Speaker 1: Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Psychology of Your Twenties,
Speaker 1: the podcast where we talk through some of the big
Speaker 1: life changes and transitions of our twenties and what they
Speaker 1: mean for our psychology. Hello everybody, Welcome back to the show.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the podcast, New listeners, old listeners. Wherever
Speaker 1: you are in the world, it is so great to
Speaker 1: have you here. Back for another episode, another topic. On
Speaker 1: this Lovely Friday, We're going to discuss the concept of
Speaker 1: milestone anxiety, which is essentially the fear we get that
Speaker 1: we are not reaching certain life milestones such as graduating,
Speaker 1: getting into a relationship, getting a first job, getting engaged,
Speaker 1: having children as quick as those around us, and when
Speaker 1: society expects us to reach these milestones. It's a feeling
Speaker 1: that I have been struggling with recently, and I know
Speaker 1: for a fact that I am not alone. So let's
Speaker 1: talk about it today. Milestone anxiety. This phrase, it's actually
Speaker 1: one that has been around for a while, but it's
Speaker 1: been repurposed from developmental psychology. It's usually used to describe
Speaker 1: the anxiety that parents get when their children do not
Speaker 1: reach certain developmental milestones like walking or speaking when they
Speaker 1: should be but When we become adults, a whole new
Speaker 1: set of societal or developmental milestones arise. And it's not
Speaker 1: our parents that are fearing for us anymore, although I'm
Speaker 1: sure they are at times, but it's us. We are
Speaker 1: the ones who are now in control. We become the
Speaker 1: primary adult in our lives, and we have to carry
Speaker 1: that anxiety that perhaps we are falling behind our peers,
Speaker 1: milestone anxiety. It becomes a really serious fear and stress
Speaker 1: up for a lot of us in our twenties. I
Speaker 1: really wanted to do this episode this week because of
Speaker 1: a message that I received from one of our listeners
Speaker 1: who wrote in to me on Instagram about how she
Speaker 1: had never had a boyfriend. She's twenty five, and she
Speaker 1: spoke so candidly about the anxiety that this has caused her,
Speaker 1: especially as all of her friends are getting engaged or
Speaker 1: moving in with the people that they're dating, and I
Speaker 1: really felt for her and so many others who I'm
Speaker 1: sure are in the same boat in some capacity or another.
Speaker 1: We put a lot of pressure on ourselves to conform
Speaker 1: to this societally ingrained timeline of where we should be when,
Speaker 1: and also to achieve so much at a young age,
Speaker 1: and I think that's causing lot of damage to those
Speaker 1: of us in our twenties, because well, our paths are
Speaker 1: never going to be the same, and they're definitely not
Speaker 1: going to be the same as people we see bragging
Speaker 1: on social media, or the same as our parents or
Speaker 1: older generations, which is where a lot of these expectations originated.
Speaker 1: I think additionally, happiness doesn't always come from a conventional
Speaker 1: way of living or doing things the normal way. There
Speaker 1: are so many people who don't graduate university until they're
Speaker 1: in their fifties, who don't meet the love of their
Speaker 1: life until they're seventy, who don't get on a plane
Speaker 1: until they're in their thirties or forties, and we need
Speaker 1: to cultivate a greater acceptance of the many different paths
Speaker 1: people have through life, instead of feeling this intense pressure
Speaker 1: to be meeting certain milestones at certain points. The thing is,
Speaker 1: though we can realize this diversity, we can realize this
Speaker 1: nuance and still feel an incredible amount of pressure or
Speaker 1: anxiety that we are missing out, or we are going
Speaker 1: too slow, or that we are quote unquote failures because
Speaker 1: of the impact of milestone anxiety. So today I want
Speaker 1: to break down the origins, the causes, and the details
Speaker 1: of this experience, how to push back against this feeling
Speaker 1: and respect your own journey and your own path through
Speaker 1: your twenties but also through life. And for all of
Speaker 1: us out there who are feeling like we are failing
Speaker 1: or we are falling behind and missing out on key milestones,
Speaker 1: I want to provide some solace and some reassurance and
Speaker 1: some answers for why you're going through this reaction and
Speaker 1: this experience, and also how you can find a way
Speaker 1: forward and not feel so much pressure and not put
Speaker 1: so much pressure on yourself to be meeting certain expectations
Speaker 1: that society, you're famil and even yourself are putting on you.
Speaker 1: So for all of you out there who are in
Speaker 1: this boat with me, this episode is for you. I
Speaker 1: am so excited and without further ado, I think we
Speaker 1: should get into it. One of my major inspirations for
Speaker 1: this episode was none other than the wonderful Millie Bobby Brown, Yes,
Speaker 1: the same one from Stranger Things. Recently, she announced that
Speaker 1: at the age of nineteen maybe twenty, she was engaged,
Speaker 1: and I think for those of us between the age
Speaker 1: of nineteen to thirty who are unmarried, or single. We
Speaker 1: all kind of took a bit of a deep breath
Speaker 1: in and maybe had a bit of a freak out
Speaker 1: as the comparison and the milestone anxiety set in, because
Speaker 1: you know, I'm almost twenty four and I am nowhere
Speaker 1: near dating anyone seriously, let alone getting engaged and then married.
