How To Grow Up With Pictures

Use these years to play in bands, play sports, act in drama, paint, and read for pleasure. Explore things for which you have natural skills, as well as things you know nothing about. Try new hobbies and activities that are available, like photography or dance. You might learn that you’re really great at something you never gave yourself credit for.

If you’re interested in going to college, start researching possibilities, and thinking about what you’d like to study. Find local universities and colleges that might be a good fit, and find colleges that would be dream schools. Find out about how much it will cost, how much your family will be able to afford, how much you’ll need to reserve with student loans, and the different cost breakdowns for different schools. If you want to start working, spend time developing a budget for yourself, setting financial goals, and learning what kinds of jobs will be available to you to make the kind of money you’ll need. Research the training and vocational skills you’ll need for those types of jobs so you can start preparing now.

Traveling doesn’t need to be a leisure activity for the privileged. If you work hard and can’t afford to take a vacation to Italy, or study abroad, travel as best you can within your means. Visit interesting places in your own country that you’ve never seen. Visit neighborhoods within your own city that you don’t spend time in. Be a tourist in your town. World-Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF) takes on willing laborers in a variety of countries throughout the world, giving you a chance to work your way across the world. [3] X Research source Likewise, the Peace Corps, Americorps, or other humanitarian organizations provide service and travel experience. Help out, give back, and see new places.

Find a work role model. At your job, find a person who negotiates the work environment in a way that you admire. Learn from them. If your colleague stays above the petty department politics, but still manages to let her work speak for itself, do the same. Collaborate and commiserate. Find a life role model. As you grow older, it’s easy to lose touch with old friends and to not make new friends. It’s easy to wake up one day and realize the people you see every day are coworkers. Keep friends that do very different things than you, with whom you share mutual interests or hobbies. Maybe your record collecting buddy works HVAC, but that doesn’t mean you can’t relate to each other over the new crate-digging finds you made last weekend.

Identify your strengths. What are you particularly good at, or skilled in? Take time to identify your personal strengths and the things you’re proud of. Identify your weaknesses. What needs some work? What keeps you from getting what you want? It’s important to identify places in need of improvement, fixing up the foundation to keep the house of yourself strong.

Child mode is chaotic. A child is disorganized, unprepared, and usually running a million miles an hour in the wrong direction. Childhood is chaos. While many adult lives are busy and full, chaos–the lack of control or structure for that stress and business–is a sure sign of child mode. Identify the parts of your life that are chaotic and channel your energy into organizing them. Child mode is helpless. Someone needs to tie a child’s shoes, feed the child, and offer emotional support. An adult is more self-reliant, capable of raising their own children because of an increasing degree of selflessness. As you grow up, work to become more capable of doing things yourself, and rely less on others. Child mode is resentful. In child mode, you may grow to seethe in anger when another coworker gets a promotion and you don’t, or when an old fling from high school gets married. Resent is the child mode equivalent of a temper tantrum. If you don’t get your way, you can bury that frustration and let it grow into resentment and anger, like a child does, or you can express your frustration in a healthy way, reckon with the situation, and move on.

The more you emphasize your long term goals by making short-term decisions that will move you in the right direction, the more grown-up you’ll be. Taking a day off work to play Halo with your college friend might be attractive, but if you blow any chance you’ll have of ever getting a raise, you’re actively keeping yourself from attaining your goals, a sign of immaturity.

Exercise and eat responsibly. The freshman 40 are no joke. When kids run off to college, it’s a regular thing to stop playing sports and start eating whatever you want, all the time. The weight goes on and it can be very difficult to shake the habit of bad eating and no exercise. Don’t let the freshman 40 turn into a yearly thing.

A hard truth about the world: just because you deserve something does not mean that you’ll get it. Keep your goals in sight, stay happy, and do not let the unfairness of life demoralize you. Life is hard and everyone else has had to overcome obstacles, yourself included.

