How can your 20s do your older you a favour

How can you use your time in your 20s useful, to make the important decisions of what you would like to do? What kind of profession, and what kind of life you would like to live later in your life. I would like to share with you my advice, from my adventures around the world in my 20s.

Most people, actually in most cultures start this kind of thought in their early 20s. What you would like to do with your life, and what you're aim with and in your life would be? You most likely dont have to figure it all out at once, but the early 20s offer the start of these thought for most of us.

It's actually not too long since i finished my 20s, but I remember how I thought about these kind of things. And these thoughts probably changed every month, for every new impression i experienced.

The common thought many experience is that you don't want to fall behind the others you grew up with, thats often the thought you have. When you meet people 10 or 20 years later, you want to have something to show for, right?.

Trust me! forget all of that. That shouldn't matter for you at all. When you get more insight, you will quite fast understand that the people you related to before, they dont really understand you anyway. They often have their fixed mindset, doing whatever they do. Something unfortunately the majority of those you grew up with end up having anyway. No shame in that, it is simply just a different way of living, with different goals and success indicators in life.

Anyway. When I was younger I had the same thought as most people experience multiple times when they are you, and possibly trough their life. "WTF" will I do when i "grow up", it's a puzzling thought. But you will probably never manage to answer this question fully at any point in your life.

Strangely I was one of the lucky kids, maybe kinda lottery lucky with my 20s. I managed to spend my 20s doing all sort of different things. So many different things that I can't keep track on them actually. During my 20s I was so fortunate that I could fill my life with a mix of excitement, entertainment and productive things at the amount few people experience, maybe in their whole life.

Living in 8 different countries for study, research and work. Even studying in 9 different Universities. And all the stuff that follows traveling the world. I among many things took licence on all stuff you can drive on the road, just for fun of learning new stuff. Took part in all kind of projects.

Meeting so many great, and also different people. Some are my great friends even today. I fly in and meet friends all over the world even today. All of this is something I am grateful for today, something that has shaped me, and my decisions further in life.

And made me a collected skill-set many have, but maybe few others have in combination. But most important of all, with these experiences I have done my future self a huge favour. Something I harvest so much from today in my 30s.

My advices for the future, on how to spend your 20s

• The most important factor, use these years to explore, to fail, to try new things on all aspects. As wide as possible. The more you do, the more you fail, the more you learn. Spend these years vise. These are the years you will be curious, have energy. These are the years you are fearless, often you are lucky enough to don't know risk, understand or care about risk the same way as you will later in life. And this is the time when this kind of life is socially accepted, giving social fit and maybe also fun in the full extent. Spend these years vise, it will not come back to you. That is a certainty.

Do things in the right time of your life. The time will not come back to you. 

1. Now that you have fun and enjoy, what should you aim at with this? What ever you do on your adventure, study, explore, work or any other fun stuff. Keep in mind to find something useful. Something that you can offer others, something that has value. What kind of services, or what kind of problems does this knowledge solve for others. What can you offer others with what you learn? Get a skill, something you from experience, from doing all these adventures that you like doing, have passion for, something you know you will be good at. And then learn how to improve it!

2. How can you get better at that skill set? If you use your 20s in getting good at something that you have a passion or interest for. You will be pretty good at this by the time you reach your 30s. Even as an average performer, you should be able to be far over average on these skill sets.

3. You now have a profession, before you finish your 20s. A skill set that should be deep in understanding and reflection. Something your are better than others in, and might even be considered an expert in.

4. Regardless what this skill set is, if it is photography, finance, psychology, business, leadership development, mindfullness development or any other. You now have 10 years of experience ahead of anyone. If you did the second step right, with the focus on what you can offer others, something that has value. You now have something to offer, some knowledge that actually has value. You found it!

This will do your future selv a great favour, and you will be able to thank yourself when the time comes. What ever your goals in life are, with the investment you did in yourself. You have a head start, and filled your life with the best options you can.

"Do things right, and thank your past self for the investment, and favour you did"