Adulting with Grace

You graduated! You did it! You are finally free to do whatever you want! Then all of a sudden… EEEERRRKKK!!!! Reality strikes! You are now supposed to take on adult responsibilities and manage your life! And you’ve worked hard for this, haven’t you? You feel tricked! You feel lost! You calm down… You remember the syllabus from school being kind of helpful… You wonder if there is a syllabus for this new phase too… is there? Unfortunately the answer is not really… The one great thing about becoming an adult is, finally, having the opportunity to design your life and make your own choices; but adulting hurts and unfortunately there is no syllabus for it. Nevertheless, in times of uncertainty, building some structure around a goal would help, and you could achieve this by baking new habits and routines. It would look something like this:

1) Identify the ultimate goal. 2) Identify the areas of your life that you value the most. 3) Break down those areas into small tasks and turn them into habits. 4) Stay calm, be consistent, and incorporate them into your daily routines. 

Let’s explain. We can call the ultimate goal “Adulting with Grace”, which means figuring out a system to take on adult responsibilities and manage your own life with as few tears as possible. Proceed to identify the most valuable areas of your life and incorporate them into your plan. To give you a head start, I’ve selected five general areas that would help you achieve a well-balanced life. These are: health, relationships, profession, finances, and fun. Then break these areas down into small tasks and turn them into habits by repetition. Incorporating new habits to your daily routines will help you streamline your functioning and stay in balance. Keep in mind that consistency is the key in this process, and remember that each habit is a stepping stone towards a not so messy adulting. On the contrary, mindlessly engaging in activities such as social media scrolling, binge video gaming and tv watching, and over committing to social gatherings due to fear-of-missing-out will mess up your balance, decrease your productivity, and hinder your progress. We can call this last process “Graceless Adulting”.

Let’s now use a metaphor to help you connect with this plan. Let’s pretend adulting is a special occasion that requires a playlist. “Adulting with Grace” calls for a mindfully curated choice of songs. We can name it Another-Week-on-Track and we will include bands that align with your top five life areas such as “Mango Mambo”, “The Socializers””, “Dj. CEO”, “Budget Gurus”, and “YOLO”. Then each song will be considered a habit and putting the playlist on repeat would be the routine. In contrast, “Graceless Adulting” will call for a mindless created playlist that will include bands regardless of the atmosphere you are trying to create. It would be like adding Taylor Swift and Slipknot to the same playlist, just because you like their music, but not taking into consideration the purpose of the playlist. We can call this playlist “Spur-of-the-Moment” and it’s the type we would need to avoid. If you're not intentional about how you spend your time, it's easy to lose track of your goal.

Can you see it now? A song in a playlist sets the mood for a more enjoyable experience; just like habits and routines set the tone for a more productive day, contributing to a more organized and successful approach to adulting. 

Pro tip: Use Sundays to have a preliminary look at your week, and the end of each day to plan the following one. Planning the night before gives you a roadmap for an efficient day ahead of you, allowing you to make good use of your time staying in balance in the most important areas of your life, and minimizing last-minute stress. Be aware that some things might not work according to plan, but having a roadmap will help you stay on track.