Your 20s are probably the most critical time of your life. The decisions you make in your 20s can either put you on the path to success or set you up for failure and make your life much more difficult. So today, I've got the full guide for you.
How to destroy your life in your 20s. If you follow all these steps, you'll be on a path to be broke and unhappy as you enter your 30s and beyond. I have 10 fatal mistakes.
Everything from financial decisions to dating decisions and and the consequences of each of these bad decisions. And I do want to say, even if you've made some of these mistakes, you can always come back. But it's probably best to just avoid these altogether if possible.
So if you find yourself doing these, get your [ __ ] together. And before we get into it, leave a piece of advice for someone who just turned 20 below. Maybe even your younger self who just turned 20.
What's your best advice for them as they enter this defining decade of their lives? So if you want to be broke, alone, and miserable by 30, follow this blueprint. Let's get into it.
Okay. The first way to destroy your life in your 20s is getting a bad college degree. So this is what I would call kind of the first trap of uh growing up in adulthood because unfortunately society pushes on us that you have to go to college, you have to go get a job and follow this path to be successful.
And while a college degree can help, I mean I have one and definitely benefited me, it's not always the best decision. It's very dependent on what you study. So I'm going to just show a list of the highest earning college majors versus the worst ones.
Please make sure you can make money and not overspend on the degree. If you do this wrong, it can leave you with lots of debt, little skill, and little income earning prospects. I mean, getting a degree in underwater basket weaving isn't going to get you there.
So, don't confuse college with education, gentlemen. Mistake number two, and this is one big one that can haunt you for the rest of your life if you don't figure it out soon, is not taking your finances seriously. Many people get their first real job around 22, 23.
They immediately scale their lifestyle. They get a nicer car. They get a nicer apartment.
They leave very little room to save and invest money at the end of the month. They say things like, "I'm young. I'm single.
I don't need to worry about this investing thing. I'll figure it out later in my 30s. " And that's a devastating mistake because time is your best friend in investing.
And delaying investing just gives away the biggest advantage 20-year-olds have, and that's time. When I got my first full-time job at 22, where I had extra money coming in, I picked up a few books. I reached out to people who knew finances, and I just tried to learn about how money works and how investing works, what types of accounts there are, what are historical returns, and more.
And I wish I did it sooner. I put in a good four to five years of solid investing and cheap living and it set me up for the rest of my life. Compounding works the best when you start early.
And eventually you want your money to work for you, not the other way around. Now, if I didn't make this decision in my early 20s, I'd have much less freedom. I'd have nowhere near as much money as I do now.
I probably couldn't have quit my job. And if you're lucky enough to be watching this in your 20s, especially your early 20s, just start taking finances seriously. If you delay this to your 30s or just don't take money very seriously, you're going to be playing catch-up for life and and maybe even living paycheck to paycheck in a situation where you can't escape.
So, the next trap, and this is somewhat related, is falling for consumerism. So, buying all the things, you know, the new cars, the new clothes, the stuff you don't need, the Amazon shopping sprees, all the crazy subscriptions. If it doesn't make you money, give you more time, or make you happy, don't buy it.
So, don't scale up your lifestyle when you get a race. In your 20s, you kind of have a past to be a total cheapo. Like I lived with roommates in kind of bad neighborhoods.
I lived with my parents. I never spent more than 5k on a used car. And I never got in debt.
I mean, if you're a single 22-year-old living with three roommates in a beaten down rented apartment driving a 2002 Corolla with 150,000 m on it while eating nothing but ramen, that's accepted by society. Now, if you're a single 37year-old living the same lifestyle, people are going to question you and look at you differently. Don't be a consumer.
Be a saver and investor instead. Like if you buy too many things, chances are you just won't have much freedom later in life to do what you want. So I mean if I was a consumer, I wouldn't have been able to leave my job and and accumulate the kind of net worth that I was able to.
So the next mistake you can make is chasing comfort and not taking risks when you can. So your 20s are really all about trying a bunch of different things to learn about who you are and what you want to do. And for many of us in our 20s, this is the rare time window we get in our lives to take risks, where you're old enough to work, but too young to have any crazy responsibilities.
