Transcription
Your 20s are weird. Like, you're officially an adult on paper, but you're still trying to figure out how to do life. It's a decade where you're expected to build your identity, your whole world from scratch without any blueprint while the rest of the world watches. And you're doing it all while making major life decisions from the confidence of someone who still eats cereal for dinner three times a week.
I made so many mistakes in my 20s, as we all do. It's a part of the process. You know, a few that I can laugh about now and others that fundamentally changed me. Truthfully, there's not much that I regret from those years of my life, but there were definitely some lessons that I learned along the way that I learned the hard way. So, that's what this is. Five things I wish I'd known sooner. Life advice for your 20s. The real stuff. The stuff that actually matters. The things that I had to learn the hard way that maybe you don't have to.
Hey everyone, welcome back. If you're new here, my name is Jills and I help women step into their power, tap into their divine feminine, and become their best self, live their dream life. So, if that's something you want to do, you should subscribe and stick around. But before we dive in, I just want to invite you to join my new weekly newsletter, the Dream Life Digest. It drops for free in your email inbox every Tuesday. It's where I share mindset tips and manifestation magic and soft life, feminine energy vibes, and it's a little bit more behind the scenes, a little bit more personal. So, if you want to get in on that and join the inner circle, the link for that is down below.
Okay. One of the hardest hitting lessons in my 20s was this. And I can sum it all up with this one quote that is so freaking true. A healthy man has a thousand wishes. A sick man only has one. And I learned this the hard way. You know, when you're young, you feel a little bit more invincible. And when your 20s hit, there may be a period of time where you can get away with 4 hours of sleep a night and drinking a lot of caffeine and eating a bunch of takeout and saying yes to everything and doing things that don't really feel that align. You can do that for a bit and hang on until one day you can't. you'll be fine until one day you are not fine.
For me, that day hit when I was 23. It went from I'm fine to I am not fine. My health just kind of imploded. I woke up one day with a painful autoimmune disorder, interstitchial cyitis and doctors couldn't really help me. And not to mention, I also had hormonal issues and acne and anxiety and chronic fatigue and brain fog and you know all that wonderful stuff. And let me tell you something, when your health goes, everything else goes too. nothing else matters anymore. And you can't really truly understand that until you go through something like that yourself. But actually, nothing else matters anymore. All of a sudden, I no longer cared about my career. I no longer cared about how I looked. I didn't care about my passions. I didn't care about what I wanted to achieve. I didn't even care as much about my relationships. All I wanted was to not feel unwell. All I wanted was to not feel like I needed to jump out of my skin every single day. A healthy man has a thousand wishes. A sick man only has one.
That season of my life forced me to change everything. I left my job. I completely changed my lifestyle. I completely changed my diet, even my entire identity. I completely repprioritized everything. I spent all of my energy, including all of my money. Literally, I drained my entire bank account just trying to heal. And it sucks that I had to do that, but I do not regret it because it was the best money I ever spent because eventually I became well again. And it did take some time, but eventually I did get my health back. And when I did, all of a sudden, the world opened up to me again. All of a sudden, I cared about my passions. All of a sudden, I had goals again. I had motivation and desires again. I cared about my relationship. I had fun getting dressed in the morning and looking cute. Because when you don't have your health, that is the only thing that you care about. But when you do have it, suddenly you have space for everything else. Suddenly, you have capacity for everything else. It's what gives you access to everything else.
And here's the thing no one tells you about your 20s. It's the decade where there starts to be a split in the population. There's the first group who those in their 20s, they start taking care of themselves. They eat real food. They move their bodies. They build up strength, not just to look good, but also to feel good, to stay healthy, strong. And then there's the other group, the ones who don't. They ignore the signs. They live off of caffeine and chaos. and they treat their body like it'll bounce back forever. Fast forward through time, one group, this group, enters their 30s and 40s and beyond, feeling strong, energized, resilient. They've developed a baseline to age gracefully. The other starts to feel the consequences. Weight gain, chronic symptoms, burnout, random health issues that just appear out of nowhere. Of course, you can change directions at any time, of course, but it's a hell of a lot harder when you are already deep in the hole. So, here's the truth. You can either invest in your health now or pay for it later. At the end of the day, your health determines the quality of your entire life. And if you don't recognize that now, there will come a day where life will show you. So, a healthy man has a thousand wishes. A sick man only has one.
