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Your twenties can lay the foundation for the rest of your life. To help you make it the best foundation possible, I’ve collected 21 bad habits to overcome in your 20s.
Here are a few that you should be aware of:
1. Putting things off because ‘you’ve got all the time in the world.’
You wouldn’t believe how much time in your life you are wasting by postponing tasks to a later time.
Often enough, ‘later’ doesn’t come, and we forget about it. Or we need even more discipline to overcome our lack of motivation.
Doing things as soon as possible makes you more efficient and brings peace of mind.
2. Participating in and consuming gossip
Nobody is entirely immune to the lure of gossip. After all, we are social beings, so wanting to know what others are up to makes sense.
However, gossip becomes a problem when it distracts you from your own life.
You should generally show more fascination for your own day-to-day life than other people’s, or else you will get nowhere.
3. Spending your life at your desk
Yes, grades are important. Yes, they can guarantee you a good job and a great future, so you should do your best to do well in school/college.
However, good grades or even building a business are not worth it spending your 20s locked away behind your desk.
You need to find a balance, or you will have regrets when you look back on your life.
4. Comparing your life to others in a discouraging way
Comparing your life to other people can be the wake-up call that shows you how much more is possible in life. It can give you new goals and the necessary motivation to achieve them.
However, comparing yourself to others often leads to frustration, jealousy, resentment, and procrastination.
If you find yourself in the comparisonitis trap too often, it is important to take ten steps back from content that makes you feel that way.
The more time you spend like that, the more you’ll sabotage yourself. This is one of the bad habits you need to overcome in your 20s.
5. Daydreaming about your dream life more than working towards it
As a big daydreamer myself, I understand the allure of visualizing and imagining a life you will sadly never live.
As the law of attraction teaches, visualizing can be a powerful step in the quest to accomplish your goals.
But it’s definitely a bad habit you need to overcome if you visualize far more than you take action. This will only lead to sadness and frustration when you open your eyes and realize you’re still where you started.
6. Letting regrets fester
Regrets are like a black cloud that follows you wherever you go. If you try to suppress them, they pop up back into your mind when you don’t expect them to.
Even worse, regrets can take a toll on your self-worth. And self-worth is one of the most important factors in creating your dream life.
If you don’t feel worthy of what you desire, you will stand in your own way to prevent it from manifesting into your reality.
So don’t suppress your regrets; instead, intentionally feel them and forgive yourself.
7. Being surrounded by people all the time
This one of the bad habits you need to overcome in your 20s doesn’t seem all too problematic at first.
After all, what’s bad about having a flourishing social life?
Especially extroverts need people around them to charge up their energy and be genuinely happy.
However, alone time is important for both introverts and extroverts as it is a time for personal growth and self-awareness.
Don’t fill your days with social interactions to drown out your thoughts and feelings.
Reflection time is incredibly important.
8. Lying and bending the truth to people-please
Lying can become a habit quicker than we realize. Not only is lying generally frowned upon, but it can also create unnecessary troubles for us.
Stop trying to find excuses and instead be honest about why you don’t want to do something.
It takes much less energy to just be honest than to have to think up lies.
Also, making your opinions clear early on will help you deepen your relationship with people who are right for you and get rid of those that will only cause headaches in the long term.
9. Smoking
This really doesn’t need explaining.
10. Getting wasted regularly
Again, this goes without saying.
11. Eating unhealthy quick food all the time
Yes, it’s easy. Yes, it saves time. But it also prevents you from being at your best.
A fresh, healthy, and balanced nutrition improves your health and general well-being; it also helps you learn and work more effectively.
If you make healthy food a habit, you will consider fast food less and less.
12. Ignoring health issues
Health issues don’t just disappear into thin air if you ignore them!
Make sure to treat acne, insomnia, hair loss, rapid weight gain, and any other health issue as soon as possible.
It might not be much of an issue right now, but the longer it exists, the more serious health issues could await you in a few decades.
This should most definitely be one of the bad habits to overcome in your 20s.
13. Losing stuff due to lack of organization
Being disorganized wastes your time and makes you look bad in the eyes of others.
Start to designate one specific spot for your keys, wallet, sunglasses, etc.
Also, create one folder with dividers for every important document like insurance, log-in details, passwords, etc. (if digital, make sure to have backups).
14. Forgetting names and birthdays
One of these easiest ways to leave a good impression on people is remembering their name and birthday. It shows that you care and that they are reasonably important to you.
Practice remembering these details. Different memory techniques can help you. Just do some research.
15. Buying presents too late
Christmas and birthdays are on the same date every year. Keep a list of gift ideas and use sales to buy gifts in advance.
Never again will you gift a subpar present because you ran out of ideas and time.
16. Working with a ‘dull ax’ due to impatience
If you are motivated to start working on something, it takes a lot of patience and self-restraint to hold yourself back and sharpen your ax. But with a dull ax, you will only waste your time and energy.
So, before jumping into studying headfirst, create a rough study plan, and do some keyword research before creating your blog content.
17. Loudly or silently judging others without putting yourself into their shoes
If we let judgemental thoughts run freely through our heads, they will quickly become the knee-jerk reaction we have to anything we consider weird or unusual.
Try to remind yourself to have kinder thoughts and reactions to other people’s actions and words.
Think of reasons why they could have acted the way they did. Whether these reasons are true, coming up with them will strengthen your empathy.
18. Letting sales seduce you into purchases you wouldn’t have made otherwise
You don’t save money if you spend it on something you wouldn’t have bought without the sale.
Instead, you should use sales primarily to purchase things you’ve already been eyeing.
Read also: 11 Things You Should Not Spend Money On
19. Not sticking to a sleeping rhythm every day of the week
Most people talk about the importance of getting 7-9h of sleep every night.
Yet few talk about how waking up in the morning is so much easier if you wake up at the same time every day of the week.
After all, your body doesn’t know the difference between workdays and the weekend. Instead, your inner clock will get confused if you wake up at 6 AM on some days and then at 9 AM on others.
Read also: 7 Hacks That Help Me To Wake Up At 5 AM
20. Chasing every new trend
The energy, time, and money it takes to chase every new trend are outrageous!!!
Sure, it makes you feel cool for a short while, but this reward rarely all the effort.
21. Chasing one relationship milestone after the other instead of enjoying what you have right now
There is nothing wrong with celebrating your relationship milestones but don’t make your whole relationship about them.
What really matters is that you and your partner are together and in love. A ring or house will not change what’s at the core of your relationship.
Well, how many of these bad habits are you guilty of? What bad habits to overcome in your 20s would you add to the list?
We’d love to hear from you!
Until next time, Felicity Seeker!
