I’m proud to partner with Julie Lythcott-Haims on the launch of Your Turn: How to Be an Adult.
Outwardly, I seem to have it all {or at least most of it} together. My husband and I have been together since my sophomore year of high school. We bought a house at 21. I am self-employed and worked from home long before the pandemic, allowing me to stay home with the kids and take them to enrichment classes and volunteer at their school. I have my calendar synced to the school calendars and never miss anything my kids are doing.
To everyone else, it seems like I know what I’m doing. On the inside? I question everything, all the time. I always feel like a kid whose teacher left the room for a moment and left them to their own devices. I’m managing just fine, but I’m still waiting for my teacher to come back and tell me what to do next.
And I’m not alone.
Millennials, the generation I’m a part of, are all in our early adult years right now. {Early 30’s might not seem like early adult years, but considering we’ll all be adults until we die, I surely hope this is just the beginning.} And most of us don’t feel like adults yet, and have pretty much no idea what we’re doing.
While changing that takes a lot of deep, introspective work, there is one tool that is available to everyone that has really helped me already in this regard. And that’s the new book Your Turn: How to Be an Adult by New York Times Best-Selling Author Julie Lythcott-Haims.
I recently read the entire thing and it is so much more than a book. It’s a 450+ page talk from a mentor, a big sister, an older friend- a chat that everyone needs to have as they navigate young adulthood.
The difference between this book and “self-help” books is that this one does not try to tell you exactly what you need to be doing, because it’s impossible to write one book that can give specific directions to anyone who may read it. The book is intentionally inclusive {check out the Commitment to Inclusion!} and not just for the sake of being politically correct, but out of a genuine care and a desire to be helpful to as many people as possible.
Rather than telling you what you should be doing, every chapter includes a story from Julie’s life, a no-nonsense explanation of why you need to tackle whatever topic the chapter is about {finances, relationships with other humans, etc.}, tips that will help you figure out your own path forward, and stories from all kinds of people.
Almost every chapter spoke directly to me {the one exception being about the workplace since I am self-employed and work from home- but I read it anyway because one day that might change!} and I saw so many of my experiences on the page.
One thing in particular from the book has already changed my outlook on life in a profound way. In the chapter about taking care of yourself, Julie talks about how learning how to forgive others is part of taking care of yourself. She includes a quote from her friend Adina Glickman that sums it up perfectly: “Your anger is making your blood boil, not theirs. Your anger is locking you up, not them. Holding on to your anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. It would seem like forgiveness is about letting someone else off the hook but really, it’s about letting yourself grow.”
Along with the other points about forgiveness that Julie made, this has inspired me to do the same with a couple of people in my life that I need to move on from and forgive. I have been harboring pain and anger and regret and none of it has been doing me any good. By the time I finished reading this part of the chapter, I was crying tears of relief because I was realizing that I could let go of my resentment too.
While some lessons and quite a few personal stories brought tears to my eyes {in a good way}, most of the book just made me smile, both from Julie’s smart sense of humor that comes through on every page and from the real stories of adulting that are included in each chapter. I have always loved people, just like Julie, and so hearing dozens of stories of real people succeeding in life, whatever that means to them, was so uplifting and inspiring!
While I still feel like a kid on the inside- and might always feel that way- I gained so much insight from this book and got actionable tips that will help me “adult” even more than before. I learned things about finance that I’m putting into action this month. I saw examples of people who were stuck in a career, in relationships {including friendships}, or in a stage of life and moved on and it shows me that it’s okay to do the same if and when I need to. These people made it to the other side- and I will too, no matter what life throws my way.
This is going to be my go-to book for the young adults in my life. I’ll be passing my copy along to Shane when he’s graduating high school- or maybe buying him his own copy, because I get the feeling I’ll be referencing this book for years to come.
If you could use a little insight from dozens of people who shared their stories and one author who put all the lessons they shared together in a brilliant way, be sure to pick up your copy of Your Turn: How to Be an Adult by Julie Lythcott-Haims right here!
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