Speaker 1: And that drop in our stomach is what we're talking
Speaker 1: about today, the sensation that if there are people out
Speaker 1: there reaching these massive milestones at that age, we must
Speaker 1: be doing something wrong, we must be falling behind. And
Speaker 1: I think that goes hand in hand with a sensation
Speaker 1: of will these things ever happen for me? And what
Speaker 1: happens if they don't. We feel an immense pressure to
Speaker 1: live up to this intangible but very much real blueprint
Speaker 1: that society has set out for us around what our
Speaker 1: lives should look like at a certain age or stage
Speaker 1: of our life. Your friends are getting married, everyone has
Speaker 1: a partner bit you or receiving promotions, buying houses, graduating,
Speaker 1: or moving to some far away city, and you're not
Speaker 1: quite there yet. It can feel really terrible. And new
Speaker 1: research has suggested and shown that the pressure to reach
Speaker 1: certain milestones that we deem as important is increasingly becoming
Speaker 1: a very real source of anxiety for those of us
Speaker 1: in our twenties. Between seventy seven to eighty three percent
Speaker 1: of people aged sixteen to thirty nine report feeling some
Speaker 1: pressure to meet certain milestones, such as getting married or
Speaker 1: having kids, and they feel incredibly trapped and hopeless when
Speaker 1: they don't. The fact that this is so common and
Speaker 1: yet rarely spoken about, astounds me, but it also makes
Speaker 1: a lot of sense why so many of us are
Speaker 1: feeling this way. We're feeling behind in our lives. We
Speaker 1: have been sold a very traditional idea of what our
Speaker 1: lives should look like from a young age, even if
Speaker 1: we don't explicitly realize it. It is in every movie
Speaker 1: we watch, in the speeches and the examples given to
Speaker 1: us by our teachers and our parents, in the people
Speaker 1: we were told no to be like. It's in the
Speaker 1: behavior displayed by many of our idols, and then, as
Speaker 1: we get older, our peers, and it goes something like this.
Speaker 1: We graduate high school with good grades, We go to
Speaker 1: college or university, we graduate from there, we get a
Speaker 1: good first job, great paycheck, pick up a partner along
Speaker 1: the way, marriage promotion, nice house by twenty six or
Speaker 1: twenty seven, kids by thirty, success, retirement, death. That's the
Speaker 1: way that we were taught it should be. And within
Speaker 1: all of those chapters, there are these almost micro milestones
Speaker 1: that we feel like we have to accomplish by a
Speaker 1: certain age, And interestingly, I think we all have some
Speaker 1: implicit sense of what those are, and we feel the
Speaker 1: pressure to reach them, such as dating a long term partner,
Speaker 1: you know, twenty four to twenty five, graduating on time
Speaker 1: before twenty three, certain saving goals, having savings by twenty two,
Speaker 1: having a clear idea of what we want our career
Speaker 1: to be as early as twenty one. Very few of
Speaker 1: us are going to meet every step of that timeline,
Speaker 1: and yet we still feel so much pressure to do so.
Speaker 1: Half of the reason that we feel this implicit pressure
Speaker 1: is because of the standards that have been set by
Speaker 1: our parents and the generations before us. I don't think
Speaker 1: that we could ever really find an origin for some
Speaker 1: of these expectations. Some of them are biological, like having kids.
Speaker 1: Others are caused by religious influences, such as getting married
Speaker 1: at a certain age, and you know, all of these
Speaker 1: ideas around purity culture. But some of the other milestones
Speaker 1: that we feel a pressure to reach. They seem to
Speaker 1: have just emerged one day out of the blue as fact,
Speaker 1: and regardless of where these milestones and these expectations come from,
Speaker 1: a lot of us do look to our parents or
Speaker 1: adult figures as a reference point for what we should
Speaker 1: be doing and how we should be doing it. But
Speaker 1: in doing so we kind of forget that a generation
Speaker 1: ago things were really different. It was more acceptable to
Speaker 1: be married by your very early twenties and to have
Speaker 1: children by twenty five. It was also an entirely different
Speaker 1: economic and financial climate. You could buy property for like
Speaker 1: a fifth of the price more or less. You know,
Speaker 1: you could buy a house on a working salary, even
Speaker 1: whereas now we don't have so much of that flexibility
Speaker 1: and that job security and that financial security. Younger generations,
Speaker 1: I think, like us in our twenties, the people who
Speaker 1: I'm sure are listening to this. All this research has
Speaker 1: shown that we are less likely to own our own homes,
Speaker 1: we are more likely to have children later in life.
Speaker 1: The age that women are having their first child has
Speaker 1: been steadily increasing for decades. I think it's around thirty
Speaker 1: one now, but back in like the nineteen fifties, it
Speaker 1: was twenty two, and essentially we are achieving these ingrained
Speaker 1: social milestones at an older age than our parents and
Speaker 1: even the generation before them. Things are really different now,
Speaker 1: they're massively different. We are about to enter a pretty
Speaker 1: huge recession. Our approach to dating is entirely different and
Speaker 1: so much less organic with the creation of dating apps.
