Yesterday I got an email from a friend of mine, and he asked me this question: “When it comes to success in life, can you honestly say you’ve lived up to your potential?” As you read down the list of important life lessons I learned in my late 20s, you may be finding yourself nodding. These are all the harsh things that had happened to me in my life and I wish someone would have told me about it earlier. Hopefully, you can avoid repeating the same mistake as I did in my early 20s after reading this article.
1. It’s the execution that matters most.
I had big, big dreams when I was in my early 20s, like a lot of people do. I remember sitting in a room with my co-founders, and we were talking about ideas for our new company. We bounced around a bunch of different concepts, but I was the only one who was really into the idea of starting a new concept of augmented reality product.
Not only did my co-founders hate the idea, but they also didn’t think it was feasible, which made me feel like an idiot for having such a dumb idea in the first place. Naturally, I started to doubt myself to create something really worthwhile. I wish someone had told me then how important life lessons it is to just get out there and DO something. The truth is, there’s just no replacement for actually executing on an idea, even if you don’t necessarily believe in it yourself at first.
2. Learning to manage your expectation
Life really is all about managing your expectations. I mean, sure, that’s an important life lessons that we’ve all heard time and time again, but as you get older, that becomes more and more apparent. That’s why it’s so important to manage your expectations.
I remembered vividly when I was 22, I had a lot of exciting ideas about how my life was going to turn out. But things didn’t work out like how they would in the movies, and some parts of my life were completely different than I’d planned. But here’s what I finally realized: When you’re living your life, you don’t know what will happen next. The key is being okay with uncertainty—not knowing how things will turn out in the end (because we can’t know). All we can do is try our best at the moment and hope for the best later on. It’s okay if something doesn’t work out the way you hoped.
3. Don’t rely just on your 9-5 job! Create financial freedom through Passive Income
For most people, generating an income means going out into the world and getting a job. People spend their days at work—perhaps enjoying their job, perhaps not—and then go home and try to relax or do something fun. But for some people, that’s not the case: sometimes you need additional income just to get by, and you might be looking for a different way to provide that income. Often those who have a business on the side do so through passive income, which means they don’t have to be present to earn money—the business earns it while they’re away!
Passive income is where an individual derives his/her income from investments which require little time to manage
A survey participant
His/her lifestyle without doing much extra work.” If you’re thinking about earning passive income, there are a couple of ways to do it: owning your own business, starting your own online business, or investing in another company and getting paid through dividends.
Here are 8 Easy Ways to Make More Money On The Side in 2022
4. Don’t be afraid to ask for help
There’s a saying, “when we’re afraid to ask for help, we’re afraid to succeed”. I’m going to tell you exactly how asking for help can help you to become successful. DO NOT try to do everything by yourself! This is the biggest mistake any person on earth can make. They feel that they have to do everything on their own and not ask for help.
When you want to start something, it’s important to learn how to ask for help when you need it. You will be pleasantly surprised at how much people are willing to help if you just ask nicely! First, try asking your friends and family first, and if they aren’t able or willing to help. The next place I highly suggest you go would be online communities (like the Facebook community). Based on my experiences, the members of online communities tend to be very helpful!
5. Having a few close friends is better than having many friends
I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of this before, but I’ve found this to be true: No matter how successful you become, you will always want to be closer to your friends. Here’s the thing, the problem with having hundreds of friends is that you are acquaintances with everyone and you have no one to talk to about anything important life lessons. You’re not close enough to anyone to get real advice or commiserate about a loss. You only have a bunch of people who will say “That sucks” on Facebook when you post about your breakup. This happens because your brain can only handle so many relationships at once. Eventually, you will find yourself constantly cutting off more and more people as the years go by.
At some point, you will realize that over half the people in your life aren’t close enough for you to even consider them as “real friends”, but they’re still around enough that they’ll show up at a party if you invite them, or they’ll send you a Facebook message on your birthday. As it turned out, I realized I made too many superficial connections when I only needed a couple. To me personally, I wish I’d known that having 10 close friends was better than having 100 friends.
Conclusion
My biggest advice is to get started on the things you feel like you want to do in life. Don’t just talk about it, take action and make tangible outcomes towards what your desire looks like. The rest is up to you, but I guarantee that taking action will help you stay on track. Remember, “What gets done right now matters more than anything else”.
If there’s anything you’ve learned in your 20s, feel free to share it in the comment box below!