But before we move on, here's where I want to thank BetterHel for kindly sponsoring today's video. When I talk about the importance of health, that includes your mental health, too. Because when you're on any kind of health journey or even just trying to feel better, having someone to talk to can really make a difference. Whether you're working on your habits, your mindset, or just trying to make sense of life, it's easy to feel stuck or second guessess yourself or get overwhelmed. And that's exactly why having someone in your corner matters. Talking things through with a professional, someone who's trained to sort through the noise, can help you stay grounded and consistent. You're not meant to do everything alone, and sometimes just having a space where you can be honest and get a little perspective makes all the difference. And that's where BetterHelp comes in. It's an online therapy platform that makes it easy and convenient to get matched with a licensed therapist. No waiting rooms, no commuting, just professional support from home on your own schedule. You just fill out a quick questionnaire and you'll be matched with a therapist within a couple days. And if for some reason that first match is not right, you can switch at any time, no extra cost. If therapy feels like the right next move for you, just click the link in the description or go to betterhelp.com/jills to get 10% off your first month.
So, for the next lesson, I wanted to share another little story. Okay, so I had just graduated college and I was starting my first like real full-time job and it was a good job at a big company. You know, stable paycheck, good benefits, looked impressive on a resume. It was the kind of job that you're supposed to want, but I wasn't really excited about it. I didn't feel lit up by it. I just felt like, you know, this is what I have to do now. Well, part of that onboarding process included a 3-week training on the other side of the country. They flew all the new hires out to like this big hotel and we were there for you know almost a month and while I was there it was my mom's birthday which might not sound like a big deal except she had stage 4 cancer and I knew in the back of my mind there was a chance that it could be her last. I mean she was doing well at the time but you just never know. I remember on that day sitting in that hotel room staring at my laptop thinking, "Dang, this sucks. I don't really want to be here." And she died 6 months later. I missed her last birthday for a job that yes, I was grateful for. And there were some good things that came from it, but ultimately one that I didn't even want and didn't even keep.
Now, do I regret taking that job? Honestly, no. I had just graduated college. I needed a good paycheck. I was doing my best. I thought I was doing what I should be doing. But the point is is that that moment rewired something in me and it made me promise myself that I will never again miss something that matters to me for something that doesn't.
In your 20s, you think you have a lot of time and in one way you do. You don't have to have everything figured out right now. But at the same time, that mindset can make you waste years. You keep putting things off. You say, "Oh, I'll do that later." You stay in jobs you hate. You keep people around who drain you. You tell yourself there's no rush until suddenly something happens that snaps you awake. You skip the trip. You miss the family dinner. You aren't there for the birthday because you assume there'll be more. And that's when you realize time is only slow when you're not paying attention. It feels like you have all the time in the world until suddenly you realize you don't. Blink and 5 years go by. Blink and the moment you thought you could get back is gone. You don't need to rush your life, but you do need to value it because your time is non-refundable.
So, what I want you to hear is you don't need to be perfect in your 20s. You don't need this perfect 5-year plan. I'm not saying that you can never rest and have days where you do nothing. I'm not saying to quit your job tomorrow and drop everything on a whim. But what I am saying is pay attention. Notice when you're trading what matters for what doesn't. I think about that moment in the hotel room sometimes. Not because the job was awful, not because I made some huge mistake, but because it was the first time I noticed time slipping through the cracks. And the scariest part is is that it happens one ordinary day at a time. Time isn't always taken from us in these big dramatic moments. More often than not, it's borrowed indefinitely through the quiet compromises we make with ourselves.
Now, here's something that I wish someone would have told me in my 20s and what I think everyone needs to hear. You're not confused. You're just afraid of disappointing people. I see this all the time. People will say like, "I'm so confused. I don't know what to do with my life." But then if you really listen to them, they know exactly what they want. They want to quit their corporate job and freelance. They want to break up with that person that everyone thinks is perfect for them. They want to take a gap year or move back home or finally start that side project that they've been thinking about for 2 years. They're not confused. They're just terrified of what everyone's going to say. They're scared of what everyone's going to think. They're worried they're not going to live up to those other people's expectations of them.
For example, you know that you want to turn down that good job because the thought of it makes you miserable, but at the same time, everyone is saying you'd be crazy to pass this up. So instead of admitting what you actually want, you just tell yourself you're a little confused. Because being confused sounds better than being the person who makes the wrong choice. Or being confused sounds better than being the person who's about to let everyone down. The voice in your head that's telling you what you actually want. That's not confusion. That is your intuition. Your intuition doesn't speak in like these logical bullet points. She speaks in feelings. In that weird pit in your stomach when you're in the wrong place. In the way certain opportunities make you light up even when they don't make sense on paper. in the way you just know something isn't right even when you can't explain why. We're not taught to trust ourselves. We're taught to seek approval, to keep the peace, and be easy to understand. Your intuition has been trying to tell you what you want this entire time, but instead of listening to her, what do we do? We ask everyone else what they think. We pull our friends. We call our parents. We make pro and con lists. We ask our coworker, our siblings, and then we wonder why we feel more confused than ever.
