You are not too young or too old. Be Bold.
When you were in your teenage years, you probably relied a lot on adults who were by your side. You had nothing — No income, higher education, job or a house. Due to your lack of experience and knowledge, you had to seek the help of adults. From financial decisions to education pathways, you had to seek their permission and advice before you made a decision.
By the time you are about 20, you no longer have to beg your parents that you would do well on a test before they allow you to buy you a phone or game you have been wanting for so long. You no longer have to seek your parent’s approval before you do anything. Being in your 20s is the beginning of adulthood. Think of it again, isn’t it exciting? Aren’t you excited to come out of your shelter to experiment, do crazy (of course safe and law-abiding) things and live your dreams? When you are in your 20s, people would respect you for being bold. They see you at a ripe mature age to make bigger decisions. Furthermore, they do not regard you as too young that they would brush you off as an immature child.
When we all turn older, in our ripe working adult age or in our retirement, we might have too little to lose or too many responsibilities under our shoulders to risk losing anything. It is when you have a family under your care, having bills and mortgages to pay, having to think about insurance, your kids’ college tuition fees, retirement plans and many more. When you are older, you are less likely to take risks. In investing, people of younger age are said to have a bigger stomach for risks due to the longer time they have left in the working world to continue saving up. But for people of an older age, they are advised to invest safely with low risks(and thus less returns). Age is a subjective thing definitely, to some, being in their 30s is already considered ‘old’ but I doubt barely a handful of people would consider people in their 20s to be ‘old’.
Be creative and bold. Travel and experience the world, be it solo travel or group travel. Get out of your room, unglue your eyes from the screen and try new hobbies or take up new skills. You really never know where the skills will bring you in the future.
Best time to take risks: JUST DO IT!
Being in your 20s is at that age when you are allowed to do crazy things no one would judge you. You have not much to lose. Even if you think you may lose a lot, you still have a long road ahead of you to learn from your mistake and recover from the losses. You are still youthful to think of crazy ideas, calling your friends to join you and taking action.
What could you lose? Your image? Some money? Firstly, don’t think about what others would think of you before even doing anything. You will never know what exactly people think. You’ll actually be surprised by how open, kind and helpful people can be once you show your work and do the things you enjoy. People will naturally be drawn in and you’ll build your own loyal followers. So just do it. You can do things which you believe others will like, but you might be greatly disappointed that they may not like it as much as you thought they would. On the other hand, you can do the things you have always wanted to do, out of pure personal enjoyment. Even if others do not like it, you still love doing it. I’m sure eventually over time, the more persistent you do it, you are sure to find an audience who would appreciate your work, contribute to it and support you. That’s the beauty of a niche environment, it starts small but able to grow and be a really strong community.
Just remember to be physically safe. Don’t go overboard by jumping cliffs and risking your life and you’ll be fine. When you plan to solo travel and have no prior experience doing it, start small. Visit countries that are safe, where the people there speak your language or vice versa.
You can do a simple risk assessment before attempting to do anything. It will be helpful to rate how valid your fears are. It is to see whether you are hesitant to do something just because you are scared to come out of your comfort zone or that doing that particular thing might actually bring permanent harm to yourself or the people around you. Have a scale of 1 to 5. Think of the best and worst case scenario that can happen and give a rating to each of the scenarios. For your best case scenario, give a 5 if you think it will bring permanent positive life changes. Such as increasing your income to be financially independent, gaining survival skills that will help you to live independently in a foreign country or gaining public speaking skills which would greatly improve your confidence and be greatly helpful in any scenario. Give a 1 if you think it only brings temporary benefits such as feeling satisfied for a few minutes that you got someone you dislike in trouble but feeling guilty afterwards as it contradicts your personal values. For your worst case scenario, give a 5 if you think it could bring temporary damage which you can recover from. It could be losing your job but being able to quickly find another job that pays the same or even more. Give a 1 if you think it could bring permanent and huge damage which you cannot recover from. Such as the possibility of losing an arm, a leg, or your loved ones. Go on and take action if you gave a high risk assessment score to both the best and worst case scenarios. Remember, to always do things with a positive intent, never a sinister one.
The risk assessment scale would help boost your confidence that it is alright to take some risks. You would be able to understand your fears better.
Being in your 20s is the best time to take risks because you are still learning the waves of life. When you make mistakes, people will forgive you. When you succeed, people will admire you. People will respect you for taking risks, because when they were your age, they were probably afraid to take risks, thinking that they had too little to lose them all at once. However, what they do not see is the long road ahead of a person who is in his 20s to learn and recover from his mistakes.
Mistakes are forgivable, if not respectable.
