Why Quarter Lifers Need More CLARITY

Many young people are grappling to figure out what fuels them, what they want to pursue, and what their purpose is. They are in need of some soul searching, life mapping, and goal setting to get to the place of clarity that they are craving.

So WHY are quarter lifers lacking clarity and direction in the first place? For starters, you’re new to this…to the whole adult thing, especially if you’re in your 20’s. Suddenly, without the structure of school, life can feel like one long road with a whole lot of unknowns. I love this quote from The Defining Decade by Meg Jay; a 20 something puts it perfectly:

“The twentysomething years are a whole new way of thinking about time. There’s this big chunk of time and a whole bunch of stuff that needs to happen somehow.”

Not to mention, these two decades are a time for some HUGE life moments. Like career finding, house buying, relationships, baby making, and financial growth. It’s important to note though, that not all of these moments are meaningful to everyone. I’m not saying that everyone will or has to experience these things. And we’re speaking in regards to the western world — ­obviously this stage of life looks very different across the globe.

As it turns out, some of the lack of clarity we experience is generational. Currently, millennials make up the quarter life population and one of the major characteristics of our generation is that we were raised by parents who told us that we were special (this is a generalization of course, but you get it). An article called Why Generation Y Yuppies Are Unhappy by Tim Urban follows the story of a fictional millennial named Lucy and explains that “Baby Boomers all around the country and world told their Gen Y kids that they could be whatever they wanted to be, instilling the special protagonist identity deep within their psyches”.

This has led to an overwhelming number of millennials jumping into the real world and being caught off guard by the fact that their reality doesn’t meet their expectations and that life is not only challenging but as it turns out, they aren’t as ‘special’ as they thought they were.

On another note, I think another factor is an illusion of ‘having time’. How often has someone asked you about your future, you reply with hesitancy about still trying to figure it out, and they respond with, “Well that’s okay, you’re so young, you have so much time!”?

This isn’t a real thing!

Time is an actual tool that you have and it’s one that is forever running out. It’s so unfortunate that we send this message to young people and then let them learn the hard way when they find themselves at 30 in unhealthy relationships, underemployed, and with no sense of what really makes them happy.

I also see a common thread among the quarter lifers in my circle who fear commitment and permanence. I can’t say for sure what this mindset is a symptom of but it makes goal setting and intentional living really difficult when you can’t stick to something and really just DO IT. Meg Jay says: “Goals have been called the building blocks of adult personality, and it is worth considering that who you will be in your thirties and beyond is being built out of goals you are setting for yourself today.”

All of this is a big reason why I created The Courage Collective. I saw that there weren’t a ton of voices out there advocating specifically for millennials. In fact there seemed to be more bashing them than anything else. That isn’t to say that there aren’t great resources out there but I wanted to create something just for YOU. Just for people like me, really. I personally had a great experience in a coaching setting and think it’s an excellent space for young people to get practical about their lives while also thinking deeper about their mindset and how it’s holding them back. I love coaching because it’s a balanced combo of ACTION and REFLECTION.

If this post or any of my posts speak to you, I’d be really excited to further discuss how we can work together to get you to a place of more calm, clarity, and courage. Check me out!

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About Brittany

Brittany is the driving force behind The Courage Collective, a personal coaching service and blog for millennials and young people alike. This initiative and company has been her heart work over the past year as she works in different capacities with individuals and groups to infuse more courage into their lives. Connect with Britt on Instagram: @brittkathrynn