What I Wish I Knew in My 20s  ## Metadata - Author: [[The Mel Robbins Podcast]] - Full Title: What I Wish I Knew in My 20s - Category: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/4439cf34-9ddb-408f-9add-cf396aeea9ba ## Document Notes ## Highlights - **Your Twenties Shape Your Life** - Your 20s shape far more of your life than you expect because many defining moments happen early. - Meg Jay urges attention to this decade so you can influence earnings, relationships, and identity. Transcript: Mel Robbins I want to read a passage from your mega bestseller, The Defining Decade. Your 20s matter. 80% of life's most defining moments take place by the age of 35. Your earning power is decided in your first 10 years of work. More than half of us are married or dating or living with our future partner by the age of 30. Your brain and your personality change more during your 20s than at any time before or after. Your social network is about as big as it is ever going to get. Your defining decade coincides with your peak childbearing years. Meanwhile, your 20s are the most uncertain years you will ever know. Why do you think so many people are freaked out by those statistics and they don't want to talk about it? Because that's not your opinion. Those are the facts. Meg Jay Right. Those are the facts. Definitely not my opinion. ([Time 0:07:12](https://share.snipd.com/snip/569919f8-7406-424f-919c-036e444dbe28)) - **Start Figuring It Out By Thirty** - Start figuring things out during your 20s because it takes time to build a life. - Meg Jay advises, 'Please start figuring it out by 30,' not have it all done by then. Transcript: Meg Jay Know, I think the first thing I would actually not say, it would be a question I would ask, what are they waiting for? That I think 20-somethings feel like they have time to figure it out without maybe fully understanding it takes time to figure it out. So the sooner you start that process, the better. If you try to start figuring everything out in your 30s, you're probably going to be pretty crunched for time. You may not get everything you want. I don't want that to happen, which is why in the defining decade, I don't say you have to have it all figured out by 30. I say, please start figuring it out by 30. ([Time 0:10:17](https://share.snipd.com/snip/ec6b91b5-4298-4279-ad7b-9ebc3651fc91)) - **Do Something—Not Just Reassure** - Reassurance only soothes briefly and leaves people stuck in anxiety. - Meg Jay recommends taking concerns seriously and asking, 'What are we going to do?' to start action. Transcript: Meg Jay Well, we start. We start with something. I think one thing where people go wrong with 20-somethings is that I think they think reassurance and saying, it's fine. You've got all the time in the world. You'll figure it out. Reassurance doesn't actually make people feel better, or it makes them feel better for about an hour or a day, and then they come back for more. We call clients or 20-somethings like this, people like this, reassurance junkies. Reassurance junkies? Yeah, they're anxious. They get a little hit of reassurance. They feel better for a minute, but then they have to come back for more because reassurance is empty. Instead of saying, oh, it's fine. It doesn't matter. You'll be fine. I say, hey, I'm taking your concerns seriously. So what are we going to do? What are you going to do? Where can you start? Let's start now. That actually makes people feel better than telling them they'll be fine. It's saying, well, let's make sure you're fine. Let's do something about it. ([Time 0:11:35](https://share.snipd.com/snip/9c937d8a-2205-4ea1-9ee7-a9ae3987d78d)) - **Show Up And Use Office Hours** - Show up: go to class and use office hours to build structure and relationships. - Meg Jay calls attendance a low-hanging but powerful way to prepare for adult work life. Transcript: Meg Jay Number one, go to class. People out there, I just gave a talk at UVA orientation a couple days ago, and I said, I know all the parents out there, you assume your kids are going to class. I work at UVA. I can tell you, I wouldn't be assuming that. Because with technology, it's never been more possible to not go to class, look at the slides, not look at the slides. But going to class, it's just showing up for life. It's like we were talking about with work. It adds structure to your day. You might start to kind of have a relationship with a professor or think, oh, I'm going to go visit that person in office hours. So just going to class is some very low-hanging fruit, but an amazing way to start. Another piece of advice is to make a calendar. Take all your syllabi, put them all in one place. You've got all the classes, all the assignments, all the readings, all the deadlines, all in one place. ([Time 0:15:50](https://share.snipd.com/snip/2f808fec-4aa5-46dd-96d1-47a148931da0)) - **Internships Are Nonnegotiable** - Get at least one internship or job before you graduate to gain real work preparation. - Meg Jay warns that graduating without work experience usually means you missed key leverage. Transcript: Meg Jay Because the best preparation for work is work. The best preparation for work is not showing up to a college class in your pajamas and