1. Relationships Require Work
In your twenties, you’re meeting a lot of people from various stages in your life. These are friends from college, friends from your first job (and every job afterwards), you’re meeting people from dates, you’re meeting friends of friends. All the while, you’re trying to navigate your relationship with yourself and your own priorities.
As we go through different chapters in our lives, we may notice friendships and relationships begin to fizzle out. But at the same time, we may be embracing newer friendships and deepening other relationships.
We currently live in a modern world where social media has made it easier than ever to stay connected with our friends and family. However, social media has also contributed to the decline of face-to-face interaction and can lead to feelings of loneliness.
What I’ve learned in my twenties is that relationships require intentional work and great relationships are hard to come by and should be cherished deeply.
Ways to strengthen the relationships in your life include:
- Reaching out to friends and family to catch up over a meal, IRL (in real life). It’s not easy to know what someone is going through and through quality time, it provides the space for a stronger connection.
- Supporting each other through difficult times by offering words of encouragement or being there to listen
- Celebrating each other’s dreams, successes, and achievements
2. You & People Around You Will Change, and That’s Okay
Change is an inevitable part of life and embracing change has helped me navigate my twenties – learning to go with the flow, if you will. The twenties-era had no shortage of change, especially with the pandemic and everything that domino-effected afterwards. I recognize that although the pandemic changed all of our lives, that it impacted everyone in many different ways.
Overall, I’ve learned that it’s important to embrace the change in our lives because not only is it inevitable but:
- Change can make us stronger – dealing w/ change and challenges develops resilience and we learn that we are capable of more than we think
- Change can help us connect with others – it brings us closer to others who are going through similar experiences and appreciate the stories that we have in common
- Change can make life more interesting – it keeps things fresh and may lead to opportunities to grow and learn
If we can open ourselves up to change, we can experience growth, opportunity, and a deeper appreciation for life. Which brings me to the next lesson I learned …
3. Say Yes to Opportunity
Someone I look up to at work once told me that Saying Yes to Opportunity is one of her guiding lights and since then it’s always stuck with me, too. Say Yes to Opportunity, even if it scares you, because that just means that these opportunities have the potential to impact your life profoundly. And it’s better to say yes and go for it, than regret never taking that chance.
When I think about the career moves I’ve made in my twenties, they were all presented to me as opportunities where I can the option to accept or pass on. And every time, I was nervous mainly because I doubted myself. But in the end, the present-me is very proud of the past-me for saying yes to those opportunities.
As I enter the thirties, I’m going to think about how in addition to saying ‘Yes’ to opportunities, how can I create opportunities for myself as well as for others.
4. Spend Within Your Means
My mom has always done a great job at teaching me the importance of being smart with my spending. I believe a lot of it stems from us growing up in a low-income household where we learned to how to make a dollar stretch and find enjoyment in the simple things. But like I shared in my previous post, How My Twenties Went, once I started getting that consistent paycheck in my early twenties, ya girl went through some lifestyle inflation.
With finances, what I’ve learned in my twenties-era is that there will always be something more expensive that you will want to buy and it’s important to know when to stop moving the goalpost. Everyone’s beliefs with money is going to be different, so I’ve learned that it’s important to educate myself on financial literacy and learn as much as possible so that I can build my own viewpoints on how to best manage my wealth given my own personal upbringing, money behaviors, and circumstances.
A few of my favorite books are I Will Teach You to Be Rich, The Psychology of Money, and the classic Rich Dad Poor Dad. I also follow Vivian @YourRichBFF and Berna @HeyBerna, both of which are intelligent women who teach financial literacy to people who might not have had such resources when they were raised, often either low-income families and/or people of color.
My personal guideposts are to (1) pay off the bills monthly (2) maximize retirement account and investments (401k, RothIRA) (3) have a rainy day savings in a high yield savings account (I use Marcus) (4) spend money to save time and improve health + wellness (5) and it’s okay to splurge once on a while but not on everything.
This area will continue to be a journey for me as situations change (ie: cost of living, growing a family, etc) but I’m grateful to have taken the time to learn about financial health in my twenties.
5. You Stop Learning Once You Think You Know Everything
The twenties are pretty humbling when it comes to mindset, there were phases in my life where I thought I knew everything there was to know, but as I got older I realized that there’s SO SO SOOOooo much to learn. That’s one of the inspirations for me creating this blog, so that I can get curious and learn from others, and then write my thoughts down to summarize and solidify.
It’s been a few years since graduating university and I’m excited to really embrace that student mindset again. To learn from friends, to learn from experts, to learn from social media and the internet.
Being curious and being open to learn has opened up many opportunities for me and I’m so excited to see more of what’s to come.
Cheers!
Love, Shayna
