How To Make Your 20’s Count (10 Actions to Start Today)

As I’ve entered my late twenties, I’ve started to do a lot of self-reflection. I constantly ask myself and evaluate how I spend my time. Not because I am caught up in the past but because the only way forward is to learn from those experiences.

I’m going to share ten (10) actions you can take today to build a strong foundation and to help push you towards a more efficient and successful defining decade.

1. Operate Like A Business

This lesson, tip, action whatever you want to call it is probably the most important of the bunch. The reason why I’m saying this is because if you look at yourself as a business entity and operate as such, you will inherently put yourself in a place to create opportunities to have success.

Businesses must set goals for themselves. They must look at past failures and successes to formulate new strategies heading into the future. You must have an understanding of financial literacy. Culture is important.

A business owner must have a pulse across every layer of the organization. How does an owner do this at scale? They build processes and touch points across the company. You have to do the same with yourself. Dig into your self-awareness, how you are feeling, what you’re working towards, and your proficiencies and deficiencies. Take time to intentionally think, evaluate, and build strategies and I promise you, you’ll catapult yourself to new heights.

2. Hustle

I know, I know… some people are going to hate me for this one, BUT I don’t care. To be honest, you’re not the people I want to surround myself with if you’re not willing to put in the work and not willing to be obsessed with accomplishing your purpose. I understand why hustle culture has a bad connotation to it, however, the reality is that if you want to take strides in your life, you have to work relentlessly.

You must be disciplined in your actions and through those actions you will build credibility with yourself so that you can achieve what others may deem impossible.

3. Take Care of Yourself

Back to the more emotionally intelligent, human aspect of my mental makeup. Yes, it’s crucial to put in the work and to hustle your ass off, but through that work take care of yourself both mentally and physically.

What do I mean by this?

Eat healthy, exercise, practice mindfulness, and go to the doctor.

When you’re obsessed with achieving your goals, I am a culprit of this, especially in my early twenties. It is very easy to let the rest of your life suffer for the betterment of that one goal. What I have realized as of late, if you don’t maintain a high standard across each pillar of your life, you may be hindering your full potential and overall happiness.

4. Do What Feeds You Energy

Energy breeds energy. I can’t emphasize this enough. Do what brings you the most joy and what provides you the most happiness.

It’s human nature for us to get comfortable in our routines. We have a job that we sorta like, or we are in a relationship that is okay, or we live in a city that is fine. Take control of your life. You are the main character and if there is something you’re doing that is not feeding your energy, I encourage you to pivot and move towards something that does. It may be uncomfortable at first, but that’s just a sign of growth.

5. Build Daily Stacks

Stack is my fancy word for routine. I touched on this in a previous article, Thrive in Your 20’s with this Morning Stack (Routine).

Building habits and stacks will help you stay on track towards what you are chasing after. I’m not arrogant enough to say that you won’t have bad days, or moments in which you want to press the snooze button or grab a slice of pizza over eating healthy, BUT If you build specific stacks in your day/week, it’ll be much easier to stay on track.

I break my day into three different stacks: Morning Stack, Work Stack, and Late Night Stack. With each stack comes different goals for what I’m prioritizing at the time. I do dive deeper into this in an article that I wrote about building habits. CLICK HERE

6. Drop Your Ego

Easier said than done, but I encourage you all to take my advice. Drop your ego. In my opinion, ego is public enemy number one. I believe that if you allow it to, your ego will cloud judgment and more likely than not will lead individuals to make irrational decisions.

With that said, I’m not at all saying don’t have conviction in what you believe. By all means, have confidence in yourself, and believe your truth. Have constructive conversations about your beliefs and viewpoints but don’t let your ego get in the way of learning and having an open mind toward others’ perspectives.

7. Practice Gratitude

Life is by no means perfect. People are going through mental strains, and dealing with illness, maybe you just got laid off at work, but if you are alive and kicking I promise you that there is so much to be grateful for.

I started journaling in the 5-minute gratitude journal and after 120+ days of doing my mindset has evolved. Life is moving so fast that I do believe it is easy to take what we have for granted. Where I have seen the most growth with gratitude is that I no longer see myself as a victim. I feel as if I have more control of my life. I have a stronger sense of accountability and because I feel as if I’m in the driver’s seat when life throws an unexpected curveball, I know that I can handle it and even have a sense of graciousness towards the situation.

8. Appreciate Failure

Failure is a MUST. Don’t try to avoid it. Embrace it and appreciate it for all that it is.

Failure is a conduit to growth. If you are not failing you are not aiming high enough. It can be an uncomfortable feeling but as you continue to get reps you’ll realize that failing is amazing as long as you don’t sulk in it. If you are learning from your failures then you are on your way to success and when you finally have some success, you’ll feel that much more fulfilled.

9. Serve Others

I’ve talked about him in previous articles but I believe that serving others is the most gratifying feeling in the world. You can build success for yourself. That has its perks, don’t get me wrong. But if you can pass knowledge, lift someone so they can build themselves and/or their families a better life. That’s what life is all about.

10. Learn To Love

Learn to love yourself and to love others.

I feel like when you grow up you watch movies and television shows, and love is depicted as a relatively easy concept to obtain and give. However, that is not the case. Relationships with yourself and with others are hard. Regardless of where that relationship lives on the spectrum.

I can even make an argument that it’s harder to love yourself. When I do some dumb shit, I’m much harder on myself than I am on someone else. I can empathize with someone else making a mistake, and I don’t always have the same empathy for myself. With time, I’ve gotten better with that. My growth in this area comes with my acceptance and appreciation of failure, but I still have those “what the f*ck moments.”.

It takes a tremendous amount of work to build and maintain relationships. If you truly cherish a relationship, as we experience our evolutions as well as others, be present within the journey and show support in the direction they are trying to go.