Here's the thing about collecting everyone else's opinions. They are not you. Your parents mean well, but they grew up in a different world. Your friends care about you, but they also have their own fears and biases and goals in life. Stop asking relationship advice from the friend who hates her boyfriend. Stop asking business advice from your aunt who's never started anything. Stop explaining your dreams to people who've never let themselves have one. People can have the best intentions and still be completely wrong about what's right for you. People can love you deeply and still give you advice rooted in fear. So if you're in a season where everything feels confusing or foggy, ask yourself, is this real confusion or is this fear? Am I actually unsure or do I already know and I'm just trying to delay the consequences? Am I staying because it's aligned or because it's familiar? That's the lesson. You're not confused. Confusion is often what we call it when we're afraid to be honest. You're stuck in a state of peopleleasing, but your life is not a group project. Sure, there may be some people that are disappointed. There may be some people that don't get it. Let them because the only thing worse than disappointing someone else is disappointing yourself for years just to avoid it.
Now, next important life lesson. When you're a kid, you think that adults have it all figured out, that they just kind of know everything and that they know what they're doing. And so, when you're a kid, you think that when you become an adult, you're going to feel that way, too. But here's the kicker. Nobody knows what they're doing. We're all just winging it. And if you understand that, it can actually be the most freeing thing ever. There's no moment when it clicks. No ceremony where someone hands you a trophy and says, "Congrats, you've leveled up. You know what you're doing now. We're all just floating on a rock in space making it up as we go." And you can see that as terrifying, or you can see that as the most liberating truth there is. It's okay to not know what you're doing. No one does. Let yourself wing it. Let yourself fail. That's how you learn quickly. Let yourself try something new. Let yourself show up unconfidently. That's what everyone does. Even as an adult, there's nothing wrong with you because you feel like you don't know what you're doing. We're all just out here winging it, making it up as we go. Let that give you peace. There's so much freedom in realizing that no one's ahead of you. No one's sitting in some secret room with all the answers. Even the people you admire, they're just further along in their own guessing game. The most interesting and successful people are who they are because they were not afraid to wing it. Trust me, you will figure things out as you go. From putting yourself in the room, from making the call, from trying things and being bad at it. That 40-year-old exec who looks super polished, he's still winging it in half of his life. That 35-year-old woman who seems like she has her life together, she's still winging it.
Your 20s are weird because you think that you're supposed to know what you're doing now and then you feel broken when you don't. But that feeling doesn't mean that something's wrong. It just means that you finally figured out what it means to be an adult. Not that you know everything, but that you don't know everything and you'll just figure it out anyway. So, stop waiting for permission. Stop waiting to feel ready. Stop waiting for someone else to tell you you're qualified. The sooner you accept that nobody knows what they're doing, the sooner you can stop beating yourself up for not having all the answers.
And lastly, sometimes there is this unspoken loyalty that we carry with us throughout our 20s to our younger selves, to our old dreams, to what we once told ourselves we wanted. You know, you choose a college major at 18, a career path at 22, a whole life trajectory at an age where you're still getting excited about jello shots, and then years go by and things change. You grow, you change, your dreams change, but you keep forcing the same path forward because at one point that's what you said that you were going to do to make yourself feel better. You call it commitment. You call it being disciplined. But sometimes it's just fear. Sometimes it's self-abandonment. Sometimes it's your ego.
So, here's the lesson. You don't owe your younger self a life you no longer want. You're allowed to change your mind. You're allowed to pivot and walk away. You're allowed to start over. You don't have to stay loyal to an outdated dream just because it once mattered to you. I see people all the time who are miserable in their careers that they chose when they were literal teenagers or like 23 years old that stay in relationships that stopped feeling right many years ago that stick to plans that no longer make sense all because they're afraid of wasting time that they've already invested. But wasting more time to justify the time you already wasted is still a waste. It's like staying in a movie you hate just because you already paid for the ticket. It's better to admit you walked through the wrong door than spend your life in the wrong room.
So, if something in your life feels off, like the path that you're walking feels unnecessarily hard or heavy, you need to think about it. Is this just a temporary difficulty or a fundamental misalignment? It's okay to stop and ask if this is really what you still want. And it's okay to pivot when it's not. Your 20s are messy and beautiful and transformative. And if no one's told you this in a while, you are doing just fine.
Now, if you're watching this and you are 30 or above, I would love to hear the advice that you would add to this, please share in the comments below. I would love for it to just be like a solid comment wall of all of this like really helpful advice for people in their 20s, please share. And if you're ready to keep growing and keep expanding, one of the things you need to do is get out of your comfort zone. And we all know this. That is the hard truth. But in this video here, I talk about how to get outside of your comfort zone, but in a way that feels good. It's called how to comfortably get out of your comfort zone. So, I'll see you over there, or I'll just see you next time in my next video. Thank you so much for watching. Bye.