The Fear of Being an Adult

This is a different sort of post today, one inspired by the fear that being an adult causes, the feelings that everyone else is somehow doing better than you and that you’re somehow getting by on a series of happy accidents that will soon come to an end.

Step 1

Acknowledge that you have absolutely no idea what you’re doing but that you’re going to learn. This was the hardest thing for me to admit; I moved out of my parents house like yeah, I can do chores and then when it came to it realised I am terrible at doing the washing. And I don’t like washing dishes.

For me I had to admit that I had relatively no idea how to use my washing machine despite doing the washing at home because it was a different machine. This one had buttons instead of three dials. And I didn’t know what to do but I decided to learn and now I can do the washing on my own with a little bit of help sometimes for those moments when it’s beeping at me for some unknown reason.

Step 2

Now that you’ve made the decision to learn start looking things up and writing them down for the future.

I have a list of what works for the clothes we have – I put dark clothes on at x temperature, x spin and x setting. I put jumpers on at y temperature y spin and y setting. I have them all in a list because I will doubt myself in the future but having it written down helps.

I have a recipe log on my Notion and I’ve even got things that I know how to do with my eyes shut (not literally that would be terrifying) but I have them on that list. Just in case my brain does a silly and makes me think I don’t know what to do.

Step 3

Talk to friends in the same or similar situations to you and you’ll realise that not everyone has got this like you think they do. All of us feel like we’re stumbling through being an adult. I talked to my Mam about it and she admitted that she was the same when she started out, and still feels the same now at times.

Step 4

Constantly learn new things. Or try new things. Take up a new hobby, try a different recipe, change up the layout of your sitting room or something. Don’t let yourself settle into a state where you’re just comfortable with how things are and they never change. You’ll feel like you got this at first but then the minute something small happens it’s going to be a massive change for you.

Step 5

Try to push the fear aside and focus on the good. Look at your achievements and not other people’s. One of mine this week was that I tried a new recipe, even though it didn’t work, but I got on with it and made dinner anyway. I got happy that I walked to work in the cold because I was walking. I was so proud of myself the other day for not letting the fear get to me and putting my name down for something.

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Hey! Tara here and thanks for checking out my blog. I update every Tuesday with posts about studying tips, advice and talk about productivity and organisation too. If you want to keep up to date with my latest blog posts I’d love it if you subscribed to this blog.