Realizing certain things in your 20’s will make your life easier down the road. Most people realize these things way too late, mostly after their 30’s. This is when their past their prime, it’s not the end but the number of things you can do is certainly a bit more limited in your 40s. The chances of you becoming a professional athlete for the next 10 years are pretty damn small around 40, even almost non- existent. You can still become a millionaire, best seller, blogger, and so on but your chances drop significantly if you have a family you have to take care of, a mortgage to pay of, and so on. So here are things that will take you ahead in life if you do them in your 20’s.
Never chase women. Not even in your 20’s.
Society kind of pushes you to settle down at a young age and that might work for some people if they’re mature enough. All the others will have a ton of bad relationships and spend way too much time on dating apps. Spend your time better and work on yourself (this applies for both genders), work towards a goal or goals, get a good hobby, and so on. I say this because you attract what you are.. so the better you are the better your future partner will be.
The periods where I had a lot of dates where the most frustrating ones to be honest. I had quantity but not a lot of quality. It was time-consuming and one of the reasons why I had so much noise in my life before my second fight. I wasn’t productive during that period. Luckily I learned my lesson quickly. I just needed to lose a fight to realize it. There was more to it but it played a factor for sure.
Define your success in your 20’s and…
Get after it. Success is a vague term and in the end, people have different versions of it. Success for one person might not be a success for another person. In the end, it’s up to you to decide what you want in life. It also doesn’t matter as long as you do everything to be the best at what you do in every aspect of life that you pursue.
So follow your heart, you’ll be grateful you did that when you’re going to be old and look back on your life. Don’t forget that most people regret the same thing at the end of their lives. Just look at the 5 most common ones. The first one is the one that pops up the most.
- I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
- I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.
- I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
- I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
- I wish that I had let myself be happier.
So one more time to be clear: who cares what other people think?! Everybody wants you to do well but nobody wants you to do better than them. That’s a sad reality of life.
You have to realize that…
You have to have your own route…
Your own mind and…
your own heart…
You’re going to die anyway so why not die happy and fulfilled?!
Experiment in your 20’s.
For some reason, most people never figure out what they want in life and it’s because they never experiment. I was lucky that I never did things that I didn’t want to do and that I found martial arts at a young age. I started karate around the age of 9 and stopped when I was 14 because my parents didn’t want me to compete. After that, I wanted to go boxing but my parents didn’t allow me too. So I picked up a ton of things between the age of 14 and 23. I played soccer, indoor soccer, the guitar, started skateboarding, playing the guitar, fitness, and so on. At the age of 23, MMA found me and that was the end of it. I knew this was it and I never looked back.
The same goes for education. I had no clue what I wanted after high school. Well, I did but I couldn’t do sports due to a knee injury that was bothering me for a year and a half back then. Back then I assumed that I was never going to be pain-free again and decided to pick up programming. I enjoyed it until I suddenly got healed and was able to train again. I quit after one year and picked up a course to become a social worker. In the end, I decided to quit because I didn’t like it (more on that here). I dropped out with one more year left in college.
Everybody thought I was crazy and a loser but I had a plan and I still haven’t regretted the drop out to this day on. One month after dropping out I started this blog and 2 months later I started training MMA. It’s crazy how the pieces of the puzzle fit together once you finally see the bigger picture.
I also have a hack to figure out what you want in life without having to experiment too much. You can find out more about it here.
Move out in your 20’s.
Living at home is a huge luxury. It saves you money and so on but there are also a lot of downsides that people fail to see.
I was 26 when I moved out of the house for the first time. I lived for 3 months in Thailand and went back home after that. Living 3 months at a muay Thai camp gave me a lot of clarity about what I wanted and what I didn’t want. 3 months later I would leave Belgium again without a return date. My plans and the plans my family had for me were complete opposites. I just realized that it was better to leave because it was robbing me of precious happiness.
I’m not telling you to leave your country, that’s what I did because I have certain goals that can’t be achieved by staying in Belgium. Moving to another city or another location might do the trick. My life improved drastically after I moved out. For some people, this might be a downfall because of the freedom but you’ll have to take the step at one point. It’s tricky but also shows you how much you control you have over your decisions/faith.
Take the L, especially in your 20’s if you want the W.
People don’t realize that you have to lose to learn. People fear failure and adversity because of the negative feelings that go along with it. They rather escape reality than facing it. You can only win in life if you lose because you will learn more from that loss than a win.
