The Six Biggest Mistakes That Most People In Their 20s Make That Limit Their Life Potential

Avoiding simple life traps in your 20s is more than 80% of the battle.

You will one day turn 30 and arrive somewhere.
The question is, where will you arrive? And will you be happy with the destination?

Your 20s are the defining decade of your life.

For the people who say your 20s don’t matter, they are dead wrong.

They matter. A lot.

As Meg Jay, author of Defining Decade writes:

“80% of life’s most defining moments take place by about age 35.
2/3 of lifetime wage growth happens during the first ten years of a career.
More than half of Americans are married or are dating or living with their future partner by age 30.
Personality can change more during our 20s than at any other decade in life.”

So, who you become at 30 is dependent on:

The risks you do or don’t take.
The people you decide to hang around with.
The countries you visit.
Your spending and investment behavior.
The content you consume.

All these small decisions you make in your 20s have an outsized impact on the trajectory of your life.

Remember: Even doing nothing is still a choice.

But dreaming of living a successful life is daunting. Where do I even begin? How do I even start? What if I fail?

I am a big fan of Charlie Munger’s concept of ‘inversion thinking’, where you deliberately think about how to achieve your goals in reverse.

Charlie famously quipped:

“I think part of the popularity of Berkshire Hathaway is that we look like people who have found a trick. It’s not brilliance. It’s just avoiding stupidity.“

So rather than asking yourself how can I make my 20s the best years of my life, invert your question and ask yourself, how can I make my 20s the worst years of my life?

Then avoid those actions at all costs.

As Farnham Street said:

“Avoiding stupidity is easier than seeking brilliance.”

Here’s a short guide to avoiding stupidity in your 20s.

Optimizing your life too early for THIS…

Serial monogamy is an inhibitor to your growth.

While you sink time chasing your next partner, you haven’t taken any time to try to develop yourself.

Instead, take that time to invest in your own development.

When you invest time to develop yourself you get to:

Understand your values.
Know what you want from life.
Discover what you won’t compromise on.

An investment in yourself pays the best dividends and makes future romantic relationships more meaningful.

Optimize your 20s for learning and discovery, not romantic relationships.

Not learning how to take calculated risks

A life devoid of risk is a life devoid of growth.

You can’t grow when you never leave your comfort zone.

I am in my late 20s now and I am already starting to see many of my friends take the path of least resistance.

They are compromising their goals and settling for a life that feels beneath them. It’s quite sad to witness.

That course they always wanted to study? Too hard.
That trip that wanted to take? Too expensive.

At this rate, most will be dead by 30, but won’t be buried until 70.

In Bronnie Ware’s book, the Five Regrets of the Dying, the most commonly reported regret was inaction. We regret the things we don’t do in life the most.

Your 20s are the perfect time to take calculated risks. Start a business, travel the world, and dive head first into a creative project you’ve always wanted to do.

Or you can do all three like I am planning to in 2023.

The gold standard risks to take are those that have:

unbounded upside, but limited downside.

Taking these risks means you have to invest time and money upfront but if it doesn’t work out, it won’t destroy you.

These include:

Creating content on social media and building a brand.
Starting a low-cost, no inventory digital business alongside your 9–5.
Building a community around a niche passion.

There is no guarantee that any of these risks will pay off, but there is also no limit to how much success you will have.

It might only take one digital product or one viral piece of content to completely change your life. I’ve seen it happen before.

Understanding that you can always add, but you can never take away.

Understand the difference between reversible and irreversible decisions.

This sounds like common sense but it astounds me how little thought people put into the life-changing decisions they make.

Irreversible decisions:

Going to jail
Having an unplanned child
Ruining your reputation for short-term gain
Addiction of any kind

If you fall into any of these traps, it can have catastrophic consequences for your life. They are almost impossible to reverse without significant costs. Emotional or financial.

Outside of these decisions, most decisions can be reversed with few consequences. Even marriage (so long you don’t have kids) can be reversed.

Stop worrying about reversible decisions but fight to the death to avoid irreversible decisions.

Working a job for money and status

Don’t get stuck in golden handcuffs.

I left a 9–5 job that provided me with a high-status title and a nice six-figure income by 25 years old. People my age would have killed to be in the position I was in.

But towards the end of my time, I become miserable and bitter.

I wasn’t happy with the direction and lost faith in the ability of senior leadership. The work became boring and repetitive. I stopped growing. I stayed far too long in a situation that stopped serving me.

Every day become a struggle and I started to look forward to the weekends as an escape.

This experience taught me the signs that I needed to leave my job ASAP.

Many people in their 20s get caught in this trap. They work in a job that they tolerate because of the pay or status it gives them.

But just like romantic relationships, your 20s are not the time to optimize for money and prestige. That will come later.

Take this time to experiment with different interests and business ideas. You never know what you’ll learn.

Asking for permission while waiting for the perfect conditions

Society teaches us to ask for permission.

You ask to go to the bathroom at school.
You ask your boss for a raise.
You ask the government if you can retire.

But we now live in a permissionless creator economy.

There’s never been a time in history when a random off the street can create content and share it with millions of people in real-time.

I have a friend who constantly wants approval for what she does. And if she doesn’t get it, she feels down. Even if she gets the approval, she will wait until everything feels perfect to start.

You will never everyone’s approval. And nothing will ever feel perfect.

I never asked anyone if I could write, I just started a blog on Medium. I never asked anyone if I could start a business, I just found two clients who wanted to pay me money.

I also started a business in a climate of rising interest rates and rapid inflation while building a house. I had every excuse under the sun not to start a business.

This is where I learned that:

Some people will only ever see the barriers to starting.
And others can only see the vast opportunity to start.

Be the latter, ignore the former.

Surrounding yourself with losers

I see so many people use the quote: ‘you are the average of the five closest people around you’ but still decide to hang around losers.

The older I get, the less time and energy I have spare to deal with losers around me.

By loser, I don’t mean material success. I mean they have a losing attitude and mindset.

They are sensitive and get easily offended.
They always play the victim mentality.
They are negative and have a fixed mindset.
They make low-integrity decisions and don’t care to ruin their reputation for short-term gain.

I’ve distanced myself from people who don’t care about their own reputation.

Why?

Because if they don’t care about their own reputation, they definitely won’t care about yours either.

Let go of these relationships or be prepared to be dragged by them.

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