This is the time to go after your dreams and the life you want. I had this window of opportunity from about 22 to 28 where I had basically zero responsibilities and could do whatever I wanted to do without any huge consequences. Now, for me, I'm 28.
I'm engaged and in 2 years I'll likely have kids, I hope, and that will severely limit the risks that I can take. So, I'm happy that I took the risk to leave my job when I did. Many people I'm good friends with in their late 20s, they have families, which is beautiful thing.
But now, they don't have time to go start that business or quit their jobs. They got to be the provider now. And for you young guys, I want you to find that balance.
I don't want you to confuse this with being irresponsible. Like, every action you take should be calculated, should have a goal, should teach you something. Maybe you get that safe job when you're 22 and then you learn from it.
You meet people and then maybe you can take that big risk at 25. you can start that business, that YouTube, do what you want because once you settle down into a life with, you know, more responsibilities, a mortgage and wife and kids, you can't be irresponsible anymore. You know, this lifestyle getting married and having kids isn't for everyone.
But, you know, it's a great goal. It's one of mine. And, uh, if you go down that path, your risk appetite will shrink drastically.
So, bottom line, take risks when you can. And if you don't, you might get locked into just that boring, repetitive life wondering what could have been if you took those risks and went after your dreams. So the next mistake, mistake number five and kind of related to being comfortable is wasting too much time.
I mean, how many of you guys waste away day after day procrastinating on what you should be doing? You you get home from work, you spend 2 hours, you know, scrolling on Instagram, on TikTok when you could be building. You're delaying your dreams.
You're you're not starting that new thing, that that business, that channel. Many of us are fine, you know, just relaxing and not building dreams. And if you're happy doing that, more power to you.
But if you're unhappy and you want to live an extraordinary life, you have to make sacrifices. You have to do extraordinary things. So you got to stop wasting time and go do things.
If you waste too much time, your dreams will never come to life. And if I continue to choose scrolling instead of, you know, diving into YouTube in my free time, I wouldn't be here right now. The next mistake, and this is a very, very big one.
It's going to be a bigger section. We're just going to put women. Women in general.
Now, now this could be its own video. And I say women just cuz my audience is 99% male. For the few ladies out there watching this, simply just replace women with men.
For many men, this is a huge part of our 20s that's just riddled with mistakes. I mean, people approach dating the complete wrong way. I think a common mistake people make is chasing women too much.
And and I mean this in the shallow way where many men just allow the pursuit of women to dominate their lives. You know, I've made this mistake. You know, people participate in meaningless hookup culture.
They date the wrong people just cuz they're hot. They go after the attractive chicks who just have nothing going on in their brains. And they do this instead of building themselves and and allowing, you know, women to be attracted to you.
Instead, you you spend your energy pursuing them, and this delays you from finding your mission. So, many men spend forever trying to date these types of women. And meanwhile, I think the sooner you can date with intention, the better.
I've dated a lot of people in my 20s and and learn so much from the process, and you can learn about what you want. You get better at dating, just get better at being like kind of funny and entertaining in a relationship, and you have a chance to meet many great people along the way. And dating is just like anything else.
It's a skill you have to build and something you have to put time to in order to get better if you want to find the right person. And once you do find that right person, it will make your life better in every way. I mean, I finally found my partner.
My fiance is someone who helps me build and supports me. She makes my life easier. Without her, I I wouldn't be in the mind space and have the kind of time to pursue the things that I can pursue.
You know, just to illustrate the difference, uh, one of my previous ex-girlfriends scolded me for not making more money, even though I was doing great at the time. And the other person I'm with now just supported me as I quit my job to follow my dream. So, you got to date the supporter, not the energy drain.
If you make mistakes here, there's just so much that can go wrong. You know, you can hook up too much and you get get a disease. You could get someone pregnant.
You could end up with a shallow person that's not a good match. You could marry the wrong person. Or on the flip side, if you never talk to anyone, you'll be alone with no dating skills and no relationship history into your 30s, which doesn't help for dating either.
