Transcription
Over the past few years, I've started to do certain things, and I sometimes find myself thinking, "I wish I'd known this in my 20s." I wrote these things down as if my 42-year-old self was giving advice to my 20-year-old self, and it turned into this video: seven things I wish I knew in my 20s.
Me and my dad talk about this one often; we wish we had started weight training earlier in life. I started weight training at the age of 14, and my dad started at the age of 72. Both of us are pleased that we started when we did because we've seen significant improvements in our muscle mass, strength, and body composition.
When I was in my 20s, I did exercise, but I mostly did classes—things like Boxercise, spinning, circuits, stuff like that. They were okay; they served a purpose, but looking back and knowing what I know now, they definitely weren't the best choice. It would have been great if I had started weight training in my 20s, having all of those early life hormones and all of that mitochondrial energy. But I'm pleased I'm doing it now, and I'm pleased I started when I did. Still, I do wonder what my body and my health would be like if I had started weight training in my 20s.
In the past, I was a bit of a shopaholic. I bought and owned so much stuff, and I did it for two reasons: one, because I fell for the marketing and the bright shiny new things; and two, I thought these things would make me happy. After more than two decades of buying so much stuff, I've learned that neither of these things are true. Almost all marketing is BS, and the things didn't make me happy.
Over the last six months, I've been on a huge mission to downsize my belongings. Right now, I'm in the middle of the biggest clear-out to date. One of the things I've learned is the more stuff I own, the more complicated life feels—probably because I've got more stuff to take care of. Interestingly, the less stuff I own, the less stuff I want to own.
I realized all this when I did my 100-day outfit experiment. As the name suggests, I wore the same outfit for 100 days, and it changed my view on the amount of things that I owned and didn't use or need anymore. In fact, I'm still wearing the 100-day uniform most days now, 11 months on from doing the experiment.
Still got it on! Alongside owning less stuff comes the benefits of spending less money and having a simpler life. I sometimes find myself thinking, "I wonder what my life would have looked like if I'd known this in my 20s."
I got the urge to start running when I was 29—a decision I made when I was on the verge of my 30th birthday. I used to watch adventure and survival races on TV and thought about how much I wanted to do these kinds of events. But at the time, I owned my beauty salon, and the most exercise I did was my circuit classes. That's when I started running. My first run was to the bridge at the end of my road, which was 0.7 miles away, and it didn't go well.
But over the months and then the years, the 0.7 miles turned into 10 km marathons, and then into multi-day adventure races, which eventually turned into being invited onto a team to row across the Atlantic Ocean. These cardiovascular-based endurance events battered my brain and body, putting them through a lot of prolonged stress and sleep deprivation. The Atlantic row, for example, took 43 days, and the most sleep that I got at any one time was 1 hour and 40 minutes.
That said, I gained so many lessons from doing these endurance events, and they've led me to where I am today. I definitely don't regret doing them, but part of me thinks perhaps I could have gained those lessons in other, healthier, more sustainable ways. Sometimes I wonder if putting my body and brain through the amount of prolonged stress caused me to have some of the health issues that I've had later in my life.
They're not major health issues, but they've been enough to knock me off my feet a few times. Some people ask me if I would do endurance challenges like that again, and my answer for many years has been a strong no. I made that decision after reading the book "Why We Sleep" by Matthew Walker. I'd happily do an adventure, but only if I could get a decent night's sleep at the end of each day.
All this makes me wonder what my life would look like if I hadn't battered my body with loads of endurance events and instead focused on something like weight training.
I didn't expect you to be so surprised! In my 20s and some of my 30s, I was blissfully unaware of a lot of stuff. When I look back, I feel as though I was on autopilot—never checking in on my physical and mental self. I was go, go, go all the time, and then I wondered why I would crash hard every few months. I was quite frantic and impulsive, and I didn't have much self-awareness. I rarely stopped to assess myself or a situation.
