14 Milestones That Confirm You’ve Finally Grown Up

When do you know you’ve finally grown up? That’s a challenging question to answer. Adulthood involves achieving all sorts of milestones, and you never quite know which ones really count. 

Fortunately, this post is here to help. We take a look at some of the crowning achievements that suggest you’re no longer a child. Here’s what to look out for: 

Completion Of Higher Education

Completion of higher education is a lot of people’s first foray into the somewhat scary and arbitrary adult world. Leaving the cozy confines of the library and lecture hall behind feels a little weird. Suddenly, marks on exams no longer matter. What really counts is the value you provide to others. 

Getting into the job market is also a powerful incentive to enter the adult world, both literally and psychologically. When you need to hold down a career to pay the mortgage on a house or your rent, growing up suddenly becomes an imperative. Just a few months of market discipline is often enough to straighten out most people and set them up for the years and decades to come. 

Emotional Maturity

Another sign of genuine adulthood is emotional maturity. Displaying more regulation of your feelings and empathy suggests your brain is making the transition to a different state. 

You may not notice the changes at first. (After all, you’re you all the time). But you may encounter situations where you seem to act completely differently from before, which can be surprising, shocking, and often reassuring. 

Taking Personal Responsibility

Taking personal responsibility is another sign that you might be growing up. Adults accept that the state of their lives or how they feel is their responsibility, not someone else’s. Having this perspective means you’ve moved successfully into the realm of emotional maturity and don’t need to constantly seek approval or validation from others. You also avoid the habit of blaming things outside of yourself for how you feel. 

Paying The Bills

Another sign you might have grown up is that you’ve started paying the bills. Having your own place to live away from your parents is a sure sign of maturity and reveals that you are an independent, self-sufficient adult who can look after yourself. 

Paying the bills themselves might feel like a chore, and it might be hurting your bank account. But the fact that you are doing it suggests that you are prepared to take on responsibilities in a way you weren’t in the past. 

The Ability To Navigate Complex Relationships

The ability to navigate complex relationships is another sign that you’ve turned a corner and might be able to grow up. When feelings are involved, it’s often easy to “act out” and behave unreasonably. But when you get older, you have better emotional regulation and you don’t feel the need to get into destructive arguments or create a scene. You are less likely to scream and shout at others, and more likely to form deep emotional connections with them.

Learning To Drive

Another sign you might have finally grown up is learning to drive. For many people living in Western countries, this milestone remains one of the last rites of passage into adulthood. Suddenly, you leave the safety of childhood behind, get behind the wheel of a two-tonne vehicle, and hurl it down the highway at high speeds. 

For many people, learning to drive is their first real taste of responsibility. Teenagers go from nothing to suddenly being responsible for the lives of others. It can be a violent wake-up call that reminds younger individuals that life is moving on and they are growing up. 

Taking On Civic Responsibilities

Some people also display signs of growing up and their adulthood by taking on civic responsibilities. Voting, showing up for jury duty and even helping out at events in the local community all help to maintain society’s institutions. 

Of course, you don’t need to run for office to achieve adulthood. But you should be an active participant in the process or have extremely good reasons for not getting involved. 

Adult Relationships With Parents

Achieving adult relationships with parents is one of the hardest milestones to cross, simply because they have treated you like a child all your life (and probably won’t stop just because you are 21, 30, or even 50). But if you can pull off this little trick, then it can make a significant difference in your attempts to achieve genuine adulthood. When parents begin to see you as an equal or a peer, it stops all the strange psychodramas that go on between families and enables you to communicate with each other as adults. 

This doesn’t mean you need to stop loving your parents, or vice versa. But it does mean you should be able to make decisions independent of their input. 

Ability To Cope With Challenges

Another sign of impending adulthood is your ability to cope with life’s challenges. Virtually no one makes it through life unscathed. Practically everyone must deal with loss, betrayal, sickness, and disability. While these problems are hard to manage, they make most people stronger. Battling through issues instead of being consumed by them is a sign of a healthy adult mind and one that wants to continue progressing, even in the presence of adversity. 

Adults also tend to have highly developed problem-solving skills. Instead of reacting emotionally to a challenging situation, they ask what can be done about it. Usually, there is a way to resolve the issues you face. 

Continued Learning

Adults will also sometimes engage in continued learning for professional or personal development. Acquiring new knowledge and skills isn’t necessarily necessary, but it is part of a growth mindset, which is essential for improving as an adult. 

Ultimately, continued learning comes back to taking personal responsibility. Adult training aims to iron out problems and issues with a person’s approach to life and work and often starts when that individual is in a state of humility. Only a humble mind can recognize the need for improvement. 

Trying New Things And Taking On New Roles

You might also have entered adulthood if you are more willing to take on new roles and responsibilities. Work is the obvious arena in which this takes place for most people, but it can also happen in the family, too. For example, becoming a parent means taking on new roles and responsibilities. 

Better Time Management

You may also notice that your time management gets better as you move towards adulthood. You are significantly less likely to be late to meetings and events because you understand how it makes you look and other people feel. 

Time management, though, is about more than stuffing as much work into your schedule as possible. Instead, it is about maintaining balance in your life. Managing your time lets you add social activities and personal time to your weekly routine, without pushing out any of the other essential items. 

The Ability To Cook And Take Care Of The House

Another sign you might be growing up fast is your ability to cook and take care of the responsibilities of running a house. Being able to cook allows you to eat more affordable food and remain healthier for longer. Likewise, cleaning the house puts you in a better mood and helps you maintain the value of your property. It also avoids bad smells, which is something you probably want. 

So which of these milestones have you crossed and which are you yet to check off your list?