Speaker 1: But yet we still feel very much tied down to
Speaker 1: the same blueprint and timeline, and we feel anxious when
Speaker 1: we stray from what we think is conventional. But we're
Speaker 1: also increasingly out of place. We feel really out of
Speaker 1: place as we compare ourselves to others and their success
Speaker 1: and their path through life. There's also the added pressure
Speaker 1: I guess from friends and family asking us when we're
Speaker 1: going to settle down, when we're going to get a
Speaker 1: real job, when we're going to have kids. I'm telling
Speaker 1: you that if one more family member at Christmas time
Speaker 1: ask me if I'm dating anyone seriously, I'm going to
Speaker 1: explode because it's not like I'm avoiding it. It's not
Speaker 1: like I like feeling like I'm in the slow lane
Speaker 1: compared to everyone else. But that is essentially the CrOx
Speaker 1: of what we're talking about today, that we feel so
Speaker 1: much pressure from all of these different sources to be
Speaker 1: doing things at a certain time, and if we're not
Speaker 1: doing that, there is all of this stigma and this pressure,
Speaker 1: and this implicit understanding that we are somewhat of a failure.
Speaker 1: All of this comes down to milestone anxiety, that uncomfortable
Speaker 1: feeling in our gut, the nervous thoughts in our brain
Speaker 1: telling us that we are not on track, that we
Speaker 1: haven't done enough. So what exactly is it? What is
Speaker 1: that feeling? I realized I haven't really given you a
Speaker 1: definition yet, and I want to get into the psychology
Speaker 1: a little bit further. So milestone anxiety, it's essentially the
Speaker 1: pressure to reach traditional life milestones by a certain age.
Speaker 1: It's a very unique anxiety that is often associated with
Speaker 1: our twenties and even our thirties, where we feel a
Speaker 1: real crunch period to get to a certain point in
Speaker 1: our life based on our reflections on what our parents
Speaker 1: did and what those around us are doing as well,
Speaker 1: and when we do not meet those milestones, this results
Speaker 1: in feelings of restlessness, feelings of unease, stress, low confidence,
Speaker 1: and anxiety. Importantly, it's not a diagnosable anxiety disorder, although
Speaker 1: some suggest that it does go hand in hand with
Speaker 1: a generalized anxiety disorder and even depression. But it's really
Speaker 1: a term that has been coined recently to describe particularly
Speaker 1: gen Z and millennials who are feeling this pressure. And
Speaker 1: it came from a study in two thousand and two
Speaker 1: that really attempted to put a name to a fear
Speaker 1: and a new face and a new wave of anxiety
Speaker 1: that were impacting people between the ages of twenty to
Speaker 1: their late thirties. All of these therapists they were reporting
Speaker 1: that these people, these young people were coming in with
Speaker 1: this new experience that they couldn't quite put their finger on,
Speaker 1: but it was really common and all of these people
Speaker 1: were reporting the same things. So these researchers they went
Speaker 1: out and they tried to find the correct term and
Speaker 1: the correct profile to describe what was going on. They
Speaker 1: did a groundbreaking study. It was conducted a few years
Speaker 1: back in the UK and essentially it identified that there
Speaker 1: were these main milestones that those between sixteen and thirty
Speaker 1: were most concerned about, and I think a lot of
Speaker 1: us can relate to these on a personal level. Having
Speaker 1: children was the number one milestone that people in their
Speaker 1: twenties felt pressure to reach, with almost a third. That's right,
Speaker 1: a third of us feeling some form of pressure to
Speaker 1: have children. When I read this, I was actually really
Speaker 1: surprised because I thought that the main milestone would be
Speaker 1: marriage or a long term relationship, because partnership does seem
Speaker 1: to take a precedence over procreation. But no, that's not
Speaker 1: the case, and when we examine it deeper, I think
Speaker 1: we do feel this very intrinsic, instinctial pressure to have children,
Speaker 1: to pass on our genes and to grow the next generation.
Speaker 1: And that pressure is both external and societal, but also
Speaker 1: internal and biological. There is a bit of a deadline
Speaker 1: to make this happen, and deadlines bring dread. It's kind
Speaker 1: of hard to explain, but I think many of us
Speaker 1: hit our mid twenties, we start considering fertility. Our frontal
Speaker 1: lobe kicks into gear, and suddenly we get hit with
Speaker 1: this vision of what we want from our lives and
Speaker 1: what we need to do in the next ten years
Speaker 1: to get there, and we are so overwhelmed by our
Speaker 1: expectations and what we want or what we desire, that
Speaker 1: we become paralyzed. I always think of this scene in
Speaker 1: Friends where Rachel turns thirty and she's like, Okay, well,
Speaker 1: I want to have children by thirty five, which means
Speaker 1: that I have to be married by thirty three because
Speaker 1: I want to be married by you know, I want
Speaker 1: to be married for a couple of years before then,
Speaker 1: but I want to be engaged for at least a
Speaker 1: year and a half, and I want to have known
Speaker 1: the guy for a year and a half, So that
Speaker 1: means I need to be doing all these things. I
Speaker 1: need to be setting this plan up right now. And
Speaker 1: although that's obviously a fictional representation it's a TV show,
Speaker 1: I remember watching that scene and being like, I get it.
