I wanted to write this blog to further expand on the thoughts I shared in my Instagram post You’re not alone: How to Deal When Adulting Gets Hard. The post was meant to be a short caption with a few helpful hints. Instead, I wanted to deep dive into the hard truths of adulting. Here, I will give the three tips I gave in the post, in addition to a few more that came to mind after posting.
As a coach, I’m privileged to be invited into the hearts and minds of my clients.
And one thing I’ve come to believe over the years is this: We’re all struggling with adulting in some way.
But most of us believe that no one else is having quite as hard of a time as us.
And yet, that’s not true; most of us are struggling with the same kinds of issues and feeling just as challenged.
Because life can feel hard sometimes and adulting is just not that easy.
Too often, shame, isolation, or lack of outlets to safely and VULNERABLY bring this up – the fact that adulting isn’t easy for us – can leave many of us feeling lonely and defeated.
In this extended blog post, I want to share some hard truths that I think most of us wrestle with based on my experience as a coach (and as a fellow human).
My hope in sharing these is that you might feel less alone in your struggles and maybe just a bit more self-compassionate, knowing what you’re dealing with is normal and natural for most of us.
5 Hard Adulting Truths
- Adulting is hard for most of us sometimes (or a lot of the time). Between commutes, work demands, student loan debt, bills, the pressures of dating or marriage or children, let alone making time for household chores, the responsibilities of an adult life can feel overwhelming, stressful, and chaotic – making you feel like you’re just barely cobbling it together as you go along.
When you add unto this any anxiety, depression, unresolved childhood trauma, or health challenges that you may be dealing with, adulting can feel especially hard. If you’re feeling like the only one having a hard time with being an adult and making it in the world, you’re not. It’s hard for most of us sometimes (or a lot of the time).
- Life is mostly composed of mundane stuff. Between the highlight reel of Facebook and Instagram are the never posted snapshots of real daily life: laundry on the floor, dishes in the sink, fights in the kitchen, mail piles, end of the day brain-dead exhaustion, painful chore dates with bills and budget, and constantly picking up the clutter from the rooms of your house.
I think a lot of us in adulthood are surprised by just how much mundanity life is composed of! It’s not that this stuff can’t be beautiful or even special – it absolutely can be. But if you’re saddened that real life doesn’t feel more like a social media highlight reel, this daily mundanity will likely feel doubly hard.
Please don’t beat yourself up over this believing that everyone else is having better sex, keeping a cleaner house, better managing their finances and pantries with plenty of time and money left over for travel and adventures. It’s likely not true. Most of our lives are filled with mundanity. It just doesn’t make it onto social media.
- It’s up to us to craft a life of meaning and fulfillment. It’s not just going to appear. It becomes our responsibility as adults to define what gives our life meaning. No one else can tell us what this will be or look like.
This is singularly your responsibility and the enormity of that can sometimes feel hard to figure out for most of us. If you feel lost and are struggling to find your path and define what gives your life meaning, remember that you’re in good (and vast) company.
- Being an adult can feel lonely sometimes. It doesn’t matter if you’re partnered or single, loneliness can find you in either of those contexts. And loneliness can feel so hard. It’s a constant tension we navigate as humans, longing to be in contact but ultimately being separate and trying to cope with this often-painful reality.
So whether you’re in conflict with loved ones or colleagues, circumstantially isolated or isolating yourself, loneliness is a far more common adult experience than what you may imagine based on sitcoms, social posts, or even what you one-day imagined life may feel like. Take heart if you feel lonely. This is one of the key tasks we all must face as humans.
- Adulting involves a lot of unlearning and relearning when it comes to food, money, sex, and relationships. We don’t come into the world pre-programmed like computers. We form in relationship to those around us and we learn what we’re modeled (whether that’s intentional or not).
Because of this, we come to develop certain kinds of patterns and behaviors around food, money, sex, and relationships from those early experiences. And, for many of us, those patterns we learned may one day stop working so well (if they ever did at all!). So, then adulthood becomes a journey of unlearning those older patterns and relearning newer, possibly more functional habits. This includes setting boundaries, which can help you feel like a grounded, empowered adult when communicating in tough situations.
If you feel frustrated or overwhelmed with the fact that you’re still learning how to date or manage your money or understand sex, join the club. Most of us in adulthood are in a constant journey to unlearn and relearn patterns around these and so many other subjects.
The Hard Truths in Perspective
This post was not meant to be a somber, negative perspective on adulthood despite how the “hard truths” may read.
On the contrary, adulthood can be absolutely amazing and joyful and fulfilling and adventurous. AND these experiences can con-exist alongside all these hard truths.
I didn’t write about the joyful, wonderful parts of adulthood because those likely aren’t the parts we’re shaming, blaming, or isolating ourselves over.
When is comes to the hard truths, many of us may think we’re the only ones having such a hard time, wondering what’s wrong with us that we’re struggling so much.
But that’s just not the case. Almost ALL of us struggle with these same issues in some way.
So my hope is that, as you read through the list, you felt even a little bit seen, a little less alone in your struggle, a little more relaxed in your heart knowing that your experience, while still painful, is something that others are sharing in. If you would like support in doing this, I encourage you to reach out here.
Now, I’d love to hear from you in the comments below: what’s another hard truth about adulting that you would add to the list? Leave a message in the comments below.