What Was Lacking In Your Twenties?

For the first time ever, I ran my credit report. As I was reviewing it, I realized that I had charged thousands of dollars on credit cards starting at 19 years old. It was only recently that I stopped using credit cards, and I can honestly say that I no longer possess a lot of the items that were purchased on credit. I remember many times when I needed a new shirt to wear out on Friday night, or my friends wanted to go out for dinner, or I decided I deserved a weekend away in Boston even though I didn’t have the cash to pay for it. The credit cards always came to the rescue and made things happen. I am still paying cash on a monthly basis for those bad decisions that were years ago!

I really believe that one of the reasons I made some of those decisions was because I was confused! I didn’t really know what I wanted or what I believed in. I graduated college and was instantly removed from my five best friends that I had lived with for a year or longer. I also lost the flexibility that’s allowed in college. The story I had always believed was that I would graduate college and get a job and live happily ever after! This story was far from the truth. I was extremely let down when I started working full time. I felt as if my job was my life and it was suffocating me. I ended up taking refuge in material things, or going out partying with friends. At 23 years old I told myself that I was young and would eventually grow up and get a good paying job to pay off the debt! I have learned that this is also a lie.

It wasn’t until about five years later that I decided I needed to figure out who I was as an individual and what I wanted out of my life. I was enrolled in graduate school and getting my Masters in Counseling and I figured that I should probably experience counseling for myself if I was going to be a counselor. I started seeing a counselor on a weekly basis. Within a few months, I started breaking down the beliefs that I had about myself, as well as examining the expectations that others had placed on me.

I noticed that as I started to become more emotionally raw and in tune with my true self, I started finding less joy in shopping. I learned that some of the things that I value are freedom and security. I knew that it would be impossible to have either of these with enormous debt. I also became more confident with who I was as a person which caused me to be more assertive and speak up if I was unable to afford something. This self-exploration changed the way I use and value money.

The reason I am sharing all of this is because I have been reflecting a lot lately on the life that I led in my twenties. For the most part, I loved that decade of my life, but I really wish I would have taken more time early on to get in touch with my true self. College was a great time for me to gain responsibility, make friends, and learn about the field I thought I was interested in, but I didn’t learn a whole lot about me. Once you are removed from your parents, it’s the perfect time to figure out who you are independent of them, but I don’t know of any classes in college that teach this.

More recently, I have found some really great resources on this subject and I wish I would have known about these while I was going through my little twenty something crisis. Christine Hassler has written a few books on this subject, “20 Something 20 Everything” and “20 Something Manifesto”. I read both of these and did the exercises. I wish I would have read them 10 years ago! Jenny Blake has an amazing blog that is chocked full of tips for “Life After College”, which is the title of her new book. If you are feeling at all like you are in a twenty or thirty something crisis, I encourage you to check these amazing women out! They have coached me a lot through their books and blogs and don’t even know it!

I would love to hear if others have had a similar experience in their twenties? If not, what do you think helped prepare you for life after graduation?