shopping on your laptop, which is, you know, frankly, what a lot of college students are doing. So no judgment. I'm just saying that will not prepare you for work. So the best preparation for work is work. So I want to see you as a college student having at least one internship, at least one job before you graduate. If you graduate from college and you're looking for your first job, you've done something wrong. ([Time 0:16:56](https://share.snipd.com/snip/37382939-fd7f-41c6-89fc-d42bee8863df)) - **The Loneliest Years Are Your Twenties** - Despite social media, your 20s are often the loneliest decade because friendships and families are in flux. - Meg Jay highlights that being between families and networks drives social uncertainty. Transcript: Mel Robbins Young adults are the loneliest people in the United States. These are the sort of things that I hear every day from 20 somethings. I don't really feel like I have a group that I belong to. I'd like to delete the Snapchats for my old friends who haven't been great to me, but then there would be nothing on my phone. I don't know how to get close to people. There's not a handbook for that. One of my best friends ghosted me and the other one found a boyfriend. I don't know how to take friendships to the next level. I lost interest in my social life because I'm embarrassed I'm not going anywhere at work. I just feel like I have no one to turn to when I need something or when I have a hard day. I don't know a single person in my life. Life in my 20s is hard in all sorts of ways. I feel like what I really need is a friend. That's really sad. Meg Jay Many people are surprised because when we think about the 20s, we think about people at music festivals and they're partying and they're at raves and they're going on trips to Ibiza. And that's maybe what it looks like on social media. But yes, empirically, your 20s tend to be the loneliest years of life because you left, you know, you grew up in a home with some family of some form. And you may be statistically speaking or headed toward your own family that you're going to create in the future, but you're between families. You're often between friends. You're often between relationships as people move around. ([Time 0:20:50](https://share.snipd.com/snip/1c9ceffd-7046-4b37-905b-952404d57977)) - **Invest In Identity Capital** - Build 'identity capital' one valuable skill or experience at a time to expand future options. - Meg Jay says small investments stack into unexpected careers and opportunities. Transcript: Meg Jay Build it one good piece of identity capital at a time. So identity capital, it's actually a really fabulous and flexible concept. It's not mine. I'm the middleman teaching people about it, but it's really about doing things that add value to who you are. So maybe it's you get the best job that you can, even if it's not a great job. You go for the advanced degree, you get the certifications or the skills that you can build on that on average, actually young adults will have nine different jobs by the age of 35. And most will ultimately wind up in careers and often be successful in careers that they had never heard of when they were in college and that didn't even exist when they were in college. So gone are the days when you need to be thinking at 24, who am I going to be forever? You can't predict it. You don't know it. But if you're just going one good job at a time, one good piece of identity capital at a time, then that builds over time and you continue to build on it. I mean, you and I are really probably both great examples of how we had lots of different pieces of identity capital in our 20s and our 30s, and now we're doing things with it that we could Have never foreseen. But it's just getting out there and doing things that add value, that are investments in yourself, skills that you can take into the workplace that lead to other skills that lead to other Skills that lead to other opportunities. ([Time 0:26:50](https://share.snipd.com/snip/921aaa97-829b-49e9-afd1-01242c55dc5f)) - **Get Paid To Learn** - Put yourself on the steepest learning curve possible in your 20s and get paid to learn. - Meg Jay urges young adults to prioritize growth over immediate high pay. Transcript: Meg Jay Data-driven help and hope is what I'm trying to help people have. So that's from the World Economic Forum. And what they found basically is that your learning curve in your 20s predicts your earning curve in your 30s, in your 40s, in your 50s. So the skills that you're learning, the experiences that you're having at work, the degrees that you're getting, the jobs that you're having, that this is what sets the foundation That you have to build on in your 30s and beyond. And so what I tell 20-somethings is put yourself on the steepest learning curve you can in your 20s. Think of it as school, but get paid to learn. You may not get paid the most you'll ever be paid in your life, but get paid to learn. ([Time 0:35:31](https://share.snipd.com/snip/a51d1565-8e92-4758-a22a-65d0c52e8be7)) - **Give Them Something To Contemplate** - If your 20-something resists change, give them materials to contemplate rather than blunt commands. - Meg Jay suggests sending a book, podcast, or