Top Life Lessons for People in their 20s

I’m in my 30s where I’m a late blooming Millennial and if I could give my younger self advice it would sound a bit like this article. I’m usually the last person to give advice, as I’ve explored a highly eccentric path dotted with failures, missed opportunities and a below average ability to envision my ideal future and goal accomplishments.

That being said, I do like to flirt with self-growth and I care abundantly about self-improvement in general for myself and of my friends and family members. While we create our own meaning, to learn from our experiences is essential to have a fruitful life that properly finds not just well-being but takes appropriate risks. So let’s do this:

Learn to say ‘no’ with confidence.

To get anywhere in life we have to say ‘yes’ and ‘no’ appropriately to our environment, people, jobs, situations and our own internal desires and ambitions. There’s nothing really as important as saying no and being able to discern what’s against our psyche, goals and standards of moral conduct. Leaning to say ‘no’ is really the path to freedom.

We all need to carve out our own paths in life, and the ability to say no and please our own vision of our future has to be a skill we learn early in life, to truly thrive for decades to come.

It gets harder to make friends, not easier.

I cannot emphasize this enough, people in their 20s rarely understand how their friendship networks, communities and social reality will be like in their 30s and 40s. It’s awfully different, like another dimension different.

As we become mobile for our jobs, saying goodbye to friends and communities is part of life. However the ability to renew our networks and find new partners and friends becomes MUCH more difficult over time for any number of reasons. Treasure your friends, they are an essential element to your well-being. They are also a dwindling resource in proportion to how we age. A ruthless truth of the world you may not have realized yet.

‘Forgive yourself.’ Forgive the world.

Life is about experience and growing up, that process can take longer than you might imagine. You may do things you will come to regret, but the skill in letting it go and forgiving yourself becomes essential. In part also because memory can distort reality and memories aren't accurate depictions of objective events, but rather psycho-social reactions. Memories can foster cognitive dissonance that can lead to being our own worst enemy. Don’t even go there! Resist the urge to bottle up trauma as if you had PTSD for every little mistake you’ve made or any little injustice you’ve suffered — trust me, it’s not worth it for your health in the long-run.

Moderate mobile consumption to improve your Sleep.

We are addicted to our mobile computers and chances are it’s screwing with your sleep. That’s not natural and you’ll have plenty of time to sleep when you are dead, but adequate sleep is increasingly being recognized as a key component of a healthy lifestyle.

If you violate your sleep cycle you risk violating the natural order of your brain. Maintain healthy sleep and wake routines if you want to avoid cancer and other things later in life, if you want to be protected from mental health battlegrounds and if you want your relationships to go more smoothly! It’s that simple, so minimize your mobile consumption and get adequate sleep.

‘Take risks.’

You may have a natural predisposition to take risks and calculate new projects that could further your growth and goals. If you are — embrace it. If you aren’t, learn to take baby steps to try new things, new experiences so as to expand your frame of reference. This will give you confidence in everything else you do! Experience is the basis of learning, so if you fail to take risks you end up limiting your life, your social opportunities, your earning and income potential and incredibly — maybe miss the reason you are on Earth.

Stay curious, try new things and push your boundaries if you care about your future.

‘Success is not just about working hard, but about being Creative.’

Success means different things to different people. Finding your own brand of success means being creative. There’s no simpler way to put it. Customizing your own success is the essential quality to living an authentic and full life.

Working hard certainly helps, but keeping an open mind and determining opportunities is also very important to choose the right projects, thriving in your career and obtaining the life that you deserve. Being creative means not just doing the right things, but learning how to enjoy the process and finding the right work-life balance along the way.

It takes courage and creativity to tread the unbeaten path, don’t be afraid to unlock your creative self once in a while.

‘Turn your weaknesses into strengths.’

Your weaknesses and vulnerabilities point to your gifts. How can it be? The beauty of life is relishing the ups and the downs. The downs turn into life lessons that change us on a fundamental soul-shifting level. A break-up, a job change, a move, a health scare, these are epic opportunities for us to re-calibrate who we want to be and how we want to live.

We all grow up with weaknesses sometimes beyond our control. They could be genetic, or circumstantial, or due to our family or environment. But how do you confront your fate and turn your disadvantage into a blessing? Do that and you’ll be in good stead for the rest of your life. It’s stupidly simple, but part of this is just having a positive attitude.

‘Learn to accept and love yourself first.’

It can take years to do this with holistic integrity and humble compassion. How to be our own best friend? Would’t that skill make life so much easier? How to live in our own skin? The 20s can be a volatile time in relationship to our own self, this in part because our brain is still changing and adapting to life’s major shifts.

Whatever the social grooming of the universe, no matter how old we are, we must learn to thrive in accepting and loving ourselves first.

If we do this, everything else becomes simpler. Everything else becomes more intimate and passionate. Try it, you might surprise yourself.