You're listening to a Muma Mia podcast.

Mamma Maya acknowledges the traditional owners of the land and waters that this podcast is recorded on.

Do you ever reread an email that you have sent and think to yourself, I am so good at tricking people into thinking I'm a functional adult For Mamma Mia, I'm your host a Shandy Dante.

Welcome to But Are You Happy?

The podcast that's basically your emotional hangover cure?

And I'm doctor Anastagia Hernis, a clinical psychologist passionate about happiness and mental health.

Let me ask you this, do you ever get anxious about doing those so called simple adult tasks like booking an appointment, answering a phone call, or figuring out what to cook for dinner?

Because suddenly being a grown up feels way harder than anyone warned us.

Yes, so why is calling someone suddenly the emotional equivalent of climbing a mountain?

I swear text ruined us.

You're not alone.

A lot of young people feel this way, and it's often rooted in a fear of failure, social judgments, or just not knowing what to expect.

That's why today we're unpacking adulthood, anxiety, and how to build real confidence and confidence in everyday life.

This is such a relatable topic.

Let's get into it adult in one on one.

I thought we could kick this off with a little bit of psychology.

What's actually going on for us mentally and emotionally when we're transitioning into adulthood or really any major new chapter in life.

We're finding ourselves as clichd as that sounds right, We're going through a change, and often that results in a change in identity.

When we transition from those teenage years into early adulthood, we're really going through a process of discovering who we are in the world.

What's my identity?

Who am I?

What do I like?

What do I dislike?

You know?

How do I navigate new things that I've never had to do before.

How do I enter this new stage of my life and do it with some degree of feeling competent and some degree of grace and clarity as to how it's all meant to work.

So it really can be quite a stressful and difficult time for people because there's so much change involved.

And as we've said before on the podcast, we know that where creatures of habits.

We don't like change.

Change is uncomfortable, it's unpleasant, it's unexpected.

We don't know what's on the other side of change necessarily, but it is necessary.

But it can be a hard time.

And it's interesting you just spoke about how it can be scary because we don't know what the next chapter of our life is going to look like.

And I feel like it's this ongoing narrative like it is, it's always going to look uncertain.

So could you talk to me a little bit more about that?

Why do we feel so much anxiety around the unknown?

It's new, and with newness comes that scary feeling.

Right if I'm finishing school and entering UNI or starting a job for the first time, if I've never done that before, that's a new experience.

And yes, there's something to be said for cognitively or mentally knowing what that experience is going to be like, But it's another thing to actually be in it and living it and living out the enjoyable parts of it and living out the hard parts of it as well.

So it's one thing to know what to expect, another thing to actually experience it.

So when it comes to transitioning to a new stage of life.

I know you spoke a little bit more around anxiety.

Are there any other typical emotions that would naturally come up?

Absolutely?

A big one is actually a feeling of grief that comes with loss.

Right, Yeah, So as we transition out of those teenage years and into adulthood, there's lots of exciting new things that come with that.

They can be scary, but they can be exciting, But it can also be sad to kind of leave the pre chapter behind.

That goes with any life transition, right.

It comes you know, if we change jobs and we're sad to be kind of leaving our old workplace behind and entering a new one.

Any kind of life transition comes with leaving something and entering a new And as exciting as that can be, there's also that that grief and sadness about what was.

It gets me thinking about even in year twelve.

I mean that was a really long time ago for me, but how exciting that last day of school was.

And you know, you do like prank Day and you do all those fun things you do in year twelve, and you feel this level of power because you're at the top of your game, and then you leave school and then all of a sudden, you just feel like you're back at square one.

But it's funny because I feel like that pattern, naturally will always happen no matter what stage of life you're in, right.

And it's so funny you say that, because I think back to my year twelve experience, and I remember a very different experience.

I remember being really sad to leave school because I was like, this is so f familiar, it's so comfortable.

All my friends are here, I know my teachers, Like, it was this really comforting environment for me, and I was really sad to leave it behind.

Yeah, well, look, and I mean this kind of speaks to how, you know, different emotions come up for all of us no matter what transition we're in as well.

And it's interesting we talk about transitions because a lot of the work that I've done with young people but also women in general, is around this concept of right of passage and actually taking them through a process to help them feel more prepared.

And it's kind of what you were saying before.

It's like, we don't actually know what it looks like on the other side, but who do you want to show up to be?

Because you know It's something that we've spoken a lot about.

At the end of the day, we can only control how we can show up, right, So it's finding that balance between Okay, I'm just gonna allow whatever emotions come up, and also like, who do I want to be?

