With a backpack full of talents, a killer personality, and a brain jam-packed with dreams for the future, you are ready, willing, and able to get the very best out of your 20s.
There is one tiny but significant change you can make to your lifestyle that can have a tremendous effect on your ability to reach your dream career before your 35th birthday. While everyone around you will reach that milestone with a long bucket-list of unchecked fantasies, you will receive it surrounded by abundance and recognition after having made your first, unquestionable, and deeply meaningful mark on the world.
You and I both know that you are not like most people. You have bigger plans for your life which must be executed in some form as quickly as possible. You know your road to the fulfillment of those plans will be overflowing with adversity and obstacles, but are fully ready for the challenge.
You are not average, so nothing in your life should conform to the statistics of average people your age. Because the best antidote is awareness, here is what average people your age are doing: wasting 22 hours of entertainment (online streaming content, video games, and worthless social media interactions) every week.
That is a day of their lives down the drain EVERY WEEK. This is before they dedicate the necessary time to socializing.
Somewhere in the depths of those statistics are the stars of our generation. They invest in audiobooks, not Netflix memberships. They remain in their desks a few hours after work to watch online tutorials, not full seasons of TV shows. They are taking small steps toward their dreams every day, not leaving them for later.
Some may think these individuals don’t have enough time for their friends or significant others, but that is just another way of justifying indecision and procrastination.
These individuals can multi-task and multiply the profits of their time investments:
There are meditation classes they attend with their friends, learning to become masters of their own thoughts and bodies.
There are apps and software to learn new languages while they clean their rooms, leading to niche careers and exiting travel adventures.
There are lunch dates and exercise dates, multiplying effects and benefits across several individuals.
When they’re done hustling, they can take a step back, go out, get drunk, and truly enjoy it. That is because they plant the seeds of future blessings every day, and have little (if anything) to regret.
They never let themselves think that they will do great things “later”. They understand that their time is their most valuable asset, and properly invested time can pay big dividends.
If you believe in stacking the odds in your favor, and doing everything you can to get to your dreams as quickly as you can, I would suggest taking a look at how you’re currently investing your time. How much is going to entertainment consumption as compared to career advancement? How can you nurture both with the same intensity and commitment?
Those with bright futures will come to see that there is nothing “boring” about an online class that teaches you a marketable skill, or an audiobook that increases your ability to discern between constructive and destructive personal choices.
Those who have bright futures will see that their Netflix, Hulu, and Cable Television budgets could easily be reinvested, which will pay higher returns both in the short and long term.
I don’t know which group you belong to, but if you are inclined to believe you are in the right group, I urge you to think about your time and what you are currently doing with it.
Andrew Gabelic is the CEO & Founder of Teledipity, a free pocket life coach with an eerie ability to send you the right self-improvement content at the right time (based on your personality and life stage). Check out what it says about you!