When No One Prepares You for Your 20s and How I Survived Mine

They don’t tell you it’s the decade of “figuring it out.” They don’t tell you that “figuring it out” often looks like crying in your car after a shift, after a class, after a workout, after anything you do really. They don’t tell you how many times you will want to switch careers (and how many times you actually do) or realizing the version of you that worked at 18… doesn’t fit your actual life at 24... and definitely not at 29. This post is for the people who:

·      Felt behind while everyone else looked “ahead.”

·      For the ones who were high functioning on the outside and freaking out on the inside.

·      For the ones who survived their 20s by becoming someone new, without asking permission and ignoring the people who expected you to.

WHY no one prepares you

A.   Because adults pretend adulthood is linear

Most advice is built like a straight line: graduate → job → stability → love → success

Really, honesty is key here. “Adults” need to stop acting like all their stuff is together and tell people the real. Life is a struggle and it will always be a struggle, but healthy coping and pattern recognition make it manageable. That is where the happiness from stability, love, success, come from. Cherishing the little slivers of light when you can and living fully in it. Your twenties are usually a scribble. A spiral. A messy collage. And when your life doesn’t match the “line,” you assume you’re failing, when you’re literally living the real version. This is the decade for figuring out what works and to stop doing what doesn’t. Period.

B.   Because people confuse potential with preparedness

You can be smart, talented, driven, and still unprepared for the emotional whiplash of your twenties. Just because you are all of these things, doesn’t mean you get the opportunity to use it right away (honestly, you shouldn’t want to). A lot of times, your time is occupied by studying, learning, modeling, etc.… In your twenties it’s important to learn the ropes first, not be the smartest, most talented, most driven person in the room. Being a sponge is more important than being seen in the beginning. That’s where the magic happens. Again, pattern recognition is key here. Figure out your path before you bulldoze through everyone around you. Most of the time, other people have been here way longer than you. You must respect the steps it takes to get where you want to go. It’s hard to come back from a faulty first start, when you weren’t really ready yet in the first place.

You can be “the one with so much potential” and still not know:

• How to budget without panic

• How to recover from rejection

• How to choose yourself when people are disappointed

• How to stop performing stability

• How to perform under pressure

Potential doesn’t teach you coping skills. Your twenties do.

C.   Because no one warns you about identity grief

This is the part that hit me the hardest: you don’t just become an adult; you lose versions of yourself along the way. I’m not being dramatic about this one. I’ve been a thousand people since I turned twenty and each of them carry their own successes and failures and a lot of grief.

You grieve:

• Friendships that stop fitting who the next version of you

• Relationships that never even happened

• Family that breaks your heart

• Outgrowing things you thought you’d love forever

• Missing the things you’ll probably never do again

• Dreams that change shape

• The person you were before you got hurt (again, and again, and again)

• The safety of certainty

• The permanence of temporary

And this is NOT dramatic. This is real.

What my twenties really felt like

It felt like being in transition 24/7. Like my life was a “loading screen” while everyone else had already entered the game. It felt like looking back at that one decision you made that changed the trajectory of all the other decisions you will make from now on. It felt like, if I would have expressed myself differently, or followed this person here, (or there?) we’d still be together. It felt like if I hadn’t been so ambitious, we’d still be friends.

It felt like:

• Learning that survival can look like “functioning”, but not actually experiencing

• Realizing your family can love you and still not understand you

• Choosing a path and immediately doubting it (because this decision could change everything)

• Repeating the same lesson until you finally respect yourself enough to stop doing that weird thing that keeps hurting you

  
  

  But it also felt like small victories no one clapped for:

  
  

• Leaving what drained me

• Letting that person go

• Going no contact

• Rebuilding after embarrassment

• Learning it’s ok to fail and trying again

• Making it through days I didn’t think I could

• Figuring out how to handle the hard stuff alone

Surviving my twenties

Because I did, and it’s going way better now. I didn’t share my perspective with you to be so doom and gloom because it was so fun. Too fun actually and there are times I wish I would have had less fun, to be more prepared for the next decade, but here we are 9 years later and a lot of magical things to tell my kids one day. I didn’t survive my twenties because I stayed strong. I survived because I got honest. I valued discipline and my future self. Here are some shifts that saved me:

I stopped expecting clarity before movement

I used to think I needed a perfect plan. I didn’t. I needed a next step. My rule became:

move first, understand later.