article to spark their movement from pre-contemplation to action. Transcript: Meg Jay This isn't going to work for me. You know, I think as parents, you know, there's a lot of research around how people change. And one of the biggest pivots there is taking people from like the pre-contemplation to contemplation of, I'm not even thinking about changing to I'm thinking about changing. And so people ask me, how do I get my kid to think about changing? And I say, give them something to contemplate. Give them a book to read. Send them a podcast to listen to. Send them something you saw on Instagram and just to start to put it in their minds that, you know, maybe there's something I need to start thinking about here. ([Time 0:41:30](https://share.snipd.com/snip/24276185-b077-4105-9a58-2f17797f15db)) - **Do The 29 Conversations First** - Answer the key relationship questions for yourself before committing to reduce future regret. - Meg Jay recommends the '29 Conversations' to clarify values on kids, money, sex, and life goals. Transcript: Meg Jay Very common. So common that in the updated version of the defining decade, I added a chapter called 29 Conversations. And the 29 Conversations are presumably 29 conversations you would have with a potential partner of, hey, do you want, do you, as a concept, do you want to get married? What about religion in your life? What about money? What about kids? What about work while with kids, all that? But really, the most important person to have those 29 conversations with is yourself before you start dating or as you're dating so that you're clear on what you're looking for as you're Looking. That a lot of young adults go into relationships saying, who wants me? Who wants me? Rather than, well, what is it that I want? And if you go in without thinking, it's like going into a grocery store hungry, that you're hungry, but you don't know what you're looking for. And suddenly you're grabbing this and you're grabbing that without really thinking about, what did I come in here for? So I would tell Hannah that we need to slow down for a minute and do the 29 conversations and figure out what is it she's even looking for. ([Time 0:54:04](https://share.snipd.com/snip/4c79be71-e20a-436b-be5d-9178c3c346bc)) - **Decide—Don’t Slide Into Big Steps** - Avoid sliding into commitments like moving in or marriage without active decisions. - Meg Jay urges deciding deliberately because sliding often leads to stuck, unhappy outcomes. Transcript: Meg Jay This is a concept. Scott Stanley, University of Denver, it's called sliding, not deciding. And it's when we sort of slide into a situation without being intentional, without really actively deciding to move from A to B or from B to C. And so it's very similar to underemployment, which we were talking about, which can be sticky. You can slide into underemployment and then get stuck there. The same thing with romantic relationships, you can sort of slide into dating down. So it's like, well, we were going out a lot, spending all our time together, sleeping over at each other's places. So we just decided to move in together. And well, we were living together and everybody started getting married. And so I guess we're probably going to have to do that next. That's what sliding sounds like. Deciding sounds really differently, which is, hey, I've been going out with this person for a while. Do we or don't we want to take it to the next level and move in together? And should we talk about that and what that means to two different people and what are our intentions there? Hey, we've been living together. How's this going or not going? And do we want to take it to the next level again? Or do we want to say what you see is what you get and this isn't working? So, you know, it's very similar to sort of sliding into bad jobs. We can slide into bad relationships and it's easier to slide in than it is to slide out. That you can slide into a bad relationship. You're living together. Three years go by. You've got a lease. You've got a couch. You've got a dog. Everybody seems to have a partner. And it can be hard to say, okay, I'm going to have to get out of this. ([Time 0:56:40](https://share.snipd.com/snip/08b49137-1ae0-43d1-8770-0f89b33af2c9)) - **A Mentor's Wake-Up Call On Fertility** - Meg Jay recounts her advisor bluntly telling her at 34 to act on her family plans. - That push led Meg Jay to prioritize family timing and later have two children in quick succession. Transcript: Meg Jay Yeah, so when I was in my early 30s, I was a grad student, UC Berkeley. My dissertation advisor was a famous psychoanalyst who literally wrote the book on feminism and motherhood and how they can go together. So we're sitting in her office one day talking about probably my dissertation. And she's asked, I don't know why, but she said, you know, do you want kids? And I kind of dismissively said, oh, yeah, yeah, I think so. And then she said, well, how old are you? And I said, 34. And she looked at me over her reading glasses. And I remember she kind of slapped the papers on her lap and she said, well, you better get on it. And I was so shocked. That seemed so politically incorrect for her to sort of come at me like that about