After almost a whole year of working, I can safely say that being an adult is very much like sitting a roller coaster, except I can't get off and the roller coaster is on fire, the tracks are on fire, and everything is on fire!
(hahaha okay so I took this quote from somewhere but I honestly identify with it so well )
No one ever said it was going to be easy being an adult, we may not have believed it when our parents said it, we may not have believed it when our siblings said it, we may not have even believed it when our friends said it but as we grow into adulthood and the responsibilities start pouring in, we begin to realize that our grandeurs of proving them wrong and taking on the world by storm is becoming less and less of a reality.
Some of us make it through to adulthood unscathed while others continue struggling as time goes on, there are even those who choose to deny the reality of life thus choosing to remain a big baby, a big annoying baby that makes life difficult for everyone around them.
I believe that many of us try our best not to be a big baby, we actively try to become better people but at the same time we secretly feel that it is absolutely absurd that we are suddenly thrown into the world of adulthood. The many years that we spent growing up never prepared us for the realities of life. It would be nice if we have had training wheels or a crash course called ‘how to adult 101’ but as of now it looks like:
Image from pinterest.com
As of now I cannot claim to say that I’ve nailed this whole adult thing but what I can say is that I have uncovered a few ways on how we can adult decently enough to convince others around us that we too are responsible functioning working adult.
1. Learn to prioritize
Have you ever realized that as an adult we’re always running out of time and energy? We’re forever running around trying to accomplish things but we never really get anything done. After a while we simply throw our hands in the air and give up stating this adult thing is just impossible.
Image from pinterest.com
We want to get everything done and at the same time experience everything that we say yes to every single event. We ‘don’t want to lose touch with our college friends’ or ‘miss out on that great deal’. We spread ourselves so thin that in the end of the day we’re forever recuperating from some event or another.
To this I say we need to learn how to prioritize. Ask yourself three simple questions before you say yes next time and answer them honestly.
1. On a scale of 1 - 10, how much energy and time will I have to put in?
2. How will this event benefit me in the long run?
3. If I had to place this benefit on a scale of 1 - 10, where would I place it?
If the benefit outweighs the energy and time needed to put in you may consider saying yes but if the energy and time out weights the benefit than it is time you said ‘No’.
Stand your ground when others try to convince you to change your answer because it really is not worth it and your well-being (most of the time) is more important than not missing out of this great experience.
2. Budget ahead of time
Another thing that many people struggle at being an adult are their finances. Many people end up with bad debt every month instead of good debt. Good debt is things like paying for property or having a good healthy investment. Bad debt are things like having overdue credit card debts on the newest designer dress.
One step you could take in making sure you that you don’t have too much month at the end of your money is to allocate your money according to how much you earn. Start allocating big chunks of your money to things that matters most like rent, food and transportation. Next comes investment, savings, and insurance and when you have left over from all those allocation then and only then can you decide on which luxury item you’d like to get.
These luxury items would include things like vacations, expensive restaurants or even that extra cup of designer coffee.
Make little notes on your phone or simply download financial apps on your phone to keep track of your expenditure. Apps like mint.com, goodbudget.com or mvelopes.com are easy to use and handy to have.
3. Have two ‘responsibilities boards’
As an adult we all have responsibilities that we need to get done (daily, weekly, monthly and sometimes even yearly). For those of us who are always forgetting to take out the trash or to pay our bills, here’s one way to make sure you get things done.
1. Prepare two boards (it could be a white board, it could be a cork board, it could even be a piece of paper)
2. Label one ‘To Do’ and the other ‘Done’
3. Get sticky notes and pens.
4. Divide the boards into 7 parts and label them Monday – Sunday
5. On every Sunday night ,write down all the responsibilities that you need to get down for the week and stick them onto the ‘To Do’ board
6. As the week passes and you’ve slowly completed the tasks on the ‘To Do’ board, transfer the post it notes onto the ‘done’ board
This will be a neat way to remind us to complete our responsibilities while at the same time give us a sense of achievement to help you towards becoming more adult
4. Choose to be the bigger person
Sometimes we cannot avoid them, the back stabbers, the irritating specimens and the big babbies. They’re usually lone wolves and they can smell your weakness. There they sit in their corner gleefully stirring the pot, fanning the fire just waiting for you to explode.
The standard advice would be to simply calm yourself down and choose to be the bigger person. But that simply just wouldn’t do, I do advice that you do choose to be the bigger person but I wouldn’t want you to fester in your misery which is neither healthy nor possible.
Instead, you should find outlets to let it out in a safe and responsible manner. Try talking your problems out with your friends, trouble shoot it together. You could also take up contact sports to let out your frustrations properly or choose to meditate as a calmer route.
If you have any other tips on how to be more of an adult I'd love to listen to it so please do give me a beep beep or comment below to tell me what you think!
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