Speaker 1: That makes so much sense to me. That is so relatable.
Speaker 1: And there are some other major milestones as well that
Speaker 1: can create the same degree of anxiety I mentioned one before,
Speaker 1: but marriage relationships, these are a huge source of pressure
Speaker 1: for us because there is this very repetitive idea and
Speaker 1: fantasy that love is the point of life, it is
Speaker 1: the reason for living. So without it we can feel
Speaker 1: quite meaningless and like we don't have something that is
Speaker 1: going to make us whole. Additionally, a big focus of
Speaker 1: our twenties and our various romantic relationships that we have
Speaker 1: is the pressure to meet your partner, and we put
Speaker 1: a lot of pressure on ourselves that if we are
Speaker 1: not and that if we don't have someone, that we're
Speaker 1: somehow missing out on these experiences, that somehow there's something
Speaker 1: wrong with us, we are a failure. Everyone else around
Speaker 1: us has one. Everyone else around us seems to be
Speaker 1: meeting the loves of their life, seems to be getting engaged,
Speaker 1: and we haven't yet. So what does that say about me?
Speaker 1: What does that say about us? Another one that I
Speaker 1: think really deserves mention is going to university, but also
Speaker 1: things like buying a house, achieving a certain level of
Speaker 1: career success. All of these are not only inextricably linked
Speaker 1: to this internalized social narrative, but also what we see
Speaker 1: others doing, which we know carries an incredible weight because
Speaker 1: social comparison has such a deep influence on our brain
Speaker 1: and how we interpret our surroundings. If we see all
Speaker 1: of these people, particularly those close to us, meeting certain milestones,
Speaker 1: we inherently look to our own lives and compare, and
Speaker 1: when we come up short. I don't really like to
Speaker 1: say it like that, but when we see that there
Speaker 1: is a gap between what other people are doing, what
Speaker 1: other people are achieving, and what we've done with our lives.
Speaker 1: We feel really terrible about ourselves, and that compounds to
Speaker 1: create a lot of anxiety. Interestingly, what I find particularly
Speaker 1: fascinating about milestone anxiety is that very few of us
Speaker 1: have not experienced it in some way or another. The
Speaker 1: research proves that the majority of us between sixteen and
Speaker 1: thirty have at some point felt some pressure, some external
Speaker 1: force to be doing more and to be meeting these
Speaker 1: goals sooner and sooner. Yeah, we often endure our shame
Speaker 1: and our anxiety in silence. It's a very solitary experience,
Speaker 1: but its prevalence also shows that most of us are
Speaker 1: actually not on a conventional path in some area or another.
Speaker 1: We are inherently very much worried that we are not
Speaker 1: meeting the norm. It's very much a shared experience, a
Speaker 1: shared sensation that is similar for all of us. These
Speaker 1: are some of the biggest I would say indicators or
Speaker 1: signs of milestone anxiety. If you're listening to this, being
Speaker 1: like that sounds very very similar to what I've been
Speaker 1: going through and to the feelings I've been having, I
Speaker 1: would like you to listen to these for a second,
Speaker 1: because if you recognize yourself in these it might be
Speaker 1: the case that milestone anxiety is something that you're struggling with.
Speaker 1: First of all, if you are constantly ruminating over the
Speaker 1: fact that you are not reaching certain milestones and attributing
Speaker 1: that to some personal failure that you have, I think
Speaker 1: that really requires some closer examination. Ruminating is sometimes normal, However,
Speaker 1: I think when we are worrying too much about the
Speaker 1: future and whether or not something's going to go right
Speaker 1: for us, whether we're going to achieve a certain goal
Speaker 1: or milestone we have in mind, that can be really
Speaker 1: detrimental because the future is not always something we can control,
Speaker 1: so when we continue to think about it, all we
Speaker 1: do is experience that worry and anxiety more than once.
Speaker 1: The future is going to happen, regardless of what's happening
Speaker 1: right now, regardless of what you're worried about, regardless of
Speaker 1: your milestone anxiety. But the second part of that is
Speaker 1: attributing it to some personal failure. I think back to
Speaker 1: that listener who wrote in who was really worried that
Speaker 1: she hadn't had her first relationship yet. Often, instead of
Speaker 1: thinking about it objectively and reflect on the fact that
Speaker 1: dating is really difficult, that your potential partners maybe weren't
Speaker 1: right for you, that taking your time and being picky
Speaker 1: actually statistically does contribute to better long term relationship outcomes. Instead,
Speaker 1: we look internally and we try to identify something that's
Speaker 1: wrong with us as the reason why we haven't met
Speaker 1: this milestone yet. This can really deeply injure our self
Speaker 1: esteem and self confidence, which further jeopardizes our ability to
Speaker 1: achieve the milestones and achieve what we deem as important.