having kids, which was so ironic because she'd written the book about feminism and motherhood. And what she was really doing in that moment was role modeling for me. Smart and ambitious women can be smart and ambitious, not just about work, but also about love and about family. And that was when I really, it clicked for me that feminists want families too, that having families is how you create more feminists. So I think a year and change later, I had a baby. And then not long after that, I had another one. ([Time 1:10:30](https://share.snipd.com/snip/01fde371-5aa3-4bdc-97a2-a62f28fd997f)) - **Use Experience To Cure Social Anxiety** - Treat social uncertainty by practicing social situations and having hard conversations. - Meg Jay says 'life is the best therapist' and experience builds social confidence over time. Transcript: Mel Robbins I'd love to just hear you kind of talk about what that concept is. Yeah, yeah. And if you see it as a big issue for people in their 20s. Meg Jay Yes and no. So social anxiety is the most commonly endorsed or most common mental health complaint. There was actually a questionnaire that's given to students and student health centers all over the country and has a bunch of questions on it, obviously. And the most endorsed question is, I'm worried other people don't like me. So this is a normal primary concern amongst college students, young adults. I'm worried other people don't like me. But there's a difference between being worried and being clinically anxious. And so the way I talk about it with 20-somethings, or if you're listening, my question to you would be, is your social anxiety, are we talking about clinical anxiety or are we talking About uncertainty? Are you feeling socially uncertain? I don't know if people like me. I don't know if what I said was stupid. I don't know if I'm going to be in the club. I don't know if I'll have anyone to go out with on a Saturday night. That's social uncertainty. And I think that is more commonly than not what 20-somethings are dealing with. Because remember, we said their friendships are unstable, their romantic relationships are unstable. So there's a lot of social uncertainty there. I am cautious about people jumping to diagnostic labels. There's something called the Nacebo effect, which is kind of the power of negative expectations where you hear, oh no, I have a disorder. I'm going to have this forever. And now people really won't like me because on top of them already not liking me, I'm deficient and disordered and messed up. And so I try not to label people with clinical problems maybe what we're dealing with is a developmental problem. ([Time 1:15:51](https://share.snipd.com/snip/461e52f6-f060-4c07-9f8a-6469c9a1d4dc)) - **Data Says Life Gets Better** - Development and positive expectations predict improvement; life generally gets better after your 20s. - Meg Jay relies on data and daily success stories to offer realistic hope to struggling young adults. Transcript: Meg Jay This is what I love about working with 20-somethings is that I really have development on my side. The data is on my side. So yes, I mentioned 20s or the low point of life, sorry, mental health, low point and low points in lots of ways. But all the data show life gets better across the 30s, across the 40s, across the 50s. So I have that confidence and that belief. And positive expectations actually go a long way in terms of giving people belief and hope. So, you know, whether it's a college student who comes into my office or a 25-year or the people we've talked about or you who's listening, when people come into my office, I assume that They're going to grow and change in a positive direction. And I feel very confident that I can help them do that or they can do that. You can do that from listening to a podcast, reading a book. And one of the best parts of my job is that every day I hear from students, clients, readers who say, oh my gosh, it's been five years and this has happened. I get saved the dates all the time and baby announcements and new job announcements. And so, you know, I have that belief that things are going to work out, can work out. And I think that helps people. I know that helps people. It's one of the best predictors of positive mental health. ([Time 1:22:37](https://share.snipd.com/snip/206a7ac9-ef52-413c-9a22-a5c203d86fe2)) - **Imagine Your Life Going Well** - Imagine your life going well to reveal practical steps you can take now. - Meg Jay says courageous positive visualization helps you spot the concrete actions needed today. Transcript: Mel Robbins Have the courage to imagine your life going well. Meg Jay That I think 20-somethings and all of us at every age spend a lot of time with, what if it doesn't this? What if it doesn't that? When we spend all our time doing that, which is kind of convenient because if you have the courage to imagine your life going well, you're going to see some things that mean something About what you need to be doing today to get there. And so that's what I often have people do is have the courage to imagine a life going well. What does that mean you need to be doing today? ([Time 1:26:57](https://share.snipd.com/snip/dabb401f-6188-4cf0-97b7-8f98530408cd))