6 Lessons I Learned in My Twenties

Over a year ago, I turned the big 3–0 in age. I’ve had plenty of laughs, an abundance of love, and definitely breakdowns galore. Most importantly though, I’ve had a ton of life lessons that I learned throughout my twenties that I couldn’t help but reflect on and share.

For an incredibly brief insight: My twenties consisted of studying abroad, finding a job three days before graduating from college, undergoing heavy anxiety and depression while feeling unfulfilled and lost with life, total financial distress, several more job changes to find my “dream career,” buying a house, getting married, freelancing, side hustles, family drama, friend drama, and boy can the list can keep going!

While it hasn’t been a “perfect” decade for me (what is perfect, anyways?), and I feel I’ve thrown myself into more than enough hardships, I honestly don’t regret the experiences. I get to keep learning from them to this day, and remind myself how far I’ve come.

From those experiences, I have 6 juicy lessons to share that I think are essential for other people in their twenties to learn. So buckle up and let’s get to them!

1. You don’t have to be everyone’s friend

You may feel like it’s best for everyone to like you and vice versa to make the world go round. But there’s an issue with people pleasing: it’s incredibly exhausting, and you also start to lose who you are at your core in the process. Trying to make everyone happy and/or being their friend leads to you saying and doing things you wouldn’t agree to. Over time, this ends up making you a robot that subconsciously says yes to everything and everyone all the time. Do yourself a favor: start saying no, reconnect with yourself, and focus on what you yourself want to do. If this causes tension or people break away from you, then odds are they weren’t going to be true connections to depend on anyways!

2. Age is only a number

This is a big one, and easily something I rant most about because of how society has drilled this concept for generations. Your age has nothing to do with your success, your quality of life, your progress, and ultimately what you can and can’t do. Just because you’re 25+ in age and don’t have a significant other, doesn’t mean you’re stuck as forever alone. Not having your career figured out by the time you graduate from college doesn’t mean you’re a lost cause. And just because you’re over 50, it doesn’t mean you can’t feel young and healthy. Age determining your standards and success is just a mindset story to break. Free yourself from what the numbers “say.” Age means nothing in life.

3. You don’t have to shape yourself to the rules and influence of others

Just because other people are doing certain things in a certain way, it doesn’t mean you have to do the same. Take starting a freelance business for example: you see everyone using a specific website builder for an online presence. You also see stories claiming that waking up at 4:30 am is the way to go for productivity. Now you believe you have to do all these same things to be successful like them. Don’t. Your own success depends on who you are and what aligns best with you. If that website builder costs too much, if your brain and body can’t function earlier than 8:30 am, that’s perfectly fine. Forcing yourself to be and do what doesn’t work for you is not the way to have “success" for yourself.

4. The standard milestones in life do not mean success

Speaking of success. Ever had someone tell you that making a certain amount of money at a job, getting married, or having kids is what makes life successful? This is what you get told the most in your twenties when trying to absorb information on how to be a “good adult.” Once again, it’s all about who you are and what you want. A man isn’t a failure for being single. A woman isn’t incapable for not having children. The number of zeros on your paycheck doesn’t determine your true worth. Not having a home doesn’t state you’re not moving up in life. These milestones are not a “one size fits all” for everyone’s lives. No one should feel pressured by completing them if they don’t resonate.

5. No, you don’t have to have it “figured out”

After quitting my first career shortly after college, I believed I had to figure out a new one and get it right this time. But the truth is you don’t have to have life figured out like that. To start, graduating at 22 is a very young age to have the next 50–60 years of life planned out. At that age, all you know is studying; nothing truly learned from experiences like love and balancing work with fun. People need time for those things and learn from them. Life is also a journey with many paths. Perhaps it becomes years of switching up various jobs to learn from and grow, and maybe that ends up becoming the fun part of working. That’s perfectly fine! Don’t make life a streamlined plan. It’s something to just live and enjoy.

6. Explore, learn, and create to discover yourself

I briefly mentioned in the last lesson that people need time to experience life and learn from it, especially those who have just graduated from school of any level and are starting on their own two feet. Living out in the world is how you start to perceive your own ideas and remove yourself from past influences like school and family; and that’s a vital process if you truly want to know who you are at the core. Knowing yourself is how you find out how to live in a way that makes you happy. So be loose with yourself and what you do to grow. If you want to randomly open a bakery one day, why not! Play, explore, and learn from what you experience to learn more about yourself. Truly knowing yourself is the biggest battle, but with the greatest reward.

The list can go on with what I’ve learned in my twenties. I actually had this originally as a list of 15 lessons instead of 6! But if I kept going, this would be a novel.

Nevertheless, if you are someone in their twenties (or any age!), I hope these lessons of my own are insightful. I believe someone’s twenties are a true decade of experience and growth; typically being the first number of years of living on your own and making a name and foundation for yourself. Many curiosities, questions, and obstacles may be present, but you certainly come out stronger in the end.

At least I did!