Most people would treat you as if you are still growing up and learning the ways of adulting. They would emphasise with you for the mistakes you make, because they probably remembered how lost they felt at your age. When you are in your 20s, when you just graduated college and started on your first proper full time job. It is probably your first few months or years of working. Being inexperienced, you would definitely make mistakes. What matters most is how you admit your mistakes, learn from them and solve the problem. Not what the mistake is. So what if you made the mistake? Take responsibility, seek solutions and take action. People would most likely forget your mistake but remember how you were so brave to come to terms with the situation and creatively solve the problem. It is truly the best time to make mistakes, that’s how you would gain experiences and learn. We really learn the most from making mistakes and failing but the most important thing is standing up stronger and smarter.
One way to get over your fear of making mistakes is actually taking action. Taking action increases the number of times you make mistakes. The more mistakes you make, the more you learn. With greater knowledge, you will be more confident.
If you realise, when you were young and learning to walk, the more you fell the faster you learned to walk. You fell the first time because you thought you should walk with your right foot forward for 2 steps and left foot forward for another 2 steps. Second fall was because your right foot was lifted too high and was hooked onto our left leg. Third fall was due to the same mistake made as the second fall. Fourth fall was due to the same mistake as the first fall. However, the more you fell, the more the lessons learnt from the falls were ingrained in you. You gradually learnt to not make a similar mistake again. The same can be applied to your daily lives. Thus, you need to take more action and not be afraid to make mistakes (just like how you were not afraid to fall). This will in turn increase your chances of making mistakes. The more mistakes we make, the better we are able to see the different and similar variations to a mistake, and learn from them. It is alright to make similar (not the same) mistakes. In fact, the more similar mistakes we make, the better we will remember. Just do not overdo it with the mistake and repeatedly make the same mistake, especially if it is the exact same mistake. Be kind to yourself when you make a mistake. As long as it is a genuine one, admit it, learn and move on.
We remember best when something is memorable. We have a more vivid memory of something when it is memorable or unique. Memorable does not necessarily mean it has to be pleasant. It can be emotionally memorable — moving, upsetting, worrying or regretful. It can be socially memorable — having the responsibility for a group of people. Therefore, to allow yourself to learn from a mistake, you have to make it memorable — solve the problem caused by the mistake in a unique way.
You are ambitious. Let your creativity flow.
Being in your 20s is the time of your life when you are emerging from your shelter and moving on to the next phase of your life. And that phase of life is one that is very exciting. It is when you start to think a lot about your future plans and actually try to take action. When you are this young and have yet to experience many life failures, you would be more encouraged to take on something bold and novel to you. You may want to start a home-based baking business, expand your freelancing business, learn new skills and share your work with the world.
Do not think that you are switching careers, you are just trying out something new. You are not wasting your time doing something unrelated to your career but you are just finding yourself.
One reason why you will be ambitious in your 20s is because many things you are experiencing are new to you. New job, new schedule, new friends, new hobbies. There is that freshness and novelty that make you want more of it.
Another reason is because you have yet to settle in with a stable income, family and life. You are still finding the life you want to live. Many people seek that stability in their life. However, I do urge all of you to always seek novelty in the daily things that you do. Do not seek stability or else you will stagnate. You would live a mediocre life compared to an exciting and full life.
Be ambitious and bold. Persevere through it. What matters is your persistence. A quitter never wins and a winner never quits. Remember that.
- You are at an impressionable but mature age.
When you are in your 20s, you are regarded as a young adult. You will still need someone to be your role model or a community of more experienced people to guide you as you experience life challenges. You are starting to be more independent as an adult and are willing to learn from others.
At the same time, you still have the mental maturity to think for yourself and others. You think more long term and how your actions can affect those around you. With greater maturity you are able to better differentiate the good and bad such that you would not be easily swayed by other individuals.
It is the best time to find a community of like-minded people who can guide and support you to reach where you want to be. With the accessibility of the internet, you can easily join a community that aligns with your values. There are a myriad of communities out there, from investing, freelancing, entrepreneuring, coding to book sharing, baking and skating communities. Who knows, you might find a group of friends with the same drive to start a business or even a youtube account.
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Tips to make the best of your 20s:
- Seek opportunities. You never know until you try.
Who knows, volunteering at an orphanage might lead you to travel around the world to help different communities and make a difference in people’s lives.
- Find a community of like-minded people.
Go online, interact with people. Join a club, share your life experiences.
- Take action. Thinkers vs doers.
Create good and suitable habits, start now.
- Don’t compare.
People may be similar but that small difference makes a huge difference. Your values are very different from others. Do things that align with your values and purpose.
- Stay in the present. Enjoy the process.
Every day is a learning experience. Appreciate every moment of your life. It is not about how fast you reach your goals but how much fun you had while doing it.