Top 4 Life Skills For Young Adults
When it comes to what really matters for young adults to be able to live independently from their parents, there are four fundamental life skills they need to be able to master. If not master, they at least need to learn how to tolerate. I’m not talking about wildly complicated feats. Nor am I referencing some multi-step processes that requires memorization or regurgitation. Just simple, every-day things every single human needs to be able to do.
Below you will read about the top four life skills I think young adults need to have. Ironically, these are skills that are often tried and applied when they were as young as Pre-K. However, this now relates to any young person over the age of 18. No matter whether they launched into higher education or not, or whether they made it all the way through to graduation and launched into the work-world.
Be able to do boring things. Yep - I said it. Depending on who you ask, folding laundry can be boring. No matter how what you think about it, it has to get done. Doing the dishes? Again, someone might really love this task. Others might find it terribly boring. You’ve got to be able to withstand being asked to do boring things because it will inevitably be asked of you on a daily basis for the rest of your life.
Delay gratification. As a child you may have become accustomed to instant gratification. You want a grilled cheese instead of PB&J? I got you. Unfortunately (or fortunately) thanks to Amazon, DoorDash, and a million other apps that allow us to instantly access whatever it is we’re looking for or wanting in that moment, we have grown intolerant of delaying gratification. Prime example is a MI man who couldn’t wait any longer to get his pizza, only to be encouraged by the people sitting next to him to “chill, because it’s worth the wait.” Then he flips their pizza and storms out of the restaurant. No patience.
Able to take on difficult tasks. Life isn’t always going to only give you simple tasks, especially ones that require simple solutions. You’ve got to learn to critically think. You have to learn to problem solve. You don’t have to be able to solve it yourself, but you at least have to try. Life isn’t smooth sailing, so brace yourself for the difficult tasks ahead!
Figure out what you need and how to get it. Going back to #3 above, if you can’t figure something out for yourself you need to problem solve who might be able to help you, and how you elicit their assistance. Your bathroom sink isn’t draining well. You tried Draino and still nothing. You live in a rental unit that has maintenance staff. You contact the maintenance staff to come help fix your drain. They come, figure out what was wrong and now your sink drains normally. Critically think, brainstorm, and trouble shoot are just three ways to describe what you have to be doing on a near-daily basis when you need to get sorted out what you can do for yourself.
All of the above life skills apply to any developmental age group, but especially need to be highlighted for mastery for the emerging adult population. You can learn these skills while still living at your parents house, or you can learn them en vivo as you’re learning to live independently. No matter, feeling comfortable with the above life skills with make your life tremendously easier as you continue to grow up.
For questions or comments contact Joanna.