I guess these things were part of not having the emotional maturity that came with being in my 20s. As I've grown, I now journal, meditate, go on nature walks, sit in the sun with Charlie, and do nothing—or as the Dutch call it, "niksen." Some find it hard to believe that I don't do much sometimes because they see me doing a lot of stuff, but I am very good at niksen, and so is Charlie.
I think if I had known this stuff earlier, I wouldn't have gotten burned out. I wouldn't have had a breakdown—well, two actually. It's likely that my depression wouldn't have been so bad if I'd cultivated better awareness and self-care practices. But we don't know what we don't know, and my goodness, I'm pleased I've learned this stuff now, and I am still learning. There are times when I wonder what my life and my mental health would be like if I had taken better care of my brain in my 20s.
At this point, I'd like to ask you: what do you wish you'd known in your 20s? Or maybe you're in your 20s and you've got something that you'd like to share. I'd love to hear from you in the comments, and I think it could be a really valuable place to go for some inspiration, no matter what age.
I stopped drinking alcohol completely in December 2021. Given I've suffered from depression on and off from the age of 24 to 41, drinking acted as a catalyst, and it made me feel worse. I wish I'd realized and made my decision earlier in life, and I wonder what my mental health would look like if I'd stopped drinking alcohol sooner.
For years, I have held on to negative thoughts and behaviors, playing the victim and holding on to the things that happened to me in the past. It's only been over the last two years that I've finally been able to let these things go, and it has been so freeing—almost as though I've been given a second chance in life.
In a way, this is kind of related to my previous point of downsizing my life and not owning much stuff. This is not only about not owning much physical stuff, but I'm also decluttering my brain too. It’s taken me years to learn how to do this through various forms of learning, books, therapies, and treatments. I wish I'd been able to let go sooner, but I probably wasn't ready. I wasn't capable, and I was still attached to the emotional baggage. I wasn't emotionally mature enough to let it go.
There are a couple of things that helped me make an enormous difference in being able to let these things go. One is something that I've made a video about previously, so I recommend that up here, and I'll also link it in the description. Another is this book, "You Can Heal Your Life" by Louise Hay. I read this during a particularly bad time in my life, and I'll be honest, I wasn't hopeful that it would help because I have read dozens of books like this in the past.
But this book was different—or maybe it was me that was different, or a combination of the two. By the time I got to the end, things had definitely changed for the better—like never before. I just wonder what my life would have looked like if I'd learned to let go sooner.
I've spent many years thinking about doing things and wishing for them to happen instead of just doing them—starting this YouTube channel, for example. I actually had my first thoughts about it when I was 25, when I had my beauty salon, and I was going to do makeup tutorials. Imagine that! Fourteen years later, I actually started making YouTube videos.
Despite the title of this video and me saying I wish I'd known these things in my 20s, I did actually do this one, and I did get on with stuff in my 20s. At age 21, I went self-employed as a massage therapist. At age 24, I opened my own beauty salon with a £55,000 bank loan, and then 18 months later, I moved to All Street premises and hired employees. That business was successful, and I was absolutely fearless in my 20s.
It was when I got to my 30s that things went a bit topsy-turvy, and so the "just get on with it" message is to my 30-year-old self. I spent much of my 30s lost and unhappy, suffering from multiple bouts of depression. Back then, my 30-year-old self wished that she had the gusto that I'd had in my 20s. But for some reason, I was overcomplicating things, and I ended up putting things off when I should have kept things simple and just got on with it.
But all that's irrelevant—a bit like the title of this video—because everything that I've spoken about isn't for my 20-year-old self or for anyone watching who's in their 20s. All this stuff is for now, no matter what age. If you're in your 20s and you've got things you'd like to do and achieve, get started now. The benefit is you have time on your side. If you're past your 20s, my advice is the same: get started now. The benefit is you have experience on your side.
We can't take our wishes and ambitions with us, after all, and time will keep moving no matter what. So we might as well just get on with it. YouTube thinks you're going to like this video next, so maybe give that a watch.