For example, I learned a lot after my first loss in my second fight. My third fight was way better, that was a performance that was way closer to what I was capable of. Sadly enough I injured myself in the second round and lost on points. The loss hurt for like a day but after that I let my leg heal up and started training again for the rematch.
In the end, it doesn’t matter what you’re trying in life. You’re going to lose and have to learn from them, especially in the beginning since you’re a beginner in whatever you’re trying. It’s all part of the journey, something that a lot of people seem to forget.
One more story to illustrate my point.
The cover picture for this blog was taken close after my 26th birthday. Nothing special you might say. What a lot of people don’t know was that I just had gone through a breakup shortly before and on my birthday my ex told me she was seeing someone else. Back then I was a bit lost but that was the best thing that ever happened to me. I had a lot of insights by talking to a mentor and that lead to the fact that I quit my job and left for Thailand. That might have never happened if I didn’t have to face that breakup.
That’s only speculation of course but I’m 100% certain that she wouldn’t have been the girl that would have supported a bold move like that. So in the end, I had a small loss and a huge win because I embraced my faith.
Reading is a subtle form of procrastination.
I’m not saying reading is bad, I still read but I read way less than I used too. I see a lot of people buy book after book and in the end, nothing changes. There’s a famous Bruce Lee quote that goes like “knowing if not enough, we must apply”. I’ve read so many things that made sense and in the end, I made the mistake because I didn’t have the experience. You have to find a nice balance between living life and reading books. That is hard to find, to be honest
In the end, I stopped reading so much because I started my podcast. I could interview people and pick their brains which is better than reading a book. You can’t ask a book questions and you didn’t read it well if you don’t have questions or things you don’t agree with.
Make sure you’re in shape.
I’ve been out of shape once since I was 19. That was after I left Chiang Mai (December 2019). I had let myself go a bit and my whole life was kind of a mess due to a lot of noise in my life. So I ignored all of it and went into a fight camp which was a bad idea. I lost the fight by decision (still my worst performance to date) and had to clean up my life after that. I cleaned up my life for the most part and fought a month later again. Than COVID happened obviously and I took that time to make sure that I cut all the crap out of my life. The results speak for themselves. It’s amazing how much has changed since the worldwide lockdown. I vowed myself to come better out of this and that is what happened.
Everybody neglects the brain diet.
So many people forget to do this. They’re mentally and physically completely out of shape in their 20’s. They never read or only consume crap when it comes to their brain diet. Never question things or reflect because complaining is so much cooler. It’s all good as long as you look perfect on Instagram right?! The short answer is no. Reflect on your life, slow down a bit, read, live life, and get to know the real you (your good and bad traits).
So many people only watch the news, gossip magazines, and other bullshit. How can you be happy if you only consume crap? Consuming a lot of crap leads to a crappy mindset. Also, all those things make you focus on other people which makes me believe that you do that to take away the focus of your own crappy life. You laugh at others’ misery because you’re miserable yourself. You might be happy in the short run but it’ll bite you in the ass in the long run. A reality check is inevitable, you’re just making it worse by postponing it.
Of course, you’re in shape, you compete.
I hear this all the time. “Alex, I don’t need to be in shape because I don’t want to compete like you”. So you rather have an unhealthy body than a healthy body? People who claim stuff like that don’t want to put the work in according to me. Being out of shape will avenge itself in the long run. You’ll have all sorts of health issues and joint issues. I’m not saying that fit people are bulletproof but they’re way healthier. So clean up your diet and start training. It doesn’t matter what you do. Back in the day, I would train 4 times a week (about 3- 4 hours a week), walk on the off days and I was in great shape.
Now I train over 4 hours a day because I compete. The difference between an athlete and a fit person shouldn’t be whether or not the body is healthy. It should be the hours in the gym. A person who wants to be fit shouldn’t be 4-6 hours in the gym every day unless they enjoy it (martial arts for example).
“It is a disgrace to grow old through sheer carelessness before seeing what manner of man you may become by developing your bodily strength and beauty to their highest limit.” – Socrates
You can read the explanation behind the quote here.
Did you like this post?
I suggest you check out the 2 posts that I wrote on lessons I learned before turning 24 and 25.
You can read the one I wrote for my 24th birthday here.
You can read the one that I wrote before my 25th birthday here.
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Till next time
Alex