Like I get to recreate myself, you know.

So, Yeah, there's so much that can come out of transitions.

It's the identity that you're talking about, right, Like, yeah, rediscovering defining my identity.

And that speaks to such an important point because when we talk about core emotional needs, as we've discussed in the previous episode as well, we know that the core emotional need we have around identity is also linked to competence.

Right, So when I go through life transitions and life stages, I always need to feel like I have a sense of competence in myself and that comes with having a strong sense of identity.

And what I mean by competence is essentially this strong internal feeling of capability.

I need to feel like I am capable of completing tasks or being able to achieve things, whatever those things might be, right, I need to feel capable and competent in my ability to do things.

But that doesn't necessarily mean I need to know how to do everything right, because none of us do.

So I need to feel comfortable and competent that I can figure it out.

So, for example, I don't know how to change a tire to you.

Nope, no, right, and I'm thankfully I've never had that situation me neither.

It's not a skill that I'm competent in, but I feel competent enough that I could solve that problem.

If I got a flat tire, I would know who to call.

I wouldn't necessarily know how to change the tire myself, but i'd know who to call to be able to figure out that situation.

So part of that transitioning into adulthood is that maybe we no longer rely on our parents or our family for answering those questions for us, but we discover how to answer those questions for ourselves.

And what I'm hearing too, it's really starting to build that sense of autonomy and learning to make decisions.

Even if it is getting support, that's still a decision, right, You're like, oh, I'm choosing, but it's that act of doing it for yourself.

Yes, I'm doing I'm taking exactly I'm taking that act to find the help that I need to seek, the answers that I need to go google, the answers that I need, whatever it might be.

I can do that and I can do it for myself.

That's so good.

It's interesting.

There was something that you mentioned before, and I don't know if I'm sure there's listeners out there that have that inner perfectionist, because I definitely have a perfectionist side to me, And when you speak about competence, it can be scary for anyone that is a perfectionist, and I'm definitely one myself because the fear of doing something wrong is really hard.

And you know, when you're building a new skill and you're in a new chapter in your life, that's naturally going to happen.

So I guess the question I have is why is it so important to be making mistakes as an adult.

Yes, we build our sense of resilience, right, it's not a matter of if.

But when mistakes are inevitable, we're all going to make mistakes.

If we go into certain situations going I'm going to get this perfect and I'm not going to make mistakes, We're actually going to be doing ourselves a disservice because we all make mistakes, right, How many mistakes have we made during this process?

I don't know what you're talking about now, you really a perfectionist.

But mistakes happen, right, Mistakes, Mistakes are inevitable, and if we set ourselves the expectation that we have to get things perfect, we are going to end up with such a massive burden of pressure on our shoulders to always get things right or to always give one hundred percent, And at the end of the day, it's just not reality.

So I know this whole conversation is based around adulting, right, but when does adult tine actually start?

Like, is there actually a set point?

It's a good question, right, because like the law says that when we turn eighteen, we can, you know, legally do certain adult things like drink, et cetera.

Yeah, but from a neuroscientific perspective, we know that the brain is not actually really fully developed until about twenty five years old.

And so that's why for those eighteen to twenty five year olds out there, you might find yourselves doing some things that in hindsight you might regret at times, or things that feel little bit more impulsive because those again the prefrontal cortex of the brain, that part of the brain that's responsible for decision making and planning and being a bit more responsible essentially, is not as fully developed until we reach the age of about twenty five, give or take.

So what I'm basically hearing is that it's not all on us to build that competency, right, Like, should we have other people around us supporting us, like the adults in our life when we were younger.

Yeah.

Look this, as I said, this is a core emotional need, which means it is there from birth, right from our very early years, all the way through our life.

So when we're kids, absolutely we need the adults in our lives to help us build competence.

Right.

So that could be as simple as a parent teaching us how to tie our shoelaces.

Right, But then as a kid, we try and we stumble, and we maybe cry and we get frustrated, and they go, no, come on, you can do it.

Remember you're going to put the loop around here and do the bunny is and however you tie your shoelacers.

So they teach us, but they also support us through that period of frustration that we will inevitably get when we're not meeting the mark immediately, right, because it takes a lot of goes to learn how to tie your shoelacers or ride a bike, or learn how to do neat hand riding right.

So from a very early age, we need the adults in our lives to help support us to learn the skills, but then ride out that frustration that comes when we can't automatically do it perfect the first time.

