman's life.
YOU WERE NEVER MEANT TO DO AND BE ALL OF THOSE THINGS. IT IS LITERALLY IMPOSSIBLE.
But, if you're willing to be brave and curious, you can create and follow your own manual on adulting.
It starts by asking yourself what your current, subconscious manual says. Write out the rules of adulting you have for yourself and then ask yourself these questions…
Where did these beliefs come from?
Do I actually like and agree with these beliefs?
Do adhering to these rules bring growth, peace, and happiness into my life?
Are these rules helping me have the human experience I desire?
Am I living by other's expectations more than my own?
When my clients start to examine their subconscious manuals, they often find that they don't know what guidelines they want to follow intentionally. They're so used to doing what society has told them they “should” do as an adult, that they struggle to create their own rules.
It often feels wrong or scary to my clients to give themselves the freedom to write their own guidelines.
When you start to define adulting for yourself and living by your own rules, you may not get the validation from others that you're used to. It requires validating yourself and feeling proud that you're living on your own terms.
Being an adult is hard enough without trying to live up to subconscious, unrealistic, expectations. I encourage you to examine your manual and decide on purpose what's realistic and healthy for you. No one else is going to do it for you.
But if you would like help with rewriting your manual, I invite you to book a free consult call with me HERE or at the link below.
So much love to you!
Jody