Getting Your Life Together at 30
So you’re getting your life together at 30. This is great news! There is no better time to get your life together than right now. Getting your life together at any age is a good idea, and 30 is as good a time as any. However, those of us leaving the Odyssey Years of our…
So you’re getting your life together at 30. This is great news! There is no better time to get your life together than right now.
Getting your life together at any age is a good idea, and 30 is as good a time as any.
However, those of us leaving the Odyssey Years of our 20s have some special challenges to contend with. Especially in today’s society. Let’s check out a few of them.
1. You spent your 20s figuring out who you are.
The years of young adulthood are super special. You’re leaving behind the rebelliousness of adolescence and suddenly finding yourself out on your own. You don’t have to answer to anyone anymore. After all, you’re an adult now, right? So what do you do?
Many of us start by finding a job or continuing our education at the university level. More on that later.
Beginning a career straight out of high school does not always work out well for everyone immediately. And sometimes, the next one job or opportunity doesn’t either. Or the next one.
There is a huge learning curve involved in getting your life together, and sometimes it takes a whole decade (or more) to get good at it.
This is fine. And normal, really.
If you spent your 20s leaving home, supporting yourself, partying, working and/or studying, and developing relationships, then you are right on target. Most of us do. The ratio of these activities will vary, but they are all important for learning about yourself, and learning life lessons.
Few of us make it through our 20s without hitting some turbulence, and this is a good thing. Strife builds character, and the skills you develop to navigate struggle are invaluable and essential to passing into the new era that comes when you start to get your life together at 30.
2. You went straight to college out of high school.
This path can serve as a springboard that will catapult you through your 20s with ease, and land you softly with your life together at 30. But it doesn’t always.
Academia can expose us to many of the same things that we have just discussed, but with an added challenge: coursework.
Not only are you on your own, but you’re learning how to balance taking care of yourself with having fun and studying. Some of us do this better than others.
For me, not so much. I chose an extremely competitive and difficult major, and did not quite get the hang of the balance thing until long after I graduated. I tended to over emphasized partying or studying, and totally neglected taking care of myself.
So by the time I finished, I was a shell of person. I had given everything I had to finish my program. I left nothing on the field.
And so there I was. Twenty-two, with a fancy degree, no job prospects, and a mountain of debt. This sent me into a tailspin that took years to unravel and process and learn from.
But would I change it? No way!
Those experiences and tough times were rich with lessons, and when I finally started to get my life together at 30, I had years of good stuff to work with.
3. You’re getting your life together at 30.
Congratulations! You made it! You’re thirty, and you’re wonderfully equipped to start getting your life together.
All of those lessons and experiences will come in super handy as you begin to piece together the things you’ve learned along the way, and maturely apply them to adult situations.
How wonderful it is the arrive at 30 with a firm foundation of good and bad, strengths and weaknesses, to draw from.
Your journey is just beginning. There is tons left to learn, and plenty of time left to learn it.
“Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you wanna do with your life; the most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives; some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still don’t.”
? Baz Luhrmann
So cheers to the process. You are well on your way.
Let us know how things are going for you as you progress through your fourth decade. We’d love to hear about it.
Drop us a comment or contact us anytime!
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Links for further reading:
What Do You Do When You Don’t Achieve Your Goals?