And what we see is that where things can go wrong is when kids have too much done for them, So the kind of over protective parents that always do everything for them, or as soon as the kids struggles, they go no, no, it's okay, I'll jump in and i'll help you and I'll do it for you.

Totally.

There's a difference between doing it for you versus supporting you to do it.

Or if kids don't get enough support in the early years to build that sense of competence themselves, that's when things can kind of go a bit wrong and we see the negative impacts later on in life.

And I think what I'm also hearing is, you know, the adults in a child's life, let's say when we were younger, if we got that support they're essentially role modeling how we should be showing up in these interactions.

And you know, the parents role modeling.

You know, when we're frustrated, we kind of just you know, we calm down, we speak in a certain tone.

You know, I'm not a parent yet.

And that's going to I mean, that's going to be another whole season whenever that comes.

But yeah, like they're really without them realizing how much that stuff is subconsciously really shaping the way that they can show up later on in life.

Absolutely, And if children can master that skill of being able to manage frustration or anxiety or stress when trying new things, that's going to show up later in life.

They're going to have more confidence and more self esteem to do the hard stuff, to take the calculated risks, you know, to go on that solo travel adventure, or to put in the application for the new job that there might be a bit nervous about getting rejected for, but they're going to try anyway.

Right.

We see that building competence in those early years really helps create adults who have a strong sense of self esteem and identity.

And I also want to jump in and say the flip side to this, is really important as well, where there are stakes.

If people do not master this sense of competence for their adult life, right, people don't develop that strong sense of competence and confidence in themselves to be able to do new things and handle new situations.

We find that adults can have low self esteem, low self worth, and anxiety right because we've talked about anxiety before, But anxiety is rooted in me overestimating the likelihood that things will go wrong and not trusting that I'll be able to deal with it if they do go wrong.

So I might overestimate the likelihood that I get a flat tire, and I underestimate my ability to deal with it if it does happen.

So, Anastasia, when I look at you, I feel like you're a fully functioning adult.

Yes, I fooled you all.

I love that.

But I guess what I'm curious about.

Have you had any wobbly moments on the road to becoming an adult?

Oh?

Yes, oh yes, us the US.

A key one that comes to mind is before I turned eighteen and started at UNI, I'd never caught a train on my own, right, So I felt very anxious about catching trains and the first day that I ever went to UNI.

My dad caught the train with me to show me.

He came with me, and then I managed to go back myself.

But I remember one day I was on the train coming home from UNI and I accidentally missed my stop that I was meant to get off at, and I ended up like two stops further down, and I got off the train and I called my mom virtually in tears, and I was like, can you please come and pick me up.

I don't know where I am, so you can just get on the train and go back the other way.

I was like, no, what if I end up in Queensland or something?

You know, Yes, the overwhelms.

I've definitely had those moments, and gosh, I look back at them and I laugh and giggle because I know eighteen year old me was genuinely stressed out, and now I think, gosh, I just didn't trust that I could figure it out.

And look at you.

Now, you're able to catch a train like a pro now.

Right all on my own.

So what if someone's too close to their parents, is it harder for them to become competent adults.

Yeah, so there's closeness with our parents and then there's enmeshment right close is fine?

Enmeshment creates problems.

So when I talk about in meshment in families or between sort of kids, adult kids and their parents, I'm really talking about this sense of blurred boundaries in relationships.

So this might be where someone feels like there's a lack of privacy in the relationship that they have with their parents, or they feel compelled or obliged to do what their parents tell them to do.

And this might be with major life decisions, so parents tell them what sort of career they should pursue, or tell them what sort of partner they should choose to be with.

So there's this real blurring and a lack of sense of identity and independence in the relationships.

It could be that your parents end up making a lot of decisions for you.

Your parents expect a lot of emotional support from you, and vice versa.

You expect a lot of emotional support from them, but they're just essentially excessively involved in your life where it hinders you forming your own sense of individuality and identity.

And when you speak about the enmeshment piece, is it coming from both parties, like the child, the parents or can it be only one way?

It can be both absolutely, and what we usually find is, you know, sometimes this can be a bit of a cultural thing as well.

But often a child will have grown up in a household where there is this flavor of enmeshment.

So it's not like suddenly they hit adulthood and the family becomes enmeshed.

It's sort of usually been there from the start in some way.

But it's really obvious once someone reaches adulthood because that's the time where they're really forming their own sense of self and identity, but that's hindered by the closeness of the relationship with their parents.

