Do you want to know what the key to happiness in your 20s is? I certainly want to be living the good life. I don’t have all of the answers, but I did plenty of research on the topic.
There have been periods in my life where I’ve been extremely productive. I maximized my time and produced much more than I consumed. Lately I’ve been consuming much more than I’ve been producing (in terms of blog work). I’ve been doing lots of reading. I’ve been reading content that may not have interested me in the past. Long story short, I want to look at the idea of finding happiness in your young years.
Let’s look at how you can find the key to happiness in your 20s:
Create your bucket-list.
Do you wan to know how to start investing? A friend recently brought this idea up with me and I’m now working on my own summer bucket-list. A summer bucket-list is a decent start. My ultimate goal is to have a bucket-list for the next few years. There’s just so many goals that run through my mind that I feel I need to keep track of them. I’m also a firm believer in goals of all types: short term (write daily blog posts), medium term (finish school), and long term (find a fulfilling career). Without setting goals and keeping track of your progress, how will you know if you’re moving in the right direction?
Find a mentor.
No matter what you’re doing in life or what obstacles you might be facing, there are people that have already been there and done that. It can be intimidating at first to reach out to older and successful people for help. Once you do reach out, you’ll realize that most people will be generally friendly and willing to help. Why go through life alone? You can figure out what to do after college and the key to happiness with the help of older friends.
Stop worrying so much.
I find that we collectively worry too much. We often worry about our image, clothing, style, health, money, work, etc. There’s nothing inherently wrong with being conscious about your surroundings. It’s pretty useless to worry mercilessly about things that we can’t control. You’ll never find the key to happiness when you’re always so worried.
Surround yourself with positive people.
This one change alone will make a major difference in how you behave and feel about yourself. I can’t even begin to stress the importance of having positive influences in every area of your life (from social circle to co-workers). When I first wanted to know how to travel the world, I was worried about the people that I would meet. I soon learned that you can meet amazing people when you open yourself up.
Stop obsessing over the news.
What good can come out of stressing over the news every day? I used to watch the news/read the newspaper every morning because I felt like it was apart of adulthood. After all of the natural disasters and market swings over the past few years, the news simply depresses me when I become obsessed with it. It’s important to keep up with the latest happenings in the world, but obsessing with information that is out of your control is pointless.
Coach someone.
The mentoring process for me always worked one way. When you reverse roles and become a coach/mentor yourself, you’ll notice that something very interesting will happen. You’ll improve your skill set in the field that you’re a mentor in and you’ll help someone else develop their own skill set. The best part is that we can all be mentors/students in some aspect of life. I’ve helped friends with finances that in turn helped me with working out. We all have lots to learn and lots to give in life.
That’s what you can do to find the key to happiness. What’s stopping you from living the good life?