Pursuing Life In Your 20s from www.20smoney.com

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Much of this blog is typically about getting started early in work, career, saving, investing, blogging, whatever. Just as important as these areas is the area of life. If you’re like me, you graduated college (which we call the fun/free days) and then “got serious” about a career. Sure, I still had and have tons of fun after college even while focusing on a career, but it is very easy to get wrapped up in a job or a financial situation and lose track of living life. I want to comment on this a bit further…

The decade of our 20s brings many new things, a career, major financial responsibility, potentially a marriage, maybe even kids. At this point in life, it’s not like we don’t know how to enjoy life, it’s more that we’re starting to encounter new distractions that get in the way of life. Some of these are necessary, some aren’t.

Financial Stress
A major obstacle to life in our 20s is financial stress. Some of this stress is a good thing (i.e. wanting to save money), but much of it is brought upon ourselves. We can all but eliminate this stress but accepting a more frugal lifestyle. Live in a cheaper apartment, don’t go out to eat as much and don’t spend as much money on things. Instead, be smart financially by putting away a good amount of money each month and then enjoying yourself as a result of not worrying about your finances.

Pursuing Other Satisfactions
Since much of our energy goes into our budding career, and for single people, the rest goes towards a social life, we find it hard to put energy and time into other areas that bring us satisfaction.

For me, I would like to spend more time with my family, more time on my own business ventures such as this blog and more time pursuing physical training such as running and maybe a triathlon. Don’t get me wrong, I’m able to enjoy these things to a large extent, as much as is possible working a normal 9-5 job, but my goals are to be able to have a flexible lifestyle where I can pursue them even more.

For individuals who can’t really budge in terms of how much time is spent at work, I encourage you to maximize your time outside of work. You can do this by not watching as much TV, not spending as much time at the bar, and waking up earlier (so you can do stuff before work). These are all strategies I implemented while living alone, single and working fairly long hours.

Employee vs Entrepreneur
Most people ignore work when talking about pursuing life. I think that work can be a major part of your satisfaction that you receive in life. A major way to increase the satisfaction, at least for me, is to transition from employee to entrepreneur or business owner. Being my own boss is a major goal of mine. Not only does it allow me to work the type of schedule that I want to work, but I would love to see a direct relationship between my results and my own effort and being an entrepreneur is the best way to do this.

While most people won’t become an entrepreneur in their 20s, it’s important to just keep the goal present as you move forward in your career so that you can maximize your opportunities to learn skills and build relationships that will help you down the road towards this goal.

What are the ways that you pursue life in your 20s? How do you connect with people and find ways to be more satisfied?