Speaker 1: If you're looking inwards and contemplating the fact that you're
Speaker 1: a failure, contemplating some terrible thing about you, contemplating something
Speaker 1: that you're lacking, that's not healthy and it's also not true.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of things in your life that
Speaker 1: you can't control and it's not your fault if things
Speaker 1: don't turn out the way that you wanted them to.
Speaker 1: We may also feel a sense of failure that we
Speaker 1: are falling behind. We start seeing those around us through
Speaker 1: a very narrow lens and only recognizing those who have
Speaker 1: what we don't have. It's called attention or selection bias.
Speaker 1: It's where our brains only select and pay attention to
Speaker 1: information that confirms our initial bias, resulting in that bias
Speaker 1: becoming more deeply ingrained. If we think that everyone around
Speaker 1: us has jobs that they love, everyone is buying houses,
Speaker 1: everyone is finding the people for them, we begin to
Speaker 1: only see instances in which that is true, resulting in
Speaker 1: us having a very skewed view of reality, which just
Speaker 1: serves to reinforce our anxiety. We may also experience a
Speaker 1: lot of internal pressure within and almost like a revolving
Speaker 1: carousel of repetitive negative thing thoughts such as I should
Speaker 1: have graduated by now, what if I'm not married by thirty?
Speaker 1: Why is everyone else buying property but me? What if
Speaker 1: I don't have kids? And these thoughts are on rotation
Speaker 1: in our brain. This negative cycle can be very hard
Speaker 1: to break out of, especially when we account for some
Speaker 1: of the dialogue and rhetoric that may also be coming
Speaker 1: from our family and broader society. So if you find
Speaker 1: that when you sit with your thoughts, all you can
Speaker 1: think about is what you haven't done and the milestones
Speaker 1: you haven't achieved, it may be that milestone anxiety is
Speaker 1: the problem. It's the problem and the reason why you're
Speaker 1: feeling this way. Other science include things like excessive worry
Speaker 1: that other people are judging you, feeling hopeless, symptoms of depression,
Speaker 1: and of course generalized anxiety such as fatigue, low motivation,
Speaker 1: trouble sleeping, muscle tension, irritability, nervousness, nausea, the whole package,
Speaker 1: all of those things, these physical symptoms, there's a reason
Speaker 1: why they occur. There's a reason why they arise, and
Speaker 1: it's because of a number of functions in our brains
Speaker 1: and our bodies that are designed to respond to threats,
Speaker 1: and feeling like we're falling behind or worrying about the
Speaker 1: future are interpreted by our brain as very real threats
Speaker 1: to our survival. Additionally, I think anxiety can be incredibly
Speaker 1: subjective and has many of its origins in our emotional cortexes.
Speaker 1: So when we magnify something and we continue to focus
Speaker 1: on how we're falling behind, our minds identify that this
Speaker 1: must be important for us to respond to. This is
Speaker 1: an important worry, so it elicits an anxiety response so
Speaker 1: that we pay attention. And it comes down to one
Speaker 1: tiny little part of our brain called the ambigdala. The
Speaker 1: amygdala is irresponsible for our fear response, and it's hyper
Speaker 1: sensitive to perceived or real threats. Perceived threats being things
Speaker 1: like milestone anxiety. So it generates an alarm response when
Speaker 1: it evaluates that a situation or an experience is threatening,
Speaker 1: and what happens after that is the release of a
Speaker 1: bunch of neurotransmitters and neurochemicals that prepare our body to
Speaker 1: fight against this negative experience, resulting in what we know
Speaker 1: as anxiety. But that anxiety is often misplaced, as we know,
Speaker 1: and milestone anxiety is an example of how our amygdala
Speaker 1: can do more harm than good when it falsely interprets
Speaker 1: a situation or a fear as dangerous. If you don't
Speaker 1: get married by a certain age, you are not in
Speaker 1: any danger. Nothing bad is going to happen. If you
Speaker 1: don't graduate on time, or your first job is in
Speaker 1: all that it's cracked up to be. You're not going
Speaker 1: to drop dead. Things can go wrong in life, and
Speaker 1: we can stray, of course, but it doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: we're unsafe. It doesn't mean that we're a failure. It
Speaker 1: just means that we are experiencing life differently, and that's
Speaker 1: really nothing to be afraid of. In fact, I think
Speaker 1: it's rather beautiful to go about life in a way
Speaker 1: that is different and unique. Interestingly, I just want to
Speaker 1: put this point in here. Studies have also suggested that
Speaker 1: men and women experience milestone anxiety very differently. It didn't
Speaker 1: surprise me that women are much more likely to suffer
Speaker 1: this form of anxiety compared to men, and with greater severity.
