Today’s WINSday on Wednesday inspiration comes from Liz Lewis, the be-boppin', hip hoppin' creative behind some of the best character-driven songs for kids at North Point Ministries.
How to be an Adult
According to MSN Lifestyle, “Adulthood is a nuanced transition that occurs over three decades.” Psychologists have added the term “emerging adulthood” to describe people in their twenties who feel like they’re not teenagers anymore but aren’t quite “adults” yet either. And while, legally, you become an adult at the age of 18, scientists now say that you don’t really become fully adult until age 30, which is the age when your brain reaches full development.
Our emotional development, unfortunately, doesn’t always align perfectly with our physical development. I mean, when did you feel like an adult? When you graduated college? Landed your first real job? Got married? Had kids? Is it when you turned 21?
I’d have to say that for me it was the first time a kid answered one of my questions with that southern standby: “Yes ma’am.”
There is no agreed upon age or stage for adulthood because everyone’s experience is different.
But one thing we do all experience is transition.
Periods of transition occur at different times in our lives, providing tricky overlap at key developmental stages. Remember getting zits and armpit hair? Remember when your feet felt too big and your breasts too small? That was—ummmm— AWKWARD.
There’s no denying it—Transition can be super awkward. But we grow into the shoes and out of the training bra. Someone teaches us how to use concealer and a razor.
Transition is temporary. It is not a pause, even though it might feel like time slows down during the difficult ones. Transitions actually keep the action/work/life moving forward.
In writing, we use transitions to help readers understand how thoughts and ideas are connected.
Some examples include words like:
And
But
So
Because
For example:
I am a mom, and I am a chef, and I am a chauffeur, and I am a teacher.
But I am also an entrepreneur.
So I’ll have to figure out how to do it all.
Because that’s what women do best.
Writers use transitions so that ideas flow smoothly.
But often in life, we describe transitions with words like “rocky” or “scary” or as we mentioned previously, “awkward.”
Moms have no clearly defined role, and so the whole motherhood thing can feel like one giant transition, the space between who we were when we were single and in charge of only ourselves and who we are becoming with people who are both a part of us and apart from us.
Unlike our comrades in the workplace, we have no onboarding manual that tells us what to expect or what to do.
The normal rules of transition: Take notes, immerse yourself in company culture, and devise your own 90-day success plan just aren’t realistic advice for women transitioning from motherhood to work or from work to motherhood or from motherhood to empty nesterhood.
We face new responsibilities and new challenges every single day.
As our kids grow up, they don’t necessarily need us less, but they do need us in different ways. We need to let go. Maybe don’t need to kiss boo-boos, but we still have a role to play—we will become their advisors and coaches. Hopefully, we’ll also be a safe place to land in a world riddled with disappointment and pain.
As they become who they are meant to be, we rediscover latent passions. We have the bandwidth to pursue our own purpose. This new freedom might feel foreign and frightening.
But in the transition, we find margin. Don’t be afraid of the space. Margin means opportunity. Transitions hold a world of possibility—we get to take everything that came before and leverage it for what’s next.
And the best part is there’s no right or wrong way to do it.
“Perfectionism is not only the enemy of the good; it is the enemy of adulthood.”
Ready to take it to the next level?
If you missed our interview with Liz Lewis, you can catch up here.