After the break, Doctor Anastasia is going to teach us how we can build more competence and confidence in adulthood.

Okay, Anastasia, how do we do it?

Tell us how do.

We become competent and confident adults?

Right?

My key takeaway word here is exposure.

For anything that gives us anxiety, the more we expose ourselves to it, the less anxious will feel.

So this is actually a fun one.

I really like doing this with clients in the clinic because it can be well, it's a bit anxiety provoking, but it's also fun.

That's fun for you, it's fun for me.

But essentially, what I would encourage people to do is develop a hierarchy for themselves.

So get a piece of paper, get a note out in your phone, write out the numbers one to ten, and you're going to set yourself a series of tasks and steps to work through.

So your one out of ten task is going to be something that gives you a one out of ten anxiety.

Your ten out of ten task is going to be something that gives you a ten out of ten anxiety.

So say, for example, you need to call up the doctors and book in a GP checkup for yourself.

Maybe that's a four out of ten.

Put it next to the four.

Maybe you need to call up and get your checked out by a mechanic, and maybe that's like seven because I don't know when I go to the mechanic, I'm not always sure what to ask for.

So another bit higher up your hierarchy.

One hundred percent.

It's like another whole language.

Yes, okay, So maybe you have to learn how to cook a new meal for yourself and that gives you a bit of anxiety.

Put that.

Put that wherever it fits on the hierarchy.

But what I encourage people to do is come up with about six or seven steps for themselves.

You don't need to find one for every single number, but the rate them in order from lowest level of anxiety of adulting up to highst Maybe ten out of ten is doing your taxes.

Oh gosh, we love our taxes.

Right, fine, fine, what that ten out of ten is?

And work your way up to it.

So you're gonna set yourself small but achievable goals, and don't do it just once.

The key to overcoming anxiety and exposure is doing it multiple times.

If you've set yourself the task of cooking a new meal, cook the new meal five times over, or cook five new different meals.

Or if you need to call up and book doctor's appointments, don't just do it once.

Or if calling the doctor to book the appointment feels too hard, set yourself the first task of just calling to find out how much it costs, and that's the first phone call.

Right.

Set this schedule for yourself and work through it systematically.

It's one thing for us to tell ourselves everything will be fine, which it usually is.

Right for calling the doctor, nothing that bad will probably go wrong.

It's one thing for us to tell ourselves that and another thing to experience it.

Our brain and our body learn through the experiences we have.

If I can take my car to the mechanic and do it successfully, I internalize that message of competence of like, hey, I was worried about that thing.

I didn't know how to do it.

I had to google mechanics near me and find one to take the car to.

But you know what, I did it and it was fine and look at me.

So we internalize that self esteem that comes with completing those tasks.

And if I do it a few times, not just once, I'm going to feel even more confident and secure in my capacity to do these things.

I really love this, And something I am wondering about is should we have an accountability buddy with us?

Because I mean, it's all well and good to put a list together and put some ratings around how anxiety provoking it is, but should we be still getting a bit of that support.

Absolutely share the list with someone if you like.

If you've got a friend who's at the same life stage as you or struggling with similar things, sit down together, write out a plan together and keep each other accountable with doing it, or share it with your parents.

If you're like, hey, you know what, I'm building my sense of independence.

My ten out of ten is I'm going to go on a trip on my own, or I'm going to get comfortable sitting in a cafe on my own, whatever it might be.

Share it with them, share it with the people around you to get that support, and give yourself a little nice pat on the back.

At the end of each step you complete, give yourself a reward.

Set the reward in the schedule.

Right, So if you're like, you know what, if I managed to do my taxes, I'm going to treat myself to a nice dinner.

I'm gonna, you know, go to a movie or whatever it might be.

That feels like a bit of a reward.

When we do hard things, we want to give ourselves a reward as well.

I already know what my next reward is.

What is a cup of match so predictable?

I'm not going a reward if you do it every day?

Show I don't know.

I was at the reward so good.

Okay, So what happens if you have gone to the mechanic and you're like, yay adulting, and then you find out you've been ripped off, Like that would impact your confidence?

Right when adulting goes wrong?

Yes, because we don't always get it right.

Yeah.

Absolutely, Look, and that's normal and natural.

We'll have moments where we quote unquote fail.

I didn't even really like to use the term fail.

But things go wrong which may or may not be our fault.

Right.

Sometimes it will be our fault, other times it won't be.

But that's part of the process.

Part of competence is not just being able to do everything right.

It's being able to trust myself that there will be successful moments.