So, definitely find a balance with the ladies and date with intention. So, mistake number seven is not going out of your way to meet more people and meet the right people. Your network can be your biggest asset in life.
You know, the people you know, your acquaintances, your friends, and they I I firmly believe in this statement that you're the average of the five people that you spend the most time with. I mean, if your friends are healthy and they they care for themselves, they want what's best for you, they encourage you to be better, and they're doing cool things, that'll make a huge difference. And if you're friends with a bunch of people who complain about their jobs all day and they go out and drink and smoke on weekends to escape, even outside of friends, like you'd be shocked at the amount of opportunities that can come your way, even just by weekly knowing someone.
I mean, my biggest software client right now was referred to me by one of my friends and and I hardly knew them going into it. Business opportunities happen, but you have to get to know people. So, put in an effort to go get to know people and put in an effort to make the right friends.
If you don't, you'll be less happy. You might have toxic people in your life and you'll just have less opportunities. So, make sure that this is a priority.
All right, mistake number eight and now we'll be shifting into some more shallow things that guys waste their time with. And this is partying too much. So, for my late teens, early 20s, I was definitely into the party lifestyle.
I was going out on weekends, getting drunk, making bad decisions. And it was a lot. It wasn't necessarily good for me because so much can go wrong.
And I've seen people, including myself, right, get injured, get in trouble, make bad decisions. And I'm thankful that by 23 24 I just had the realization that parting will not get you anywhere. It's not meaningful and I definitely got it out of my system as they'd say.
And now I have no interest in it. As you go through your 20s, this is kind of what happens. I mean early on you could, you know, treat your body terribly.
You can go out late morning 1 2 in the morning, drink, wake up the next day and nothing really mattered. Now it's different. I have more responsibilities.
The the hangovers are way worse. You know, if I go out Saturday night, I'm worthless on Sunday and Monday. Now, it's also bad like not only from a health perspective, but from a financial perspective cuz alcohol can double your bill with dinner.
And you know, if it add it all up, you're probably spending thousands on drinking per year. So, the the sooner you can shift into something meaningful, the better because partying is often used and is an escape from your life and your responsibilities. Now, don't get me wrong, you still need to have fun, but just do it in moderation.
You know, to celebrate something in real life or to reunite with friends. If you party too much throughout your 20s and into your 30s, it's going to be hard to get ahead. It'll be harder to maintain good health.
You might have questionable friends with less money and you'll just overall be in a worse situation. All right, mistake number nine is chasing the vices, the easy dopamine. This includes drinking, smoking, adult content, gambling.
And these things, they give you the quick hit, the temporary escape. In terms of gambling, smoking and drinking. Look, I have a few drinks a week.
I smoke cigars when I celebrate something on occasion. I hit the casino a few times a year, but it's all in moderation. I don't have a reliance on this stuff.
When I gamble, I don't gamble what I can't lose. And lots of guys get caught up in this and it kills their health or their finances. Like they develop a reliance on smoking or vaping or gambling.
They're gambling money they can't lose. And then adult content's kind of its own game. It's it's really a slippery drug that is best to avoid altogether, which is unfortunately harder and harder in today's world.
If you struggle with this, the best advice would be to remove triggers. You know, Instagram online access, be on your phone less, and stay busy because idle hands are the devil's playground. and screen time limits and some of these apps can be great as well.
If you fall for these traps, you'll be deeply unfulfilled, stuck in a pattern of destructive habits that rewire your brain to chase cheap things and not meaning. This will demotivate you and be, you know, invisible chains that are hard to break. Mistake number 10 in the final one here, it's not taking your physical health seriously.
I'm not going to spend too much time here, but uh build healthy habits for both, you know, fitness and eating because in your early 20s, your body can take a beating and be fine. But when you get to my age, gone are the days where you can live on no sleep, ramen, noodles, and beer. Hello, beer belly.
And hello, pear-shaped dad bodies. If you neglect this, you'll be unhealthy and weird looking too soon. So, there you have it.
How to screw up your 20s step by step. Let me know what you think of this list, what you'd add, what you'd agree with.
