Your 20s Are Meant To Build (How To Not Waste Them)

Your 20s are meant to feel easy.

You should know what work to do for the rest of your life.

You should be in your comfort zone because that’s exactly where you will see personal growth.

You shouldn’t try new things and explore yourself because you know exactly what you’re doing.

You should sacrifice your health to do other useless work.

You should not learn or educate yourself any further because what you have learnt in the first 20 years of your life is sufficient enough for the rest of your life.

There is a good reason why none of what I mentioned actually matters in your 20s, and why you should do the opposite.

The purpose of your 20s isn’t to know what you’re doing, it’s to not know what you’re doing.

In this phase of your life, nothing should make sense. You might have bit of success with something, maybe a job or a side hustle, but again, that feeling will return.

And now I want you to understand that it’s easier than ever to waste your time and to distract yourself with meaningless things.

Don’t overlook what I’ve just said, if you take a moment to look around you, everything is a distraction. But if there is an extreme of one thing, on the other side, there’s an extreme of something else.

If you are self-aware, you will notice that it is also a time of technological advancement. Which means growth and opportunity.

In your 20s you should try multiple things. You should try to figure out what you enjoy and what you don’t enjoy.

Also, it’s okay to be a generalist. However, you will need to always keep these 3 broad rules in mind.

The 3 rules that will help you have order and meaning in your 20s, but most importantly, life in general. The 3 rules that will build your life up from the mind, body, and spirit.

Because if your life has lost sense and touch, you have lost sense and touch of what matters to you.

You feel lost because you don’t have meaning.

Now don’t get it mixed up. There’s a difference between not trying and feeling stuck and attempting to have a go at life, but still feeling stuck. In the second scenario you’re actually trying to craft purpose. You question reality.

The problem only arises when you expect that meaning from others.

You expect it from the government, parents, spouse, friends, boss. You think external things bring meaning, whereas meaning starts with you.

That’s why people who claim life has no meaning are often right. What they tend to overlook, however, is they’re the ones who bring meaning to life.

Everything points back to you.

Rule 1) Self-Education

The first rule is self-education. There is no way around it. In order to build in your 20s, you must start by building your mind.

This doesn’t mean read 100 books. Everyone is different. Everyone may look similar on the surface level, but if you really got to know each person on an individual level, you would notice how unique each person is.

You for example, could learn from watching videos. Or it could be from doing the task at hand. You could learn from teaching others.

This is what your 20s should focus on, figuring out how you best learn. And then diving into your curiosities and learning everything about it.

Do this because nothing can be built if it hasn’t first been learnt. Forget everything you know up until now because it won’t take you any further than where you are.

Ultimately, you are where you are because of the education you have. If you want to go somewhere else, you need to build your mind to the intellectual extent that is required of your destination.

For example, if you want to master social media, so that you can earn an income online and never have to depend on anyone else ever again, you will need to learn from those above you who know how to do just that.

Whichever domain you want to master, learn from the people above you in that area.

By the way, this is what you’ve been doing your entire life. Learning things you didn’t want to learn from people you didn’t want to be like.

For example, going to university and studying something from someone (a professor) you didn’t really care about.

So, what I’m saying isn’t any different than what you’ve been doing.

This is why the digital economy is huge. The only difference between the future and the past will be just that. In the past back people had limited options to what they genuinely wanted to learn and who they wanted to learn from. Now, you learn based on your passion and mentors you admire (for example, someone you are not forced to listen to with no choice).

And of course, I mean social media. If you’ve watched this video up until this point, you are listening to me because you see value in what I’m saying.

One thing you should be very careful of here is consuming too much.

The world is based on perspective, get too much of it and you won’t know what to do at all.

There’s a funny saying, if you want the incorrect answer, ask everyone.

That is indeed the biggest trap in life, to live based on other’s ideologies and belief systems.

You might say “but aren’t you doing the same thing” I’m not telling you what to learn. I’m telling you to learn. Anything. From whatever you’re interested in and from whomever you want.

Again, focus on learning from people who have achieved what you want to achieve.

Watch hours of their content. If you want to go deeper, buy their courses. Because real valuable information is never free.

Separate 30 minutes to an hour each day for learning.

But there’s also another caveat to this, which is to ensure what you’re learning is closely aligned with what you’re building.

Most people are stuck because they learn without building anything.

We’ll talk about this in a bit. But you don’t want to mindlessly consume. Once there is a link between learning and building, that’s where all the magic happens.

Rule 2) Training

The second rule is to train. Most people think exercising is just purely a physical act but when you train, you also challenge yourself mentally. When you go that weight one notch higher, it’s a knock against your mental strength.

We already know about the physical advantages. Your body looks good, you feel good, and the world respects you because it shows them your grit, determination, and discipline without even speaking a word.

But another important thing here is that you are going out of thinking mode. You leave the world for a period of time. This is why you get a bit aggressive during workouts, because there’s nothing to hold back, it’s just you.

This could mean yoga, swimming, weightlifting. Remember, every person is unique. It’s about discovering yourself.

There are people out there who get everything they want in their 30s and 40s and are still miserable because they hadn’t fulfilled the physical aspect of their life in their 20s.

I personally workout 5-7 days of the week.

You don’t need to go extreme, just have something that slightly challenges your body daily. Escape the mind, so you can get back in touch with your body.

Rule 3) Build

The world only gives back to you what you feed it.

Focus in your 20s on providing as much value as you can to others.

The good news here is that we’re living in one of the best times to do this. We are in the digital era, where, if you seriously are passionate about something and provide the utmost value in that area, it is almost impossible to not get paid in return for it.

Self-improvement is solving your own problems. Business is solving other’s problems. You step into entrepreneurship when you do both.

You might ask “how can I possibly provide value?”…

Well, value is anything that positively contributes to another person’s life.

The essential part here is that you are a creator of something.

This isn’t an easy process, which is why most people take the default path. If you take this advice, regardless of what you create, you are already ahead of 99% of people when you simply just create because you are acting on your own unique desires.

You may think the entire world is doing this, but most people aren’t building something of their own. They’re building someone else’s dream, bringing someone else’s desires to reality.

Most people want to build something of their own but have no idea where to begin. They overthink, they wait for the “right moment,” or they get stuck consuming without creating.

If you’re in that place, wanting to start, build, and create something meaningful then I made something for you.

Creator Business Essentials, a completely free starter product that helps you understand the first steps of building something online, without the overwhelm or confusion.

Get it here: https://stan.store/SerkanKozkiran/p/cbf

Use this as your entry point into building, learning, and creating with direction rather than chaos.

It’s free because I want you to experience what focused self-education + actual action feels like. It changes everything.

There Is No Perfect Time

Weirdly, I had a gut feeling when I was 17 that I should be doing this type of content. I’m 25 now and I’m doing exactly what I had a gut instinct about 7 years ago.

In my mind, I thought there was a perfect time, but there is none.

You might have to go through a few hurdles to get to knowing what it is that you truly want, but it’s all worth it in the end, because the opposite does not have any meaning at all.

Learn how to learn and then actually learn.

Stop isolating your body and give it what it needs.

Finally, create and in that craft out some sort of purpose.

I’m not guaranteeing you won’t feel lost, I’m guaranteeing that you will. But that’s the point. It’s because you are not putting in the effort to discover yourself and find what truly matters to you.