*Young People Are Struggling… and we still call it an Individual Problem?

We know young people are struggling. The OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.)  has the numbers to prove it. But perhaps the more interesting question is what we do about it. We tend to look at the individual. Is she sleeping enough? Exercising? Spending too much time on her phone? Has she tried therapy? Is she resilient enough?

Apparently, somewhere along the way, being a healthy human became a full-time project.

And yes, personal habits matter. They are trying to figure out who they are while navigating friendships, family, school, social media, relationships, expectations and an endless stream of people telling them how to improve themselves. Be yourself but make yourself better. Find your passion. Build a career. Have a relationship. Set boundaries. Be confident. Don’t compare yourself to others. And please remember to drink enough water.

At MyCoreJourney, we don’t believe young people necessarily need more treatment. We believe they need better tools for understanding themselves and navigating life. Who am I? What actually matters to me? What do I need from other people? What are my boundaries? Why do I keep ending up in the same situations? What do I want, when I strip away what everyone else expects from me?

These aren’t necessarily mental-health questions. They’re human questions. And strangely enough, we don’t teach many of them. We teach young people mathematics, history, languages and how to write an essay. But how do you recognise a relationship that is slowly making you smaller? How do you know when you’re living according to your own values rather than someone else’s? How do you make a difficult decision without asking twelve people and then doing none of what they suggested? Most people learn these things through experience. Usually after making a few spectacularly questionable decisions. Maybe we can give people better tools before they get there.

That’s the space MyCoreJourney is interested in: not replacing therapy or professional support, but helping people build the self-awareness, self-respect and practical understanding they need to navigate their own lives. Because if an entire generation is struggling, perhaps the answer isn’t only to teach young people how to cope better.
Perhaps we should also teach them how to understand themselves better.