How to Stay Sane in Your Twenties

“Some of the best years of your life!” is often how people describe their twenties.

A span of years filled with new chances & choices, dream careers, degrees & educational decisions, travel opportunities, relationship milestones, friendships that turn into families and indescribable experiences!

But behind the glamour of it all, sit a bunch of hyperventilating anxious twenty-somethings, trying to put the pieces of their life together while competing in a rat race to accomplish their dreams.

Navigating yourself through this mesh won’t always be easy – you probably have a lot of energy expectations & goals, are a bit confused on what comes next, and are making a ton of good (and bad) decisions.

So here are 5 ways you can sanely steer yourself through this all:

1. Understand that friend break-ups happen too

As much as we dream to have our closest friends in our lives forever, it’s not often that you will stay close to all your old friends. As heart-breaking as it is, it’s natural to drift from old circles. Change is a part of life and many of us witness it in terms of friendships. Of course it's not easy to get over it, but what I've learnt is everyone will not have the same set of priorities as you do - your education, career, location, or simply outgrowing a version of yourself may cause this. My advice is, don’t resent your friend after these distances occur. Do your best to understand someone who was once an integral part of your life and respect the choices you both make. In fact, do your best to stay in touch, because at times these special people may just gravitate back to you.

2. Separate your success at university/work from life

In the context of the always competitive background, we immerse ourselves in a sea of activities, each of which we want to outdo ourselves in. But what’s obvious yet something we tend forget is that this involves ups & downs. While we bask in the glory of the ups, it’s important for us to not get dragged down with the downs. Our life has various aspects to it, work/education being (although a significant one) just one of them. It’s okay to fail sometimes, and while its great to succeed, we must remember that this success is not what our twenties is all about - it's a single planet in a universe of other things that our life is about.

3. Network with people in your field

We’ve all heard the advice that networking is key for our career growth, regardless of our profession. To be successful, spend time networking with people at your place of work or in your field. It really does take a village to have a fruitful career – people who provide you with information, connect you to others, help you get work done, act as your mentor or even advocate for you.

4. Don't overwork yourself & avoid burnout

I cannot remember how, but suddenly everyone around me started being ‘busy’ most of the time. The pandemic hit and colleges/work was affected; so people started finding more ways to stay busy and to ‘utilise the time we have’. Everyone wanted to take on new responsibilities, start their ventures and take a risk.

It’s ironic how we tend to fill up our lives with more to be ‘well rounded’ so that we can ‘stand out’. Burnout is the rock-bottom consequence of our busy lives - becoming so exhausted that you tend to lose the joy we had in our work. Taking on more to be well-rounded clusters up your resume along with your life. So instead, spend a great deal of time on fewer crucial activities that might actually help you develop a spike towards the field of your choice, and only take up as much as you can. Make sure to take AMPLE amount of time to develop & grow into yourself – this means giving your mind some rest, practicing self-care and focusing on progress one step at a time instead of only heightening the end goal.

5. Stay away from unhealthy competition

Competition is great – it is a catalyst to develop our abilities beyond limits. But this can get toxic when it becomes unhealthy. Thoughts of others around us succeeding or failing should not poison our well & impair our rationale. Most of us don’t even realise when competition gets unhealthy because we're so submerged in our desire to do better. According to me, you cannot grow if you are more rooted in others successes and failures than your own. Let yourself grow and allow yourself to fail. Use your own success are a competitive bar and let your failure humble you to learn from your mistakes. Most importantly, while reveling in your own success, be happy for & inspired by the success of others.

It's so easy to let yourself get overwhelmed by the thought of the future (I feel like I do everyday), but I guess we have to allow ourselves to go at your own pace. Ultimately, it’s important to realise that though it seems like every decision made in this phase defines us and starts piecing our future together, we’re all still a work-in-progress!