Hey there fellow Apprentices,
This week’s co-authored piece is written alongside Gaby Mendes, Founder of Talk Twenties, a media and events company helping you navigate the 4 pillars of your twenties: Finance & Money, Career & Business, Wellbeing & Relationships and Adventure & Culture.
In it we discuss how you can make the most of your twenties to set yourself up for a life aligned to who you are and what you enjoy doing. Out are the external measures of a successful life and in are the internal motivations that we believe come to define the decade of experimentation ahead of you.
Stepping Into Adult Life
Your twenties are your first step into adult life.
They’re when you leave the education, structure and clear direction of your teens behind and have to figure out life’s greatest challenges all by yourself.
No longer is there teacher to shout at you. Or a parent to lecture you. You’re thrown into the sea of infinite opportunity only to find treading water, let alone swimming is so much harder than it looks.
To keep your head above water you have to face the reality that paying for bills you don’t see, project managing a life of relationships and making the time for yourself along the way is exhausting.
But, fear not.
The goal of your twenties is not to get it right the first time.
This decade is all about understanding yourself. Figuring out your likes, dislikes, passions, ambitions, failures and everything you love in the world.
For this is your workshop phase where you set the table for the feast you’ll be enjoying in your 30s. The struggle you face is the process. It’s discomfort is here to teach you everything about yourself so that you can set boundaries, connect with the right people and say “yes” to what truly matters in your life.
Learning About Ourselves
The only way you fail these years is if you shy away from the discomfort required to explore who you really are. It’s in our authentic gut feeling that we’ll hear the alarm bells of change ringing loudly.
Our task is to listen to the signs that we’re not aligned and be brave enough to take the action to resolve the situation that confronts us.
Whether it’s ending a relationship that isn’t working, moving out of a city that no longer vibes with us or, in Gaby’s case, leaving the world of teaching that was only making her miserable to explore what truly interested her, we need to trust that we’ll figure things out.
The 3 key steps we must learn about ourselves are:
Recognising when our intuition is speaking to us.
Giving it the time for the action to become clear.
Being brave enough to implement the change.
In the beginning it’s our friends who give us the space to speak our minds that will show us our reflection in the mirror of change. But, over time we must learn to mentor ourselves. To regulate our own emotions through difficult moments, be kind to the human inside of us and make decisions on own two feet.
For it’s in this frequent reflection through tools such as journaling, voice noting and goal setting that we clarify the words of our sub conscious mind and all it’s many needs it has for us to be happy.
Experiment & Optimise
Any decisions we find don’t need to be enacted immediately.
Instead of seeking major life changes we should look to experiment and optimise instead. To dip our toes in the water of alternatives, discover what we like and only then decide to dive in.
Meaning that rather than taking full 180s when things aren’t working out run small tests to explore the alternatives instead. Volunteer on weekends. Join new communities. Interview a role model. Not only will this build confidence in your decisions, it will also equip you with the experience to take the leap more easily.
If we manage to do all this (and it is a lot) we can approach our 30s with an optimism for the future and a resilience to withstand even the most challenging of circumstances that lie ahead. For it’s in setting the table in our twenties that we get to enjoy the feast of our thirties.
But, that’s only our perspective. What’s yours? How would you define the path that faces you in your twenties?