How Did You Learn to Navigate Life?

Written by Elisa Hawkinson ~ 3/13/2023

Have you realized you were never taught the skills you needed to succeed in becoming an adult, a spouse, a parent, a career person, let alone how to juggle all that?

Successful Adulting Areas

Are you sensing your own personal care needs attention? Are organizational skills challenging your personal and business life? Are lapses in communication skills showing some rough edges? Then, there are questions to be asked, such as:

• How well are you balancing your personal time?
• How do you multi-task (now that we know there’s no such thing as multi-tasking)?
• Why do others have to be prompted to do the obvious?

Often, life just seems to crash in on us and all we want to do is curl up in a fetal position full of stress. Fortunately, there is more support as we recognize and admit we could use help. But it requires getting off the hamster wheel and investing time in ourselves.

What Did Your Parents Teach You?

Think about what you were taught. Most likely it was what they were taught by their parents and went even farther back generationally. For instance, you may have learned to cut the turkey’s tail off before roasting and it comes out years later that your great grandma did that because the pan she had was too small. So that is what she taught her daughter to do even though pans are now larger and so on.

Yesterday and Now

As a grandmother today, I am learning about new vegetables to prepare and eat that never graced a table I sat down to. I never learned how to grow them, let alone pronounce them. The list goes on. Disposable diapers were new to my generation. We were taught to wait to potty train until the child was ready. Now I learn that we were conditioned to keep buying diapers much longer than needed. Pediatricians now recommend starting potty training at 18 months. The same goes with feeding a baby. Teaching baby self-feeding blew me away. My grandson was served pieces of fruit and vegetables and chicken well before I could believe it. I served mashed food, that I prepared, not store-bought in bottles, one spoon at a time while he sat in a highchair. My little grandson eats all varieties of food beautifully by himself. The changes blow my mind! We won’t even go into the plethora of new items at baby showers that are now needed for raising a baby.

Now, What Do I Do?

Today, there are so many business coaches, speaking coaches, sales coaches, and self-help books. There are endless resources available to succeed in targeting contentment in life and profit in business.

I recommend you D.E.C.I.D.E.

• Decide to invest in yourself by setting a target to reach the goal you are shooting for. Did you clarify, plan steps, and set your target when making your decision? This is important or you don’t know what to aim for.
• Establish new habits for yourself and your household. Regularly stay in habit mode to reach your targets (for spiritual, physical, professional, relational, intellectual, and recreational goals). That may sound like a lot to juggle, and that is life in the 21st Century.
• Choose to be content and at peace in your life today and well into the future by learning how to ‘adult’ well.
• Invest valuable time strategically to reach your goals. Investing time online won’t help you succeed as quickly as taking action with the resources I encourage you to employ.
• Determine to act! No putting this on your trophy shelf of “Gonna,” “Shoulda,” “Woulda.” There’s no more room there!
• Emotional Intelligence is the ‘adulting’ skill that balances mindfulness with compassion; first internally and then sharing with others. Recall, you can’t share what you don’t have.

If you wish to experience personal life navigation coaching through tools, exercises, and new habits that guide you toward calm, clarity, and success, join me for private sessions or with others attending my courses at LifeSkills Academy.

All LifeSkills Academy educators are business professionals, some with academic backgrounds, and all have proven success in the world of commerce.

LifeSkills Academy features e-learning classes including Etiquette/Social Intelligence, Financial Skills, and Personal Organization. Join us online to receive class details: https://www.lifeskillsacademy.expert 

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