I may not have known what I was doing or where I was going, but I was going to get somewhere! Because clarity usually shows up after you start, never before. I always just make sure that show up at least.

I learned the difference between “my life” and “my performance”

For a long time, I was living like I was being graded. I picked choices that looked impressive, not choices that felt aligned. So. I wasn’t really doing what I wanted to do, only the things that helped me to continue to receive support. I initially made a lot of decisions in the name of “friends and family”.

Survival looked like asking:

• “Would I still want this if nobody could see it?”

• “Am I building a life, or a résumé?”

• “Am I safe, or am I just used to chaos?”

I made peace with being misunderstood

This one is brutal, but it’s freeing. Some people will only like you when you’re predictable. Some people will only support you when you’re convenient. Some people will call your growth “different” like it’s an insult. This means you will face a lot of isolation but lean into that. Find the things that make you, you in the process. This is how you become the best version of yourself and meet yourself where you are at and acknowledge where you may need to grow. I was at peace when I accepted:

Being misunderstood is not an emergency

I got better at recovering (not avoiding)

In your twenties, you’ll want to avoid all the bad things (and maybe numb yourself a little too) but don’t avoid pain, learn how to come back from it. I give myself a couple of days after a bad loss (a couple of weeks after a really bad loss). I learned recovery skills:

• Rest without guilt. If you don’t listen to your body, it will make you listen and usually it’s painful.

• Boundaries without speeches. Seriously, just tell people to back off. Politely, I guess.

• Self-talk that wasn’t abusive. I learned to counter my self-deprecating thoughts with nice ones. I frequently tell myself to be nice to myself.

• Asking for help before it became a breakdown. I’m still getting used to this one. For me, this means, just being honest about where you’re at in life when people ask.

Recovery is a skill set. Not a personality trait. When you don’t recovery, that’s when you suffer the most. Resilience is key, but healthy is best.

I stopped treating “starting over” like failure

Starting over is not proof you’re unstable. It’s proof you’re awake. I’ve started over so many times because I can’t stand to be miserable doing anything. I’ll give it my best shot, but ultimately if I can’t see myself doing it long-term, I have to go. I’m a chronic leaver because when it comes to building something meaningful, the foundation needs to be built on passion. I used my twenties to find out what I loved and what I hated and moved on accordingly.

I’ve restarted friendships. Habits. Beliefs. Careers. Mindsets.And every time, it hurt, until it didn’t.

I built “proof” that I could trust myself

Confidence didn’t come from affirmations. It came from receipts. Positive reinforcements, rewards, all the things that let me know that what I am doing is working. Don’t get me wrong, there aren’t a lot of them yet, but it’s coming. Mostly, it’s the accomplishing the things I told myself that I was going to do. Small promises kept:

• “I’ll go to that audition even if I’m scared.”

• “I’ll do this dance in the front even if I don’t feel like I’m ready to be there”

• “I’ll save $200 this month.”

• “I’ll stop replying to people who disrespect me.”

• “I’ll finish what I start.”

Trust is built when you show yourself you mean what you say. Take yourself seriously.

What I wish someone told me at 20

• Your twenties will be loud and confusing. Don’t make permanent decisions in temporary emotions.

• Your timeline isn’t wrong. It’s your own and it’s not a race.

• You’re not behind, you’re building something real and that’s what matters the most.

• The goal isn’t to “arrive.” The journey is the reward. The real goal is to become someone you can live with.

• You will outgrow people. Let it happen without begging and don’t grieve for too long about it.

• You don’t need to be fearless. You need to be committed.

If you’re in your 20s right now

If you’re reading this in the midst of it, confused, overwhelmed, disappointed, hopeful, numb. You are not failing because it’s hard. It’s only hard because you’re becoming. These are the memories that you look back on the most. It’s up to you to continue to make better ones every day for the rest of your life. This is just what surviving your twenties looks like:

• Choosing peace over proving

• Rebuilding without announcing it

• Stacking your skillset

• Protecting your energy like its money

• Letting your life be messy while it gets better

You don’t need a perfect decade. You need a decade you make it through. And be grateful! There are so many people who don’t make it through.

Thoughts?

What part of your twenties did no one warn you about?

If you want, drop a comment or share this with someone who looks “fine” but is quietly trying to survive their own becoming.

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