How to Adult #author Peter Charleston

How to Adult: A Psychological Guide

You don’t need more motivation, another productivity hack or someone telling you to “think positive”. What you need is for your internal life to catch up with the mask you wear which says, “I’m fine”.

How to Adult is for those who are capable and functional and yet find themselves stuck in old patterns of behaviour, mental habits that don’t stick, confidence that fluctuates, relationships that feel harder than they should.

The world may say it’s laziness or even dysfunction. But Peter Charleston offers a harder-won truth: it’s because you were never taught to psychologically grow up.

Inside these pages, you’ll find the antidote to self-help fluff in the form of actionable strategies founded on core principles:

● Responsibility creates freedom, not shame.

● Emotional and mental strength can be improved

● Insecurities are eliminated by strengthening your ego, not trying to get rid of it or denying its existence

● Self-worth does not come from what you achieve but who you become

Grounded in psychological science and written with clarity, warmth and bite, this book helps you stop self-sabotaging and instead guides you towards maturity by choosing to respond to the world in better ways.

That’s what adulting really means.

Peter continues to help 1000s of people remove their self sabotage and improve their psychology skills and strength to improve their performance and satisfaction in every facet of life. Clients are often highly stressed, disillusioned by life, in 'survival mode' and dont seem to be able to celebrate or maximise their wins. They have either achieved a lot already, or they have ambition to reach their potential, but usually suffer from imposter syndrome. 

To connect with Peter ...
https://www.petercharleston.com/
https://www.petercharleston.com/resources/peters-books
https://www.youtube.com/@UCE3qKPelyXBAvxAI3RgCiMA 

Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:02

Good afternoon, Peter Charleston. Welcome to Yellow Shelf.

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Hello, Joe. Thanks for this opportunity.

SPEAKER_01 0:08

Oh, it is a pleasure. Peter, congratulations. This is your second book, but we'll get to that a bit later. Um, congratulations, tell us all about your new book, How to Adult.

SPEAKER_00 0:19

Yes, yes. Um, well, this is a summary of the 35 years I've been a psychologist. So I'm I blend personal and professional development in my practice. And I'm up around 25,000 hours now. So there's a lot to talk about and write about. This is a summary of what the skills my clients have needed to learn in order to create a good life for themselves. So to me, I I've called it how to adult because to me, adulting is about a skill set rather than an age.

SPEAKER_01 1:00

True.

SPEAKER_00 1:01

So no matter what age you are, you're not necessarily mature or responsible until you learn psychological skills.

SPEAKER_01 1:08

Yes. Sorry, keep going.

SPEAKER_00 1:13

No, that's okay. Um, I was just thinking that our formal education just really teaches us how to make a living, but not how to live well. We we don't really get taught the skills that really matter in our everyday life.

SPEAKER_01 1:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:31

And that's what this book's about.

SPEAKER_01 1:33

Yeah. And I'm glad you mentioned your long distinguished career because you have a plethora of knowledge in this space. And I it made me start to think, Peter, about um, you know, me as an adult and my journey, and at different stages, even in your adult life, where you need to kind of stop and rethink and recalibrate and reassess and you know, like becoming a parent or moving country or whatever it might be. It's this is this is a moving space.

SPEAKER_00 2:05

Yes, and there's always more to learn. And at different stages of our life, our whole set of values might change. Our whole direction in life might change. So yeah, this this book's for people who also feel like they're drifting and they need some sort of direction. Yeah, um, and those who feel like I'm not really living the life I want. Yes, what do I do about it?

SPEAKER_01 2:34

Yeah, and we probably all go through that that feeling of like limiting beliefs or not good enough, or not.

SPEAKER_00 2:42

So it's it's your books are really great, almost reset when when you're when you're looking for yeah, it gives people a framework to find what within themselves is getting in the way of the life they want.

SPEAKER_01 2:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:00

So it could be something like beliefs about self, it could be all sorts of other things.

SPEAKER_01 3:05

Yeah, true. And Peter, do you want to tell us um a bit about your journey as a writer? So I mentioned you've written before, so mention please feel free to mention your previous book, Closer, because I I I was noticing it on your website, but yeah, tell us about you as an author.

SPEAKER_00 3:21

Um, well, Closer represents a framework for how to get your emotional needs met within a relationship, but also within yourself. So I'm I tend to like to write about because I've had so much experience now, I like to summarize within frameworks the main themes of what I see in all my clients. So closer and how to adult has that within it. Um how to adult is more a for everyone type of book. It's you can get something out of it, yeah, no matter who you are. Um, I talk about ego quite a bit in the book, but I use ego, my definition of it is it's the image you have of yourself, it's that simple. And I use a continuum from one end of the scale is feeling really eerie, the other end is feeling superior, and a lot of people I've found bounce between the two, depending on the situation they're in and who they're with. And when we do that, we're we're full of comparison and competition. We're always comparing ourselves with other people. Yeah, that need for external validation is really high. But when we learn psychological skills, we we find the middle between the two, and the middle's where you're not competing, you're not comparing, you're just doing your best, and that's enough. Yeah, and that's when life flows. And if you can learn how to get there, life becomes a lot better.

SPEAKER_01 5:09

Yeah, it sounds like that calm space, you know, that your lane is the calm. Yeah, yeah, it makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 5:15

You're not doubting yourself so much anymore, you're not second-guessing, you know, you're not full of procrastination or indecision. You just you know who you are, you know what you want, you know what your values are, and you live the life that that you've created and that you want.

SPEAKER_01 5:35

Peter, the book is available now for pre-order and it's out in September. Um, I I know it's on Amazon. Um, are you gonna write again? Like, do you love writing enough to think about another topic down the track, or is is this just what comes to you in different stages?

SPEAKER_00 5:53

No, I do. I've caught the bug. Um I I have waves of writing, usually early morning. Yeah, ideas come to me, and I put ideas on the computer, and they at some point they they join some dots are joined and they come together, and yeah, I've already got an idea for the next one.

SPEAKER_01 6:14

Oh, that's awesome. Well, Peter, definitely enjoy this one. Congratulations! Thank you for sharing it with Yellow Shelf. Um, you have a website, you have um your socials. Do you want to point us in the direction? If people are curious about you, they're curious about the books. Um, I'll put it in the show notes. Where do we go?

SPEAKER_00 6:35

PeterCharleston.com is the website. I've got a book launch coming up, and that the details are there for that.

SPEAKER_01 6:42

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 6:42

One in Sydney, one in Melbourne. Um TikTok. I'm doing quite a bit of video at the moment. I've got about 10 up there already, and about 50 more coming. All on what what I what my definition of adulting is and what not adulting looks like. There's a bit of fun in that, but there's some seriousness too. So TikTok at Peter Charleston, you'll find me.

SPEAKER_01 7:08

Great. Peter, I'll put links in the show notes. It's been a delight to chat to you. I mean, please come back. Any future books I'd love to support.

SPEAKER_00 7:16

Thanks a lot, Joe.

SPEAKER_01 7:17

It's been fun. Cheers, Peter.

SPEAKER_00 7:19

Thank you.