Speaker 1: Although men report feeling greater external pressure to meet certain milestones,
Speaker 1: whereas that pressure for women is often more internal. This
Speaker 1: makes a lot of sense to me when we consider
Speaker 1: how society treats men versus women, especially when it comes
Speaker 1: to things around dating, marriage, and children. I've always thought
Speaker 1: that men seem to have a more relaxed timeline when
Speaker 1: it comes to these goals, and society gives them more
Speaker 1: time to figure these things out, whilst if a woman
Speaker 1: doesn't have kids or a long term partner by thirty,
Speaker 1: suddenly we are hearing terms around them being a spinster
Speaker 1: or a cat lady. There's a lot more stigma associated
Speaker 1: with a woman's choices compared to a man's, which perhaps
Speaker 1: explains while my estate anxiety is felt a lot more
Speaker 1: amongst women, and I think this is a remnant from
Speaker 1: a set of beliefs and a time period that is
Speaker 1: no longer relevant in the modern day. Historically, women remained
Speaker 1: in the home, and people saw their only duty as marriage, childbirth,
Speaker 1: and child rearing. There was no reason to have a
Speaker 1: career or to pursue further education. So by the age
Speaker 1: of twenty five twenty six, most women were settled down
Speaker 1: and had children, and we still feel an immense pressure
Speaker 1: to meet this outdated mold, which I find so disheartening.
Speaker 1: Society's timeline does not have to be your timeline. You
Speaker 1: don't need to have everything figured out and all the
Speaker 1: boxes ticked by a certain age. You don't need to
Speaker 1: compare your journey to others and feel bad when you
Speaker 1: think you're falling short, because the truth is that you're not.
Speaker 1: There is not one way of going about your goals
Speaker 1: and the milestones that you see is important, there's not
Speaker 1: one way of doing it. I always think about my grandma,
Speaker 1: who didn't graduate until she was in her sixties, or
Speaker 1: my mom, who had children in her late thirties and
Speaker 1: early forties, or my close friends. She didn't have her
Speaker 1: first relationship till she was like twenty six, and I
Speaker 1: remember her telling me, I feel so stressed that everyone
Speaker 1: around me is doing this is wrong with me, and
Speaker 1: that anxiety is so unpleasant. It's so uncomfortable. But I
Speaker 1: want to talk about how we can be liberated from this,
Speaker 1: and how we can combat milestone anxiety and feel free
Speaker 1: to set our own timelines and agenda for life and
Speaker 1: not feel guilty or like a failure if things don't
Speaker 1: go according to plans. So all of that and more
Speaker 1: in just a second. There is no doubt that milestone
Speaker 1: anxiety is uncomfortable, especially when we begin to internalize and
Speaker 1: think that it reflects something that is wrong with us.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of us hate relinquishing control, and
Speaker 1: we like to believe that we can orchestrate what happens
Speaker 1: in our lives, which is often untrue. You know, I
Speaker 1: keep coming back to that dating conundrum we posed at
Speaker 1: the beginning, but I do think it's such a powerful
Speaker 1: anecdote reflect on here. We cannot force love, We cannot
Speaker 1: force a healthy relationship. Sometimes the things that are most
Speaker 1: important to us, the milestones that are most important to us,
Speaker 1: are beyond our control, and that can be really scary,
Speaker 1: especially when we think that everyone else seems to be
Speaker 1: in the fast lane towards achieving certain things. But life
Speaker 1: is really weird and it's unpredictable. Your friends may be
Speaker 1: getting engaged now, but five years down the line that
Speaker 1: marriage may break apart and they're back to square one.
Speaker 1: You could have everything that you've ever wanted career, wize
Speaker 1: at twenty five, and then realize that you're deeply unhappy
Speaker 1: and make a huge change. But sometimes milestone anxiety stops
Speaker 1: us from seeing this clearly. It causes us to self sabotage,
Speaker 1: and it skews our reality so that we always feel behind.
Speaker 1: I want to talk about how we can address that now.
Speaker 1: First of all, you need to deep dive and look
Speaker 1: into an understand where there's pressure is coming from in
Speaker 1: order to navigate the feelings that it brings up. Is
Speaker 1: it because you're facing a lot of pressure from your
Speaker 1: family to get married? Is it cultural? Is it religious?
Speaker 1: Is it because you had a very strict upbringing and
Speaker 1: your family was a very nuclear family who set a
Speaker 1: certain agenda and had these priorities about how life should
Speaker 1: turn out. Are you reflecting on that and putting pressure
Speaker 1: on yourself to meet that mold? Is it because of
Speaker 1: social comparison? Are you looking outwards and seeing all these
Speaker 1: people in your life doing things that you wish you
Speaker 1: were doing. You need to know where the starting point is.
Speaker 1: In order to get to the finish line right, you
Speaker 1: need to understand why you were feeling this way. Otherwise
Speaker 1: you're going to go in blind. Secondly, and this is advice.
Speaker 1: This is a suggestion that I give all the time.
Speaker 1: You need to be excited by the feeling that anxiety
Speaker 1: gives you. I'm going to explain that a little bit
Speaker 1: more because I think a lot of people often question
Speaker 1: this argument in this idea. But anxiety and excitement they
Speaker 1: feel very similar. They feel like a bit of nausea
Speaker 1: in our stomach, they feel like jitters, they feel like
Speaker 1: this energy in our body. They elicit the same feeling.
