Your Turn

Adulting as a Lifelong Practice

How do you become the adult version of yourself instead of a checklist follower? In her book, Julie Lythcott-Haims argues that adulthood is not a finish line — it is the sustained practice of claiming agency over your life, caring for yourself and others, and continually learning through trial and error. She reframes adulting from narrow milestones (graduation, marriage, career) into a broader, more humane life skill: the ability to take responsibility, make decisions, and grow from outcomes.

Beyond the Old Script

For most of the 20th century, psychologists defined adulthood by five steps — finish school, move out, marry, find a job, and have children. Julie dismantles that outdated formula. She suggests adulthood begins the moment you realize nobody else will clean up your messes. Her story about the Bekins moving truck fire — when she and her husband Dan had to handle a burned pile of possessions — captures that pivot beautifully: this is our stuff to handle. Adulting starts there.

Agency, Growth, and Responsibility

Agency means being the subject of your own life, not its object. You fend for yourself, make plans, respond reliably, and care for those around you. Julie distills nine practical basics — maintain your body and mind, do paid work, recover from setbacks, decide for yourself, cooperate, organize, follow through, nurture relationships, and plan for the future. Each action teaches accountability and self-trust. Kyle learning to pay bills while caring for his family, Levi’s first solo night in an apartment, and Zuri defending her financial boundaries all embody what adulting looks like in real life.

Reject Perfection, Embrace Growth

Adulting thrives not on perfection but on practice. Julie calls perfectionism a trap — a brittle desire for approval that kills curiosity and progress. Life, she says, is powered by the six beautiful F-words: failure, falling, fumbling, flailing, floundering, and feedback. Learning how to take feedback, as Julie did when colleagues told her she came on too strong at Stanford, transforms embarrassment into growth. The shift from perfection to improvement mirrors Carol Dweck’s research on growth mindset: success emerges from effort and adaptation, not flawless execution.

Character and Meaning

The arc of adulthood moves through character — what you do when nobody watches — into meaning, the ability to turn hardship into purpose. Julie urges kindness, humility, reliability, and truth-telling as moral scaffolds. Stories like Kirstin’s persistence with struggling students, or Jamie’s empathy born from hard childhood labor, show that character is earned through practice. Adina Glickman’s resilience framework expands this further: make meaning from difficulty, don’t pretend pain disappeared. Each trial strengthens the muscle of coping and compassion.

Connection and Community

Adulting is never solo. Connections — from strangers to soulmates — make the journey bearable and vibrant. Julie weaves research showing even 40 seconds of friendly eye contact builds belonging. Consequential strangers, mentors, and close friends function as your lifelines. Through these relationships you learn cooperation, empathy, and endurance. Whether it’s Andy and Julie’s old friendship or the Maybell Way writers’ circle, community gives structure to growth and sustains mental health.

Mindfulness and Purpose

Ultimately, adulting asks that you combine self-awareness (mindfulness), compassion (kindness), and grateful perspective (gratitude). With presence, you make less reactive choices and more deliberate ones. With kindness, you turn outward to help others. With gratitude, you remember the abundance that grounds you. From there, Julie invites you to find your why — the cause that anchors your meaning — and act on it in whatever scale fits: teaching, civic activism, creative innovation, or Enlightened Self-Interest that improves both your life and your community.

Key insight

Adulting isn’t about reaching stability once and for all; it’s the lifelong craft of acting, learning, connecting, and making meaning. The trajectory may be messy, but the process itself defines a fulfilling life.

Fending and Building Competence

Fending is Julie’s term for taking charge of your own life — the moment you realize you are the adult who has to figure things out. You stop waiting to be rescued and start handling problems yourself, whether that’s making doctor appointments, fixing housing issues, or navigating finances. Julie’s Bekins truck fire taught her a lasting truth: real adulthood begins when you say, “This is mine to handle.”

Simple Skills, Lifelong Leverage

Fending isn’t grand heroism; it’s ordinary competence and accountability. Julie’s nine basics — attend to your body, work hard, recover from setbacks, decide independently, cooperate, organize, follow through, nurture relationships, and plan for the future — are deceptively practical. Kyle’s story of paying bills while helping his addicted mother shows emotional and procedural maturity. Levi’s first solo apartment revealed confidence as the byproduct of responsibility. Each skill grows your independence in measurable ways.

Boundaries and Emotional Fending

Fending isn’t only logistical — it’s emotional. Zuri’s refusal to bankroll friends after her acting success demonstrated a deeper form of adulthood: refusing other people’s scripts. Similarly, Ben’s decision to take back financial agency from controlling parents illustrates how small moves — secret bank accounts, separate mailboxes, or solo decisions — gradually reclaim dignity. (Therapy helps, too. Predicting triggers and practicing empathy, as Ben did, turns confrontation into calm negotiation.)

