Shifting from a professional student to a professional, single to married, a couple to parents, renter to homeowner, professional to retired, these are all phases in adulthood that can be daunting. Here are 5 affirmations to remind you to embrace each phase of life.
The American Psychological Association defines "adulthood" as:
"the period of human development in which full physical growth and maturity have been achieved and certain biological, cognitive, social, personality, and other changes associated with the aging process occur. Beginning after adolescence, adulthood is sometimes divided into young adulthood (roughly 20 to 35 years of age); middle adulthood (about 36 to 64 years); and later adulthood (age 65 and beyond). The last is sometimes subdivided into young-old (65 to 74), old-old (75 to 84), and oldest old (85 and beyond)."
This month I have been having deep conversations with my sons about how they are coping with their shift into adulthood. My oldest son has just graduated from university last fall and my younger son is completing his final year.
The sudden shift from youth and a full-time student to full-time adult/professional is the first of life's big shifts in our adulthood journey. When we are young in life experiences, this first step into adulting can be daunting.
Listening to my sons' concerns and uncertainties for their next steps into their adult lives, I hold back on advising and remind myself that this is their time to navigate independently. The most that I can do is be supportive and understanding while trying my best to give them affirmation and confidence in their abilities to thrive in life.
At the same time, my husband and I are contemplating our "middle adulthood" as empty nesters and thinking about what we want to do as we head toward "young-old adulthood" and beyond. In this stage of our lives, we too have our concerns and uncertainties as these are new life experiences for us. We too can benefit from reminders and affirmations that things will work out fine.
This week, I share 5 Adulthood Affirmations to remind us to embrace each stage of life.
Adulthood Affirmation #1
Regardless of which stage of adulthood you are in, there are bound to be new experiences that challenge you. The first step in growing through these challenges is the belief that you can.
Our primitive brains are hardwired to protect us and we perceive challenges as danger. Our instinct is to respond with fight or flight in uncertain and unknown situations. That's when self-doubt and overthinking can cause us to be afraid to take opportunities and push ourselves to grow.
So remind yourself that just because you don't know how to do something now doesn't mean that you cannot learn and grow to do it tomorrow. But you have to start with the belief that you can.
Adulthood Affirmation #2
Our human nature is to seek safety and comfort. That's why comfort habits and routines are so hard to break. They are warm and cozy and can make life easy.
While comfort zones make life easier to coast through, they can hinder how much we experience and grow in life.
So the next time you are given an opportunity to step outside the safety of your comfort zone to learn something new, remember that life is something you grow through, not just go through.
Adulthood Affirmation 3
None of us are born into adulthood. And each stage of adulthood has different defining life experiences and milestones. Who we are becoming is constantly under construction.
It's important to conduct regular self-reflection and understand who we are at each stage of our adulthood so that we can craft who and where we want to be in the next stage.
Remember that you have the ability to create and recreate yourself at any stage in life.
Adulthood Affirmation #4
In my early 20s, there was so much to fear because I didn't have the experience and knowledge to understand the adulthood that I was stepping into. With each year and then each decade, my fears subsided as my knowledge grew with life experiences.
It's only natural to fear the unknown. So overcome fears by getting to know the unknown. The more we open ourselves to different knowledge, skills and experiences, the more confidence we gain.
Adulthood Affirmation #5
In life, we cannot control the cards we are dealt. All we can do is the best with what we have.
In my blog Lessons in Courage From My Mom, I share how the choices my mom made as a young widow at 29 with two young children shaped a better life for our family. During a time in her young adulthood when she should have been thriving with her career and young family, she was dealt the sudden death of her husband.
It was the mid-70s in Hong Kong and not an easy place to raise 6 and 4-year-old children as a single parent. So my mom played the best hand that she could with what she was dealt and moved to Canada to join her older brother and create a new life for our family.
No one knows the cards that will be dealt in the future. All we can do is play the best game we can with what we have.
We All Reach a Conclusion
The current global life expectancy in 2023 is 73.4 years according to Worldometers.info with variations from country to country. While according to the World Health Organization, the global healthy life expectancy (HALE) is at 63.7 as of 2019.
If we take care of ourselves and our lives well we will hopefully be able to enjoy healthy years well into our "Old-Old Adulthood" phase in life.
When you are in your early 20s, your 60s and 70s seem so far away that it's incomprehensible. When you are in your 50s, you realize the 60s and 70s are just around the corner. And when you are in your 60s, 70s and beyond, you wonder how you got there so fast.
My father passed away at the age of 32. My mother passed away at the age of 44. I live in gratitude daily for each year that I can add to living healthily at 55.
In the end, the numbers are irrelevant. Whatever stage of adulthood you are in, embrace it and put as much life as you can in the years that you are lucky to live.
"How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in your life you will have been all of these."
George Washington Carver
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Thanks AuYin, reading your blog really grounds me! 😘
Beautifully written.