Speaker 1: So we can consciously change our interpretation of these shared
Speaker 1: sensations to tell ourselves that it is excitement rather than anxiety.
Speaker 1: Instead of fearing the future and what you have or
Speaker 1: have not done, change your mindset to be excited by
Speaker 1: the possibilities. Once you address your negative cognitions and your thoughts,
Speaker 1: your outlook will also change. What if everything works out.
Speaker 1: We can be very pessimistic at times and get lost
Speaker 1: in the weeds, resulting in us constantly catastrophizing. And this
Speaker 1: is where we are always focused on the worst case
Speaker 1: scenario that we will never achieve what we want, that
Speaker 1: we will never have children, that we will never have
Speaker 1: a partner. All of those worries swirl around in our mind.
Speaker 1: So what you need to kind of change that mindset
Speaker 1: to is what if everything works out? This is exciting.
Speaker 1: I'm excited by the fact that there is so much freedom.
Speaker 1: I am excited by the flexibility. I am excited by
Speaker 1: the possibilities. We also need to understand and really reflect
Speaker 1: and acknowledge on the fact that there is more than
Speaker 1: one way of doing something. I think about this a
Speaker 1: lot when I think about having children. A lot of
Speaker 1: us assume that if we want kids, we need to
Speaker 1: have a partner first, and in some ways that is
Speaker 1: still very much a socially held belief. It's one that
Speaker 1: a lot of us assume, but that's not always the case.
Speaker 1: You can adapt. You are very capable of problem solving
Speaker 1: and finding a solution and a way through if you
Speaker 1: want to have children. There are so many other options
Speaker 1: now right. You can adopt, you can do surrogacy, you
Speaker 1: can do IVF with a sperm donor. There is so
Speaker 1: many other possibilities. So often, what happens when we experience
Speaker 1: milestone anxiety is that we narrow our focus and think
Speaker 1: that there is only one way of being happy and
Speaker 1: one way of doing something, and that one way is
Speaker 1: that very traditional blueprint. You know, graduation, marriage, children, house,
Speaker 1: all of those things. But you don't need to do
Speaker 1: it that way. There have been so many people who
Speaker 1: have forged a new path, and we have so many
Speaker 1: options now so that if there is something that you
Speaker 1: really want, you don't have to be held back by
Speaker 1: the fact that the most traditional way is the best way.
Speaker 1: You also need to embrace your authenticity. I know that
Speaker 1: sounds very much easier said than done, very wishy washy,
Speaker 1: but sometimes our milestone anxiety is actually interlinked with low
Speaker 1: self esteem and a fear of living authentic. Li We
Speaker 1: hide behind convention and tradition because we're worried that we
Speaker 1: will be rejected if we choose to take the road
Speaker 1: less traveled. Let that sing in for a little bit.
Speaker 1: Often the reason why we are so aligned to this
Speaker 1: traditional way of doing things is because we are worried
Speaker 1: that we'll be judged if we don't do it that way,
Speaker 1: if we don't get married and decide to have children
Speaker 1: on our own, if we don't get the perfect nine
Speaker 1: to five career and decide to go out and do
Speaker 1: a side hustle. But authenticity is really your superpower. Choosing
Speaker 1: to do something the way that you want to do it,
Speaker 1: in your own, creative, unique way is something that is
Speaker 1: highly highly admirable in my eyes. And how many people
Speaker 1: do we admire who have forged their own path? Think
Speaker 1: about all of our heroes, people like Steve Jobs, like
Speaker 1: Dolly Parton, like Taylor Swift, all of these incredible people
Speaker 1: who are highly successful. They didn't get to where they
Speaker 1: are by following the mold and the conventional path. They
Speaker 1: pushed back against what society said they should have achieved
Speaker 1: by when they pushed back against convention, And that always
Speaker 1: makes me feel a very comforted and a lot less alone,
Speaker 1: knowing that there are people who have done this before me,
Speaker 1: and knowing that sometimes the normal quote unquote normal way
Speaker 1: of doing things doesn't always lead to the greatest outcome
Speaker 1: or the best version of you. I think we also
Speaker 1: need to understand our relationship to social comparison. If you
Speaker 1: are experiencing milestone anxiety, if it's a massive stressor in
Speaker 1: your life, this often derives from our inherent tendency to
Speaker 1: view what others are doing and hold ourselves to that standard,
Speaker 1: and thereby we impress a level of self judgment that
Speaker 1: doesn't need to occur. That isn't healthy. You need to understand,
Speaker 1: and I think, really focus on your relationship to comparing
Speaker 1: yourself with other people. A big source of that is
Speaker 1: social media. It is very easy, and I don't need
Speaker 1: to say this, but I feel like I kind of
Speaker 1: want to. I want to reinforce this idea that it
Speaker 1: is very, very easy for people to display a perfect
Speaker 1: version of their lives on social media. And now we
Speaker 1: even have things like LinkedIn where you can almost bragg
Speaker 1: and be very performative in terms of your career. I
Speaker 1: don't think that's particularly healthy, but it is a reality
