8 Things I Wish I Knew at 30.

I wasted the majority of my 30’s. This was partly due to a severe depression which I am now happy to say is behind me at the age of 41.

I wanted to share with you things I wish I knew at 30 so that you can get the most out of my “lost decade”.

1. 30–40 Is Your Payoff for 20–30.

Your 20’s are a fast-moving decade. You are trying to find your place in the world, deciding your career path, forming relationships along with inevitable heartache, and trying to garner independence and your own identity in an increasingly confusing and hostile world.

With pressure from all sides, I struggle to believe that your 20’s are the best time of your life.

By the time you reach 30, your life will have begun to take shape. Most likely, you are now established in some career or at least a stable job. You will have learnt from your relationship mistakes and may now be settling down.

Perhaps you have children and a home of your own.

As you plant the seeds for your future in your 20’s they begin to manifest in your 30’s. The payoff for your hard work begins to come to the surface, and you have something to continue building on as your life progresses.

2. Sustainable Fitness Habits.

As our bodies grow older, we get away with less. Our 20’s are our peak of physical fitness. Good habits that form can easily be carried into our 30’s, and the momentum helps.

It is in our 30’s that we cement sustainable fitness habits that we can take forward into the rest of our lives. The older we get, the more we ache and look for excuses to adopt the couch potato lifestyle. Exercise in our 30’s makes this much less likely.

3. Whatever Dreams You Have, Start Them Now.

Stop putting off the things you want to do with your life. The time to start will never be perfect, you will never feel quite ready, there will always be a risk, always “one more self-help book” to read and always an excuse for inaction.

The difference between the successful and the unsuccessful is the successful make a start. Most likely, you are afraid to take action because you are fearful of failure. Yet successful people fail all the time. They see it as a valuable learning experience.

Edison made 1000 unsuccessful attempts to create the light bulb. He phrased it this way:

“I didn’t fail 1,000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps.”

Some people are so scared of failure that they ridiculously write themselves off at 30 as “already too old”. Using excuses such as this, they abdicate responsibility because we cannot do anything about our age.

Stop lying to yourself. The best time to start is now.

4. Moderate Coffee, Chocolate and Alcohol.

As I said earlier, we can get away with much more in our 20’s than we can as we get older. Too much coffee, junk food and alcohol will catch up to us as we advance through our 30’s and make us fat and miserable. This decline will be accentuated if we have not established the sustainable fitness habits I described in point two.

In short, it is time to look after yourself better. Of course, you can still partake in some vices but do so sparingly.

One strategy to consider is to give up one bad habit every two years. Do not try and do everything at once, or you are setting yourself up for failure.

Using myself as an example, I resumed exercise 4–5 times per week, substituted water for Diet Coke, began tracking my calorie intake, and became cautious about any negative influences I allowed into my life.

I did all this by 40, but the earlier you make these changes, the better.

5. Buy a House.

Buying a house is becoming harder and harder in the modern world, but it is my opinion that buying a home is always better than renting.

The main reason is security. If you rent a house, you are usually vulnerable every six months if the landlord asks you to leave. You are not in control of your future, and you are throwing money down the drain with nothing to show for it in the long term.

You are paying someone else’s mortgage, leading to the “rental trap” where you remain unable to save up for your deposit on a house and thus throw even more money away, forever unable to escape the rental sector.

So aim to buy a house in your 30’s if not sooner. Put in the hard work, look for cheaper areas if necessary, get help from relatives. Do what you can to get on the housing ladder. My mortgage is less than half what I used to pay for rent.

6. Stop Blaming, Complaining and Making Excuses.

Every time you blame someone else for your situation in life, you give away your power. The only thing you can control in your life is yourself. The buck stops with you.

Yes, you may have had a tough life with difficult circumstances beyond your control. However, as the philosopher Epictetus said:

“It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.”

How you react to lousy luck determines whether you are a victim or a survivor. It is always better to be the survivor.

Use negative situations to forge your character. Be more robust, better, tougher. Anyone can do well when things are going their way. It takes a particular person to do well in the face of adversity.

7. Put Effort into True Friendships.

I believe this is especially important for men. As men become entrenched in their careers, they fall into a pattern of working many hours, going home and slouching in front of the TV before going to bed and repeating ad nauseum for the rest of their lives.

Before we know it, we realise our friends have stopped calling. We have our immediate family and no one else.

You will not have as many “friends” as you did in your 20’s when your responsibilities were less. However, your 30’s are a time for quality over quantity. Put effort into maintaining true friendships that could last a lifetime and avoid the traps of loneliness and inertia.

8. Practice Gratitude.

While deep in Depression, I felt like dying many times. Yet as I emerged, I began to see the world in a new way. I started to notice every little thing for which to be grateful such as the people that loved me, my physical health, my financial situation, my house, a nice meal, the ability to laugh.

Every day I finish slightly better than I was the day before. I find new things to be grateful for all the time.

So while it is true that life can be cruel and brutal, there is always beauty to be found if you are willing to look.

Enjoy being alive and practice gratitude every single day. Your blessings will become ever more apparent and life ever more joyous when you do.