20 mistakes you must avoid in your 20s
Man, I wish I had a list like this in my 20s.
Hardship would have been avoided.
Here’s what I’d tell myself are the mistakes to avoid, if I could speak to my younger self:
1. Worry about what you ‘should’ be doing.
Some people are lucky and fall into the ideal career early. Most do not, and that’s ok.
Spend less time concerned about what you should be doing, and instead experiment as much as you can.
Act before overthinking everything.
Now is the time to test the waters and see where your strengths lie.
2. Not building life-long connections.
This is different to your TikTok or Instagram following. I’m talking about developing your Rolodex network.
Tomorrow’s dream future clients and employers are met in-person or online today. You want to avoid joining the ‘resume-queue’ for creating work.
Standing out and reaching out directly to job-givers via your network is the remedy for this.
Start getting into the habit of connecting with interesting people early.
3. Ignoring your inclinations.
Stop sitting on the sofa watching Netflix all day.
This is your avoidance manifesting. Do what excites you and comes from a place inside you that can’t be explained.
Follow your insights about ‘how cool it would be to do this.’ Maybe you had this thought that learning woodwork would be cool. Or creating an app, or learning the bassoon.
Follow your weird. Pursue these little tickles of insight — this is your genius calling.
4. Investing too deeply into something you will later regret.
Be extremely careful about taking on big life commitments — like marriage, mortgages, children, and even long-term relationships — that can imprison you for decades if you choose poorly.
Be aware and give big life decisions a lot of thought before jumping in.
Freedom and long-term happiness must be your priority.
5. Get into poor physical exercise habits.
It’s easy to look around you and follow the majority — sedentary, and unhealthy.
But everything improves when you regularly exercise. It’s foundational, and the cheat code to an energised life.
6. Not adequately setting yourself up for location independence.
We’re moving into a time where being tied to any geography will bring you potential hardship down the line.
We have flexibility if we structure our lives that way.
You don’t want to find yourself in an unstable country when you could have had the option to be free and move.
7. Not learning about personal finance and investing.
When you ask most people of any age what their greatest stresses are, money is always up top.
Get ahead by learning what to do and avoid when it comes to money.
Managing your money well from a younger age will put you at a tremendous advantage.
8. Watching porn.
Avoid this stuff like the most viral disease.
Getting into the habit of this high-stimulation substance will lead to all kinds of problems like broken relationships, erectile dysfunction, depression, anxiety, and a general numbness to life.
Get off it now.
When you do, life takes on a new colour.
9. Getting into poor thought habits.
I would have avoided struggle if I’d understood how to think in a way that kept me at peace most of the time.
Most of us have poor thought habits. We use worry as a terrible ‘life management strategy.’
We buy into the ‘seriousness’ of our thoughts, when in reality we need to let go.
Stressful thoughts will weaken you.
10. Taking on debt.
Debt must be avoided unless you are wise with it and use ‘good’ debt to build your business.
Debt imprisons you financially and creates continual stress that will limit you creatively.
If you have debt, you want to prioritise working it off asap.
11. Not developing a consistent writing habit.
Writing consistently (including journaling) was one of the best habits I developed in my twenties.
I developed my confidence and brought me opportunities like speaking around the world, a growing audience, books and courses I could sell, and amazing clients.
12. Not handling social anxiety.
If you get overly fearful around people, you want to use your twenties to get a handle on this.
Expose yourself to what you fear and practice to diminish the fear.
It isn’t about ‘personality’ — and no one is born with it — it’s about practice.
13. Not developing a portfolio of creative assets.
Focus less on ‘career,’ and more on building assets.
Assets are things that hold value, bring you stability, create leverage, and can bring in cash-flow.
Things like a design skill, books, courses, public speaking experience, a newsletter, YouTube videos.
All this is monetizable value that will bring people to you and will create long-term stability.
14. Spending time with losers.
Avoid people who drain your energy and make you feel worse in their presence.
It’s not worth it when there are so many fascinating and enriching people out there who can lift you up.
15. Not setting aside any money to invest.
I wish I’d started prioritising investing sooner.
Compounding is a thing, and will work for you in incredible ways over time.
You could have your finances sorted in your thirties by learning and committing to investing young.
16. Not getting good at at least one high-income skill.
Being self-taught in design in my twenties and building a global business from scratch was one of the best things I did.
I now have a skill I can use to pay the bills whenever I choose.
It also gave me experience in creating clients, running a business and speaking with people.
17. Investing too much into formal education.
I had fun at university, but my time there was not required.
I studied both Geography and then later Real Estate. Some professions require a degree.
Most do not, and most people waste tremendous resources at colleges, when they could have developed their own skills with the help of the Internet.
My entire career is based on free learning from the net.
18. Trying to impress family and friends.
Most people make decisions because they want to make other people happy, at the expense of their own happiness.
This is a mistake.
Be selfish with the decisions you make, because if you are unhappy, the world loses.
You must prioritise yourself.
19. Not traveling.
Though I wouldn’t want you to create a situation for yourself where you are unable to travel later in life, you want to take advantage of your youth for travel.
This especially applies to ‘rougher’ forms of travel like backpacking.
Your twenties are a superb time to experience different cultures and harden yourself to the enlivening challenges that travel can bring.
20. Neglecting your spiritual growth.
The sooner you get a sense for the spiritual, the more resilient you will be.
Mental strength for me is not possible without an understanding of consciousness and our connectedness to all things.
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