It’s the final countdown to my thirtieth birthday and these thoughts have been swirling around in my mind over the last few weeks! I am in shock that the last ten years have gone by so fast and I am grateful to finally be leaving my twenties!
I feel like my twenties have been a test run to see what I truly wanted to do in life. It almost feels like I’ve been in a probation period for my thirties. Can you relate to what I’m talking about?
In 2021, I was determined to publish my first book before turning 30. I wanted to be one of those people who could say, “I actually accomplished something of importance in my twenties,” because my twenties have been a shitshow!
Throughout high school, my only vision for my future was to get married and have kids as if that’s the ultimate goal in life. There was no desire to start a podcast, write a book, create a blog, or even start my own business. I only wanted to be a mom, but not just any kind of mom though. I wanted to be a work-from-home mom.
WHAT A WILD DREAM?!
Looking back now, I understand that I need the experiences I gained from everything I tried and essentially failed at in my twenties! Now, if you’re reading this and you’re in your twenties, I want to share my lessons with you to help you shift while you still can. If you’re past your twenties, I would love to have you share some of your realizations in the comments below!
Here are 5 things I wish I knew when I was 20:
1. LOVE YOURSELF FIRST
I was SO caught up in what everyone thought about me that I was trying to be a certain type of way. I graduated high school with a boyfriend and attended the same college with the same major as him. When I mentioned my vision for my future, he quickly opted out of our relationship and moved on to someone who had a better vision for the future that didn’t involve children at the age of 18.
Two months after my boyfriend and I went our separate ways, I started dating my current husband. Five months into our relationship my vision came true! I was nineteen and expecting my first child! I was a mom by the age of twenty and had already completed half of my vision. The next goal was to become a work-from-home mom. It wasn’t until six years, four more kids, and a HUGE battle with depression that I realized what I TRULY wanted for my future and started healing from all the trauma I endured. I FINALLY started loving who I was and what I was becoming.
I can only imagine how much different life would have been if my vision had involved the pieces of my vision now. Now, it’s loaded with passion and purpose. It includes loving myself and doing what I enjoy. Don’t get me wrong, I love my children AND everything feels a little delayed.
Right now, as a twenty-year-old, you get to be whoever you want and create the future of YOUR dreams. What is YOUR vision?
2. FIND YOUR PASSION AGAIN.
When you were a child, you fell in love with something. You spent SO MUCH time doing that thing that you were often scolded for avoiding the chores because you were so absorbed by your passion. Over time you drifted away from what you loved because other things became more important.
My passion was writing. I loved writing fiction and sharing my stories. When I became a teenager, I was quickly absorbed by the attention of boys and lost sight of my passion.
I spent the majority of my life away from my passion until the age of 26. That’s when I started going to a therapist and they recommended journaling. I started writing what I thought would end up being three books. Later, I discovered it was one book, I Am Enough Because I Say I Am.
I often wish I would have started writing way before 26. I can’t imagine what I could have done with all this knowledge throughout the years. Now I’m hustling and writing multiple times a day to catch up with all the time I lost focusing on random things I claimed as my passion.
What is or was your passion? Are you doing what you truly love?
3. LIVE AND LEARN
I made MANY mistakes throughout my twenties, but I lived in fear a majority of the time. Oftentimes, I feared what others thought of me. I feared how others would react to what I had to share. More often than not, I feared whether or not I would ever find success.
I didn’t start living until my late twenties because of what I thought others would think of me. On the day of my book release, I learned a very valuable lesson. The day of my book release was one of the biggest days of my life, but to everyone else, it was JUST a Friday.
The lesson: NO ONE is paying attention to you the way you think they are so live your life EXACTLY how you want.
Where are you holding back that you wish you were giving it your all? Go do what you want to do. You can’t get your time back.
4. TRAVEL AND EXPLORE
I made the mistake of spending my “extra” college loan money on objects to make my dorm room space look the best that it could be. *Facepalm* I don’t own ANYTHING I purchased with that money. It all went in the trash over time because guess what, I grew out of it. I could have been smart and paid it back to my loan OR I could have invested it in travel so I could see the world MUCH sooner. My first time flying in a plane was at the age of 26.
As a child, I travel with my grandpa a lot, but I didn’t enjoy anything like I do now. I’m a small-town girl who doesn’t get out of the house much and I wish I would have spent time alone with myself MUCH earlier. It would have been great to go stay in the mountains and hike or see the ocean. I’m almost 30 and have never been to an ocean.
Have you traveled yet? Where do you want to go?
5. THE MEAN VOICES IN YOUR HEAD ARE NOT YOURS.
I believed for the longest time that I was fat. The voices in my head said it often, so it must be true. WRONG. I recently discovered that the mean voices I heard in my head were created by what others had said around me. Whenever I would eat cake or anything sweet I often heard, “Careful, that’ll go straight to your hips,” or “a second on the lips is a lifetime on the hips.” I understand now that was just their way of warning me that too many sweets can result in unwanted fat on my body, but back then I took it as a jab at my self-esteem. In my mind, I believed that no matter what I did, I was fat because I ate sweets.
I have learned to separate the voices from who I am and I am a LOT nicer than those voices have ever been. You get to choose how you talk to yourself. Choose wisely.
You are beautiful. You are enough. You are worthy.