Speaker 1: of life that there are more points than ever to
Speaker 1: compare how your path in life compares to others. And
Speaker 1: when that becomes negative and toxic, when we are doing
Speaker 1: it regularly often, that can be a massive trigger for
Speaker 1: milestone anxiety. So I did a whole episode on this
Speaker 1: on social comparison. Go back and listen to that. Go
Speaker 1: back and listen to how we can stop comparing ourselves
Speaker 1: to others, because I do think that it's a an
Speaker 1: amazing way to kind of prevent milestone anxiety and to
Speaker 1: put us back on our truth path and make us
Speaker 1: feel comfortable with the way we're doing things. Another tip
Speaker 1: is just to focus on what you have achieved. We
Speaker 1: can be really, really negative and mean towards ourselves. We
Speaker 1: can be really hard on ourselves, and often what that
Speaker 1: results in is kind of a self inflicted blindness around
Speaker 1: the good things in life and our successes. There were
Speaker 1: people who were probably looking at you wishing that they
Speaker 1: had what you had, wishing that they had hit certain
Speaker 1: milestones that you've already hit. It's all incredibly subjective, and
Speaker 1: that's important to remind ourselves at times. Everyone like we saw,
Speaker 1: has experienced milestone anxiety in some form or another. So
Speaker 1: you are not alone. You are not the only one
Speaker 1: who was experiencing this, and your path is no better
Speaker 1: or no worse than anyone else's. I think that you
Speaker 1: have to kind of look at the full picture and
Speaker 1: really sit back and be happy with the reality that
Speaker 1: life isn't always going to go according to plan. But
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean that you're a failure. The traditional way
Speaker 1: of doing things that is a remnant from a very
Speaker 1: very outdated model of our reality that has been socially
Speaker 1: ingrained in us from childhood. You don't need to have
Speaker 1: a partner by twenty five in order to be happy
Speaker 1: in the future. You don't need to have kids by
Speaker 1: a certain age. Those milestones are all constructed, they're all imagined,
Speaker 1: and you are very much free to be your own
Speaker 1: person and to do things in your own time, without
Speaker 1: the fear that you're a failure, without the fear that
Speaker 1: you are missing out, without the fear that somehow, by
Speaker 1: not doing things conventionally, you're never going to be happy.
Speaker 1: Because that's not the case. I really don't think that's
Speaker 1: the case, but our brains can make it such a
Speaker 1: huge point of fear and such a huge point of anxiety.
Speaker 1: So if you're going to take one thing away from
Speaker 1: this episode, it's that society's timeline does not have to
Speaker 1: be your timeline. You can do things at your own
Speaker 1: pace and still be a happy, amazing, intricate, beautiful human.
Speaker 1: So I really hope that that leaves you with a
Speaker 1: sense of positivity and a sense of happiness and security
Speaker 1: around your future, especially to that amazing person who wrote
Speaker 1: in but I'm sure her story is one that is
Speaker 1: very shared and one that a lot of us feel
Speaker 1: very much attached to and very similar to. There's something
Speaker 1: in all of our lives that we feel like we're
Speaker 1: missing out on, and we feel like that we're not
Speaker 1: doing at the pace that others around us are doing.
Speaker 1: So this is just your reminder to slow down, take
Speaker 1: life easy, and to treat anxiety the way that it's
Speaker 1: supposed to be treated as just a reaction, just a response.
Speaker 1: It's not the truth. But anyways, I really hope that
Speaker 1: you enjoyed this episode. I really did. I needed to
Speaker 1: hear this stuff. You're not alone, you know. When I
Speaker 1: was looking into this and all the psychology and the science,
Speaker 1: it brought me such a sense of solace and such
Speaker 1: a sense of peace that I'm not alone in experiencing
Speaker 1: these things. So I really do hope that you've got
Speaker 1: something out of this that you found it important. If
Speaker 1: there is someone in your life who needs to hear this,
Speaker 1: there is a friend who was worried about these things,
Speaker 1: you should send them this episode. It might help them out,
Speaker 1: or don't. That's all right. You can gate keep it
Speaker 1: if you'd like to, and if you have any suggestions
Speaker 1: for further episodes. If you'd like me to expand on
Speaker 1: this topic in some form or another, please feel free
Speaker 1: to follow me at that Psychology podcast and let me
Speaker 1: know your thoughts, let me know your suggestions. I love
Speaker 1: hearing what everyone else is going through, what I think
Speaker 1: is relevant and universal for those of us in our twenties.
Speaker 1: I think, as always, it's such a valuable decade and
Speaker 1: we really do need to make the psychology and the
Speaker 1: science around it more accessible. So thank you for listening along.
Speaker 1: As always, if you enjoyed this episode, please feel free
Speaker 1: to leave a five star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify,
Speaker 1: wherever you are listening right now. I read every single
Speaker 1: review that is left. Whenever I'm having a hard day,
Speaker 1: I go and read them. So I just want to
Speaker 1: thank you for all of the support, and as always,
Speaker 1: we will be back on Tuesday with another episode.