As you enter adulthood, it’s common to have longer-term romantic relationships as well. If you’re more keen on dating and playing the field, try to settle in for a couple months to see if you don’t feel more comfortable. If you tend toward the long-term, don’t be afraid to end relationships that have grown stale, just because you like the security. If romantic relationships aren’t for you, that’s okay as well. Know yourself.

Hang around people much older than you and learn everything you can from them. Teenagers often sneer at people over 30, but adults know wisdom when they see it. At work, in your community, and in other social interactions, make it a priority to seek out members of the generations previous to yours and try to get some of their wisdom to rub off. Pal up to the employee who’s been at your job the longest, or the member of your church who’s the oldest. Read extensively, and learn about other perspectives: Read a variety of political ideologies before committing yourself too closely and identifying with one.

Always treat friends, family, and coworkers with respect. Treat people the way you want to be treated. If you don’t have respect for others, they will most likely lose the respect they have for you. It may not always come back to you but you will get a lot farther in life and be much happier.

All things in moderation: Getting older doesn’t mean you can’t have fun, it just means you’ve got to plan it out a little more. Get a sitter, clear out your schedule for the next day, and show the young kids how it’s done.

Being non-defensive doesn’t mean you should avoid defending yourself, or become a doormat for other peoples’ aggression. Rather, an emotionally mature person can receive good-natured negative criticism without becoming defensive or indignant. [13] X Expert Source Michelle Shahbazyan, MS, MALife Coach Expert Interview. 18 March 2020. Be open to being wrong, but stand up for yourself when the time is right. Learning to distinguish is part of growing up.

A part-time job can be an excellent way of building necessary work skills and making supplementary income, even if your parents are still shouldering you financially. Gradually work toward a more self-reliant way of making money, however.

Monthly expenses include rent, bills, and food. Most of them you’ll have a fairly solid idea about, and try to budget slightly more for food than you may actually need. If you’re not sure, keep close track of how much money you spend in an average week on food, then multiply times four. Try to save some money as soon as possible, if you can. Putting away a certain percentage of your paycheck every month into a savings account can start to accumulate significantly over the years and months. Even if you can only afford to throw in 50 bucks, you’re still taking a necessary step toward adulthood.

Good first steps are paying your own utilities bills and rent, then trying to pick up your phone bill, your car payments, and other expenses along the way. Slowly transition into taking care of yourself financially. [15] X Research source

Young people are often notoriously bad when it comes to using credit cards. It’s not free money. Don’t run up a big bill on your credit card and say that you’ll worry about it later. Consider making regular purchases with a credit card, if you qualify for one, and pay off the balance immediately with money you already have. Treat a credit card like a debit card to avoid getting in over your head. Make loan payments, bill payments, and other payments on time. Don’t waste money needlessly on late fees by setting up auto-debit functions online for each of your monthly bills and keeping close records of your budget.

When you can, it’s a good idea to start a 401k and begin saving for retirement. Most businesses help their employees start to save money for retirement by providing the opportunity to start a savings account in which you can put money before taxes, which the company will then match a certain percentage of, in addition.

It’s hard to do things like buy a house, pay college tuition, or make big automotive purchases strictly on a cash basis, so it’ll be likely that you’ll end up with some amount of loan debt at some point in your life. Speak with a financial advisor to learn which option and interest rate works best for you, and work with them to get the smartest package for your financial situation. Consolidate your debt, if you can. Paying multiple loan payments each month can get confusing and frustrating, especially if you’re not putting enough toward paying down the principal, drawing out the process.

Volunteer for leadership roles at your job, if an opportunity presents itself. Don’t worry about whether or not you’ll be the perfect choice for a particular position. While you should cultivate an ambitious reputation at your job and in your relationships, don’t be afraid to turn down requests that don’t line up with your goals for yourself. Being ambitious doesn’t mean taking on everything that falls in your lap, but that you actively create opportunities to advance toward your long-term goals.