During their younger years, a lot of people simply can’t wait to become an adult. The moment you hit an age where you can start thinking for yourself and making your own life decisions always sounds exciting. However, in adulthood, you may then often wonder how your childhood went so quickly, and why life is suddenly more about paying bills and having responsibilities.
Being an adult doesn’t mean that you can’t embrace your inner child however and in fact, it’s encouraged from time to time.
Do Something Impulsive
A lot of adulthood is spent weighing up the pros and cons, and the reasons why you can’t do something. While of course it’s important to be sensible with your decisions – especially if you have a family to think about – it’s also important not to completely let go of that spontaneity in your life.
Perhaps you’ve seen a great travel deal pop up. You weren’t thinking about a vacation before, but now you’ve seen it, you know you can afford it and you know you have the time available to go. So why not?
Try to stop planning so much, and see where the day takes you. If you visit a new place, explore with the eyes and mind of a child learning something completely new, and view it as a new adventure.
Buy Something Just for You
As an adult, you often start second-guessing every purchase you make, and especially if you have a busy lifestyle and live with others. You begin to browse furniture wondering whether it will suit everybody, the practicalities of the purchase in years to come, and how certain items will best work in your home.
Sometimes, you need to just buy something simply because you like it. Indulge yourself every once in a while. Whether it’s a fun outfit, a quirky kitchen utensil or an adult beanbag from Fombag, you won’t regret any purchase that makes you feel relaxed and happy.
Remember Your Passions
Everyone had an idea of what they wanted to be when they grew up. It’s safe to say that, as a child, those dreams weren’t always realistic. As you grew into an adult, your circumstances may have changed, you may have left those dreams behind, or maybe your life took a different route to the one you expected.
Don’t let life’s responsibilities get in the way of those innocent dreams and passions. Make sure you embrace your hobbies – whatever they may be – and ensure that you always make time for pastimes you enjoy. Paint like a child would, outside the lines with no pressures over the consequence, read stories and books you want to read rather than the bestsellers society tells you everyone else is reading, and indulge you guilty pleasures.
Make Every Day an Occasion
As a child, your mind would have been occupied with a sole purpose for a day. Perhaps it was the day your parents took you to the park. Or maybe it’s a day you knew you would be treated to ice cream.
However small the pleasure, build every day up to be an exciting occasion rather than just another day. Look ahead to a day you know is going to be the one you run a hot bubble bath and listen to some music – spend all day looking forward to that. Or, choose a day you know is going to be reserved for a TV-show marathon with some delicious snacks. Once you’ve set a day and occasion, you’re free to look forward to it – and get excited about it.
Let Music Help You
An act of truly letting go is turning the music up loud and singing and dancing like a child would. You can do this any time at home. Let music make any activity more interesting. Make boring household chores and responsibilities that little bit more interesting and liberating with the right soundtrack.
Turn up the music and dance while you wash the dishes, put on the right playlist while you do the housework, or create the perfect set of tunes while you’re soaking in the bath.
Music is extremely therapeutic, so if you feel the stresses of the day mounting up, then let music be a small release and help you concentrate on the moment, and how a particular song makes your feel.
Get Nostalgic
Take some time to sit down and think back to your childhood. Make a note or list of everything you used to enjoy as a child. Go through old photographs and let memories return to you which you may have forgotten. Perhaps you used to attend a dance class which you’ve completely forgotten about. Maybe you’ve made a note of the family holidays you always enjoyed as a child, when you always traveled to the same place and had just as much fun every year. Perhaps you used to have swimming lessons and won some awards which you’ve long since lost.
The process of note-taking and revisiting memories may spark something in you that you want to return to. Maybe it lets you take up a hobby you’d long since forgotten and used to be good at. It might let you reignite your passion for something, or let you plan a trip away to revisit a place you always enjoyed in your childhood.
Going through old memories and photographs also serves to remind you of good and innocent memories which can have a huge positive effect on your mental wellbeing.
Write a Letter to Your Younger Self
As an adult, it’s easy to look back on the decisions you made growing up and think critically about them. Nevertheless, being young and growing up means learning and making mistakes. Instead of dwelling on all the things you believe you did wrong, or the better paths you think you might have been able to take, write a letter to your younger self and tell them all the great things they accomplished, and all the things they have to look forward to. This can help you to reevaluate your situation and be grateful for what you have.
