Everything I Learned in My 20s (Part 2)
I'm about to turn 30, so here's everything that I learned in my 20s that I'm taking into the next decade of my life.
If you missed the first part of this little double edition of my blog — that’s okay! You can read it here to catch up. But don’t worry if you can’t be bothered and just want to start here, these are definitely in no particular order.
The gist of these blog posts are to dump down my key learnings from my 20s, and the lessons that I will take in my 30s and (possibly) beyond, unless in my 30s I learn that all of this is bullshit and have to start again from scratch. Very possible 🤷♂️
Soooo without further ado, here are the rest of my Top 10 learnings from my 20s. Enjoy! (Or don’t, I’m not your boss.)
#6 - If you’re depressed, it’s your brain telling you that you need to change stuff.
I understand that this one is a little bit more nuanced, and mental health is a tricky subject.
But I maintain that there is some accuracy behind what I’m about to say.
If you feel depressed every day, it’s your brain trying to tell you that you’re doing life wrong.
Of course, there are natural periods of life where you may enter a depressive state such as grief, break ups and more.
But in my early 20s, I was constantly depressed. I was unmotivated and felt like I had no purpose or direction in life. I constantly felt like a failure but I took no action to change my situation.
I didn’t exercise, I didn’t eat well, I was doing a bunch of stuff I didn’t want to do and I was angry. I didn’t go to therapy, I didn’t read books or try to improve my life in any way. I often felt like I didn’t even want to exist.
At 30, I make sure the first thing I do every morning is go for a walk for at least 45 minutes. I try to eat as well as possible (I’m honestly still not great at this), I block my time out during the day and put my phone away before I go to sleep — only reading books until I get too tired to continue.
This really links in with #5, but think about your day to day habits and how they might contribute to your overall mental wellbeing.
#7 - People don’t perceive you the way that you perceive yourself.
In my mid 20s, I had a breakdown in my mental health that was really serious. I have no shame in admitting this, but it reached a point in which I needed to call a crisis line for help.
I didn’t realise how warped and convoluted a lot of my thoughts had become, and at that point I didn’t have the tools to deal with those thoughts.
It was a build up of years and years of self-loathing, anxiety and anger bubbling away within me left unspoken and it is, to this day, the worst I’d ever felt.
I have no idea of the identity of the man on the other end of the phone that day, but he said something to me that I will never forget and has helped me monumentally in my life. After I explained to him how I was feeling and how in my head I had become about other people’s perceptions of me, he said this simple sentence:
People don’t perceive you the way that you perceive yourself.
It completely turned around my thinking and helped me understand that the thoughts in my head were just thoughts. Thoughts aren’t inherently true, and our brains constantly produce thoughts. The way that I viewed myself was completely different to the way other people perceived me.
While other people might view me as kind, funny, average or ‘normal,’ I might perceive myself as terrible, bad and awful. It doesn’t add up. The quicker you can tame the voice in your head that tells you those things, the better.
#8 - No one will ever vouch for you as much as you vouch for yourself.
When you’re in your early-mid 20s and you enter the workforce for the first time, you might feel like you’ve entered a magical place. This is particularly true in my work — I worked for a media organisation I’d only ever dreamed of working for.
At this stage, you’ll probably drink the kool-aid and believe that everyone here has your back. The thing is, they don’t. Well, not really, at least.
At the end of the day, my biggest regret of my career in my 20s is that I didn’t take many risks. I stayed very safe in a set up that I thought would really reward me one day… but didn’t.
Over the years, a bunch of attractive job offers came up from competing businesses, but I was loyal to a business that I thought would eventually repay me.
Once you reach your late-20s, it’s time for you to vouch for yourself and stand up for what you believe is fair. You might not get the outcome you want, and often I didn’t, but I felt better about myself that I vouched for myself and my value.
Nobody — and I repeat — nobody — will vouch for you the same way you vouch for yourself. Yes, there will be lots of wonderful people who support you along your career. Many of them will be generous with their time and what they offer you.
But ultimately, you are on your own.
#9 - Everyone is equally as insecure as you, they just have different ways of hiding it.
Similar to #7, I used to think that literally everyone else had figured out exactly what they wanted to do, had a complete plan for their life and didn’t ever feel insecure.
I assumed that everyone else was completely confident and I was the only person walking around with no idea what they were doing. I thought I was the only person who had severe body image issues and felt ugly.
Over time, when I started opening up more about how I felt, I realised that almost everyone I encountered had similar stories in their heads.
The deeper that I dove with friends, the more I realised they also felt like the were scrambling and just making everything up as they went along. I even started to realise that more experienced people that I worked with and older people in my life also had insecurities.
The truth is, everybody is insecure, and everybody has self-doubts that live with them, the same way your insecurities and self-doubts live within you. Use it as a way to connect with people and share your experiences to grow closer.
#10 - Social media is almost certainly the main thing that is fucking up your life.
Humans did not evolve to see what everybody they’ve ever met (or not met) is doing right at this very moment.
It is definitely making you depressed, jealous and it’s definitely warping your brain’s chemistry.
Delete social media. Remove it from your phone. If you have to, check it once a day on your web browser.
Stop using TikTok. It is a buffet style all-you-can-watch binge fest. You know the thing about buffets?
The variety is great, but the food is always average.
Spend time every day with zero external input. Just sit alone with your thoughts.
Ring your friends on the phone if you can’t see them in person.
You are going to waste literally months of your life scrolling pointless brain rotting content if you keep doing this.
You are training your brain to constantly seek immediately pleasure and dopamine instead of earning it through hard work and long time reward.
Ask yourself: do you want to be 50 years old and scrolling TikTok, Instagram or Facebook before bed?
So there you have it! 10 things I learned in my 20s that I’m taking with me into my 30s. Again, I don’t claim to be an expert in any of this, you can take or leave what you want. If any of this helps you — great. If it doesn’t — also great. I have a few more posts before the end of the year, but in 2025 I’ll be here weekly — writing, reflecting and pondering, I guess! Thanks!
Hey! Thanks so much for reading my blog. I’m all over the internet doing dumb stuff that I think is cool. Recently, I did a video over on YouTube about 30 years of PlayStation, and my memories of the console over the years. Have a watch!