Practice, not Perfection

You learn to fend by doing, not by waiting for readiness. You refill prescriptions, manage care, and learn budgeting through repetition. The confidence grows as competence grows. Julie reminds you that YouTube tutorials or mentors can teach anything — learning how to organize or track finances is no less valid than learning philosophy. The heart of fending is repeatable bravery: handle small things today so the next big thing feels smaller tomorrow.

Growth Mindset and Real Learning

Adulthood requires shifting from perfection to progress. Julie dismantles the cultural myth of flawless performance and celebrates the messy, iterative process of learning. Drawing on Carol Dweck’s growth mindset theory, she urges readers to replace fixed labels with flexible statements: “I’m not perfect; I’m improving,” and “Failure is data, not destiny.”

Failures as Teachers

Julie names failure, falling, fumbling, flailing, floundering, and feedback as life’s true instructors. Every setback, whether Zuri’s failed auditions or Jamie’s rough peanut-farm childhood, creates resilience and resourcefulness. Julie’s own experience receiving tough feedback about her leadership style transformed her from defensive to collaborative — growth born from discomfort.

Feedback and Career Growth

Feedback acts as your growth hormone at work. Whether preparing for meetings or asking mentors for guidance, you strengthen professionalism. Sharing stories instead of vague self-descriptions (as her private-equity colleague advised for interviews) grounds growth in evidence rather than ego. You practice humility, learn rules, find mentors, and iterate. The grown-up thrives in correction, not avoidance.

Curiosity in Action

A growth mindset also fuels curiosity. Jim’s year of randomness — Tae Kwon Do, acting, backpacking, admissions work — reflects experimental engagement. He discovered his spark not in a predefined career, but in identifying where he felt alive. Adult growth depends on this curiosity: try widely, log what energizes or drains you, and follow patterns that align with your values.

Character and Moral Courage

Character defines how people remember you; moral courage defines how you act when they’re watching. Julie anchors adulthood in the twin pillars of ethics and bravery — doing the right thing even when uncomfortable and having the conversations everyone else avoids. From Irshad Manji’s story of asking forbidden questions in madrasa to Zuri’s quiet refusal to pay a restaurant bill she couldn’t afford, acting with integrity turns fear into respect.

Building Everyday Virtues

Julie’s “Sweet Sixteen” virtues make character tangible: humility, compassion, truth-telling, patience, manners, fairness, and forgiveness. These aren’t abstract morals but daily practices — replying to messages, apologizing fully, showing up on time. You don’t achieve character once; you rehearse it in each choice. Kirstin’s dedication to struggling students and Jamie’s empathy for those he educates exemplify how consistent decency changes lives.

Practicing Moral Courage

Irshad Manji teaches that if you want to be heard, first be willing to hear. That insight shifts dialogue from combat to discovery. Listening to learn, acknowledging truth in an opponent’s view, and reframing debates around shared values allow productive disagreement. (Note: similar to Amanda Ripley’s “High Conflict,” this method grows from empathy rather than dominance.) Courage doesn’t demand recklessness — it requires vulnerability and consistency.

Service and Legacy

Character grows into service: deciding your energy can lift others. Martin Luther King Jr.’s reminder that “the greatest among you shall be your servant” underscores Julie’s argument that adulthood’s moral zenith is contribution. You apologize, forgive, and collaborate not for credit but for connection. Integrity opens more doors than credentials ever will.

Relationships and Connection

Human connection fuels every other domain of adulthood. You will navigate life with two rails: work and relationships. Julie ties psychological research and social stories to argue that connection — from talking to strangers to cultivating deep love — builds belonging and reduces anxiety.

Consequential Strangers

Start small. Talking to strangers at cafés or greeting delivery workers yields measurable mental health benefits. Studies by Kipling Williams show simple acknowledgement increases one’s sense of inclusion. Melinda Blau calls these “consequential strangers” — micro-bonds that humanize daily life and buffer loneliness.

Friendship and Mentorship

Forty to sixty hours of shared time build casual friendships; over two hundred cultivate best friends. Mentor relationships — like Julie’s connections with Kennell Jackson and Jim Montoya — also expand wisdom. Community rituals such as the Maybell Way Writers Collective or Kanesha’s professional moms’ circle maintain resilience through shared goals.

Love and Support

Intimate relationships evolve through respect and presence. Stefania’s marriage story underscores boundaries and self-respect; leaving harmful relationships often requires external support. Emotional repair precedes healthy love. Whether friendship or marriage, prioritizing honest communication and empathy sustains connection. (For neurodiverse readers, Julie adds: when eye contact is hard, kindness can be expressed through notes, nods, or tone.)