There will be moments that are less successful, but I'll be able to get through them.

Right.

If we ask ourselves, what's the worst that could happen, I'll be able to cope with it.

So what's the worst that happened?

The mechanic ripped me off?

Oh shit?

Okay, now what now?

What am I going to do?

How Am I going to use this as an opportunity to learn for the next time?

Because we probably won't make that mistake too many more times?

Yeah, and we won't be going back to that same mechanic.

No.

After the shotbreak, we hear from a woman who's scared to travel solo in her twenties.

Stay with us, Berb.

Barb Bibby, I'm proving a serious Cristy to the RB iving a crisis.

Okay, we've reached that time in our episode where we answer a question or dilemma from one of you our but are you happy listeners?

This dilemma comes from Lara.

I'm in my late twenties and I keep telling myself I want to do a solo trip.

But every time I actually start planning, the anxiety kicks in.

I worry I feel lost, lonely, or completely out of my debt.

What if I can't figure out transport?

What if something goes wrong and I have no one to turn to.

I see other people slowly traveling and thriving, and part of me knows I could do it too, But the fear always wins.

I don't want to keep waiting for someone to come with me.

How do I move past the fear and just go?

Oh, Lara?

Can I just say I have been you right?

I have been the twenty year old nervous to do the solo travel.

But I am so so glad I did it Now.

If you're feeling anxious, remember anxietyiety is not a bad thing.

We talked about this last season, right, we did a whole episode on anxiety.

Anxiety is not bad.

Anxiety is giving you a message that's worth listening to.

Right, If you're anxious about going on a trip and getting lost, that's information that your body is telling you that you should listen to.

So don't fear the anxiety.

But my recommendation is this, answer the questions that are coming up for you.

So what if you get lost?

What will you do?

What if you lose your wallet?

What are you going to do?

What if you feel lonely while you're solo traveling?

What are you going to do?

Then find those what if questions, because it's the what if questions that give us anxiety, and answer them for yourself.

There's no problem at all with having those backup contingency plans in place, because that's actually going to give you the confidence to step onto the plane and go and do the trip.

So listen to the anxiety, lean into what it's telling you, and find the solutions to those worst case scenarios because the reality is, sometimes worst case scenario does happen.

You might get lonely, you might get lost, you might not know how to navigate the transport.

But what you need to be able to do is trust yourself that if that happens, you'll be able to figure it out.

So go in and go with a plan.

And at the end of the day, remember our brains are unfortunately hard wired to worry.

From an evolutionary perspective, they're designed to be on alert for threats and danger.

So your brain will tell you about the things that you should be worried about.

That's okay, that's normal.

The reality is, though, that often these worries don't actually come true.

The things that we're worrying about are simply just worries, they're not actually reality.

So keep that in mind as well.

And if it's still all feeling a little bit overwhelming, I recommend starting small.

Start with a weekend away, Start with a small domestic travel trip before you go overseas.

Start small and build your way up.

Good luck, Lara, Anastasia, we've covered a lot of ground.

Can you give us the main takeaways from today's episode.

First of all, learning to become an adult takes time and practice.

It doesn't just magically happen the moment we wake up on our eighteenth birthday.

Second, as we go through life transitions, our identity changes and shifts.

This is normal.

Third, if you're fearing certain adult tasks, set yourself small goals to build up and work towards.

And lastly, give yourself a pat on the back every time you achieve a task you've never done before or didn't think you could handle.

If you have a burning question for us, there are a few ways to get in touch with us.

Links are in the show notes.

And remember, while I am a psychologist, this podcast isn't a diagnostic tool, and the advice and ideas we present here should always take into account your personal medical history.

The executive producer of But Are You Happy?

Is Niama Brown.

Our senior producer is Charlie Blackman.

Sound design and editing by Jacob Brown.

I'm a Shani Dante and.

I'm doctor Anastasia Heronus.

The names and stories of clients discussed have been changed for the purpose of maintaining anonymity.

If this conversation brought up any difficult feelings for you, we have links for more resources in the show notes around the topics we discussed today.

You can also reach out to organizations like Beyond Blue or Lifeline if you're wanting more immediate support.

Tune in next week as we unpack what porn actually does to our brain chemistry and how it might be influencing our romantic and sexual relationships, often without us even realizing.

Thank you so much for listening to today's But Are You Happy?

Episode.

We're keen to understand how you're looking after your mental health these days.

There's a survey link in the show notes.

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We'd love to hear from you.

Thanks for listening, See you next time.