You ask how the next step is going and you get “I’m figuring it out.” You’ve heard it in June, in August, and again this week, and you still can’t tell whether it means anything is happening.
I hear this phrase a lot in my coaching sessions too, and I’ve learned not to take it at face value.
When a young adult tells me they’re figuring it out, my next question is “okay, what did that look like yesterday?”
The answer often lands in one of five places.
They’re researching without ever acting on it
They’re blocked on one small task
They have an idea they’re keeping to themselves
The realistic options feel embarrassing
or
Nothing is happening at all.
Let’s break those down.
💙 Research that never touches the real world
A lot of young adults are doing something when they say they’re figuring it out. They’re watching “day in the life of a dental hygienist” videos, reading Reddit threads about trade school, comparing business pages at 1am. It feels like progress to them, but none of it carries any risk. Nobody can reject you for watching a TikTok.
What I look for is whether anything they’ve done could have produced a “no.”
Have they emailed anyone, applied anywhere, called a business, visited a campus, asked someone in the field a question? Six months of research with zero contact usually means the research has become a comfortable place to stay.
💙 One small task that feels impossible
When I dig into a stalled plan with someone, the block is often embarrassingly small.
An application asks for two references and they don’t know who they’d ask.
A program wants them to call the admissions office and they’ve never made a call like that.
A form asks for a tax document they’d have to get from you, which means admitting they’re applying.
From the outside, it’s twenty minutes of work. From the inside, it feels like a test they could fail, so the whole plan stops there.
💙 An idea they’re protecting from you
Some young adults have a fairly specific idea and won’t share it because of how they expect you to react. Skepticism is the obvious risk, but enthusiasm can do the same damage.
When a parent hears “I’ve been thinking about culinary school” and immediately starts researching programs and texting a friend who knows a chef, the idea stops belonging to the young adult.
Now backing out of it means disappointing you, so a lot of them keep ideas private until they’re fully formed, which can take a very long time.
I’ve had young adults tell me about a plan weeks before they told anyone at home, and the reason is almost always that I have nothing riding on it.
💙 Options that feel like a step down
Instagram and group chats give young adults a running feed of friends finishing degrees, moving to cities, and starting jobs with titles.
Next to that, community college, an apprenticeship, or a job at a bike shop can feel like admitting defeat, even when it’s the right move.
Sometimes they already know which realistic option they’d pick and can’t make peace with how it looks next to everyone else. Comparison, as we know, is a thief.
💙 Nothing is happening at all
Plenty of the time, “I’m figuring it out” is a cover. No research, no idea in the back pocket, no stalled application. The phrase ends the conversation faster than anything else they could say, so they keep using it.
It’s easy to land on laziness here, and I get why.
But when I get to know young adults in this spot, other reasons come up far more often.
Home may simply work fine as it is: if rent, food, a phone, a car, and wifi are covered, and the only cost of doing nothing is an awkward question at dinner, waiting is a rational choice.
The phone eats the hours, and a young adult can lose a whole day to scrolling or gaming without ever deciding to skip working on their future.
A past failure, like dropping out of college or getting let go from a job, can make trying again feel like setting up a second very public miss, and the young adults who seem least bothered are often the most afraid of one.
And sometimes the heaviness runs deeper than motivation. If they’re sleeping a lot, pulling away from friends, and losing interest in things they used to enjoy, bring it to a professional instead of sorting it out on your own.
So what helps?
💙 Change the one question you ask.
“What’s the plan?” invites a summary they can fake.
“Who have you talked to about it?” asks for a fact.
Any name at all is a sign of real movement, and “nobody” tells you which version you’re dealing with without an argument. If they do share an idea, ask what got them interested and leave it there.
💙 Put an end date on what you cover, once.
If home is comfortable enough that waiting costs nothing, a single decision like “we’ll cover your phone through January, and after that it’s yours” changes the math without you having to bring it up every week.
💙 Split the job instead of trying to let go of it.
I know “just step back” is close to useless advice for most parents. You’re the one paying for things, finding the therapist, keeping track of insurance, noticing when something’s off, and deciding what the household can afford to keep covering. Nobody else is going to do those parts, and stepping back from them would be irresponsible.
But what you can hand off is the daily pushing: the “did you send that email,” the “have you looked at the application,” the check-ins that turn every dinner into a progress report. Young adults hide stalled plans from their parents more than anyone, because parents are the people whose disappointment costs the most.
A coach, therapist, teacher, mentor, older sibling, aunt, uncle, or grandparent can ask those same questions without that weight.
So your job becomes finding that person and making sure it’s happening, and their job is the weekly follow-through.
It won’t split cleanly. Some weeks you’ll still end up doing all of it, because the appointment needs booking or the therapist cancelled or something went sideways at 11pm. That’s normal.
The goal is to stop being the only person in the system, not to disappear from it.
💙 Look after the person doing all of this.
You’ve been carrying “I’m figuring it out” for a while now, plus the worry, the logistics, and probably a few disagreements with your partner about how hard to push.
Young adults watch their parents closely for clues about how worried to be about themselves, and a parent who is running on empty sends a very different signal than one who has some support of their own. That support might be a friend who has been through it, your own therapist, or an hour a week with other parents asking the same questions you are.
If that last one sounds useful, it’s what the group below is for.
Not Therapy also has a Parent Facebook Group.
Join using this link: https://www.facebook.com/groups/4401990613346122/
💙Announcements💙
We have exciting news!
There’s a free weekly support group for parents that we built with Other Parents Like Me.
It’s called Launching Young Adults, and it meets every Monday at 6pm PT / 9pm ET on Zoom.
OPLM is an online community where parents of teens and young adults support each other through the hardest stretches of raising them.
Their Peer Parents facilitate the group and our coaches won’t be in the room, so you’ll spend the hour with other parents who are going through the same thing, talking honestly about how it’s actually going at home.
Any parent can join and it’s free.
Registration takes about two minutes, so sign up now to save your spot.