Resilience and Coping with Crisis

Crisis defines adulthood as much as success does. Julie teaches resilience through vivid personal losses and practical checklists. Grief and trauma aren’t anomalies; they’re integral lessons in endurance. Her model transcends mere survival — it turns catastrophe into competence and meaning.

Understanding Grief

Drawing on Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s DABDA model (Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance), Julie describes grief as nonlinear. After losing her father and brother, the metaphor of the “vat and spigot” helps visualize grief’s flow — sometimes tight, sometimes pouring out unexpectedly. Accept this rhythm; emotion ebbs and revisits over years.

Twelve Actions for Emergencies

Julie’s twelve-step crisis playbook begins with two moves that matter most: call a calm helper and record the facts. Then mobilize support, accept help, research options, and plan small recoveries. Communities like Kara or OptionB.org exemplify shared resilience — people holding space for one another until autonomy returns. Similar to Brené Brown’s emphasis on vulnerability, Julie teaches that asking for help is strength.

Making Meaning Afterwards

Resilience arises when you assign constructive meaning to pain. Casey’s post-incarceration writing, Ameera’s cancer blog, and Lisa’s recovery through AA all demonstrate how suffering can generate purpose. Adina Glickman calls this “rehearsal”: every hardship builds capacity for the next. As Julie writes, grief is just love with nowhere to go — so we redirect that love into service.

Self-Care and Mental Health

Mental health and practical self-care sit at adulthood’s core. Julie synthesizes professional voices like Lori Gottlieb, Joe Holtgreive, and Donnovan Yisrael to show that thriving adults treat body and mind care as maintenance, not emergency intervention.

Body Basics

Sleep, hydration, nutrition, and movement are nonnegotiables. Skipping sleep or proper meals sabotages every decision. Treat your body as the hardware your agency runs on. Exercise, routine checkups, and preventive care stabilize mental clarity.

Emotional Hygiene

Process emotions regularly — journaling, therapy, or safe friendships keep reactivity in check. Seeking therapy early prevents crises. Tone’s panic recovery and Sara’s trichotillomania diagnosis demonstrate the power of naming conditions. Invisible illnesses require kindness toward yourself and management strategies (the “spoons” metaphor reminds you to ration energy wisely).

Social Nourishment

Self-care expands into community care — rituals like walks, group writing sessions, or weekly calls seed belonging. Play and humor, short naps, and affectionate touch recharge your humanity. (As Ashley’s Dinner Party project shows, collective grief becomes healing shared space.)

Purpose and Social Impact

Having purpose beyond yourself solidifies adulthood. Julie urges you to find your "why" — the issue that moves you to act — and turn it into engagement. Community service, civic participation, or creative innovation build meaning both ethically and psychologically.

Finding Your Why

Your why might be social justice, environmental work, education reform, or local service. Julie’s own commitment began with outrage over unequal school funding in the Supreme Court case San Antonio v. Rodriguez. The driver is curiosity mixed with empathy: what injustice insists you respond?

Innovating for Impact

You can use any domain — business, tech, or policy — as levers for good. Dave Whorton’s Tugboat Institute advances Evergreen companies built for people-first longevity. Joan Hanawi leveraged Lyft to provide rides to polls and groceries. Blue Ocean Barns used seaweed science to cut methane emissions. Mayor Michael Tubbs’s Stockton pilot tested guaranteed income. Each model shows experimentation as civic entrepreneurship.

Enlightened Self-Interest

Doing good also enhances your own life. Atul Gawande calls this "enlightened self-interest" — serving others enriches you. Angelina leveraged her TV platform to empower girls; Hannah’s family funded hunger projects after selling their house. Small actions aggregate; change emerges from consistency, not grand gestures. The adult life culminates in contribution — acting from empathy with sustained competence.

Mindfulness, Kindness, and Gratitude

Julie closes by naming three superpowers that sustain adulthood: mindfulness, kindness, and gratitude. They’re not soft extras — they’re the core habits that regulate emotion, deepen relationships, and convert chaos into clarity.

Mindfulness

Mindfulness teaches you to notice, name, and act. When you pause to observe racing thoughts and physical tension, you make better choices. Julie’s coach Maryellen Myers taught her to stop reacting in workplace conflicts by simply noticing breath. This pause creates agency — a hallmark of emotional maturity.

Kindness

Kindness grows through small acts: asking a partner what would make their day smoother, helping a stranger, or writing notes to elders. Orly Wahba’s “Kindness Boomerang” proves gestures ripple forward exponentially. Kindness is how you practice seeing others as full humans.

Gratitude

Gratitude rewires scarcity into abundance. Write three specific thank-yous daily — the barista’s cheer, a friend’s patience, a quiet morning. When you practice mindful noticing and kind acting alongside grateful remembering, you balance ambition with appreciation. Your adult life becomes grounded, responsive, and joyful.