1) Attack your bucket list items that require youth – Read through your bucket list and
determine which items are much easier to do when you are young such as hiking
Mount Kilimanjaro or doing the Everest Base Camp Trail. Make these the priority
for this decade. Assuming that you have sufficient means, you’ll be happy that
you saved the physically easier ones for later in life and the more challenging
ones for your thirties.
2) Have kids if you are married and want them – The consensus among parents is that
raising kids require a lot of energy particularly when they are very young. You
may want to get started when you have the greatest chances of healthy child
births and when you can keep up with them. There is nothing worse than needing
to take timeouts more often than your kids.
3) Keep trying to date if you are single – Plenty of people will give you the
opposite advice to quit trying as you get older, since it just happens
naturally once you quit trying. While I agree that trying too hard is off
putting, it’s unlikely that sitting at home giving no effort will lead to dating
opportunities. You must put yourself in a position to find dating opportunities
and then have an easy come-easy go attitude as the opportunities either fail or
move forward. Just because you feel like your opportunities are slipping, be
patient instead of marrying for the sake of marrying.
4) Counteract a slowing metabolism with more exercise and a
better diet – There is
a gradual physiological decline in your thirties wherein you’ll have a greater
susceptibility to diabetes and heart disease. You won’t see any overnight
changes, but your body’s metabolism will slow down. This means that the days of
eating anything you want are over. You can have the same caloric intake of your
twenties, but it won’t burn off nearly as quickly as you get older. You will
need to counteract your metabolism with physical exercise and eating healthier,
unless you don’t mind gaining weight. If you are already at your ideal weight,
you should have no problem maintaining it by adapting to the changes of your
body. This can’t be stressed enough that exercise is HUGE in your thirties!
5) Pick a fight with Father Time – As noted in the previous tip, you’ll
face a gradual physiological decline in this decade. This could mean that you
get grey hair, lose hair and/or grow hair in places that you never have before.
It will take longer to recover from workouts. You will be more injury prone. You
can accept these changes or pick a fight with Father Time! There are a lot of
things you can do to look and feel younger. Use sunscreen, dye your hair, avoid
injuries by avoiding risks, etc. If you let Father Time run amok over your
body, you’ll actually look older than your age.
6) Ease up on fast food and eat healthier – In my mid-twenties at my first
career job, I would use my lunch hour to find a fast food restaurant with the
best dollar menu, so that I only needed to spend ~$2 to finance my lunch. Since
my budget was tight and my metabolism fast, it worked out OK. Now that I’m in my
thirties and I’m at mid-level career job, I can afford to spend more than $2 on
lunch. This is a good thing, since I want to eat healthier. I’ve even shopped
around for an enjoyable salad. For the record, my favorite salad is the
California Pizza Kitchen chopped BBQ chicken salad. Times have changed
regarding our food choices both at restaurants and at the grocery store. We
used to have limited variety and mostly unhealthy eating options. Now there are
a lot of healthy eating options, although most of those foods are at a price
premium. It’s worth it to try and eat healthy.
7) Dig into the details of your retirement plan – Getting to a comfortable amount to
retire off of doesn’t happen by chance. You need to plan decades in advance how
much you will need, your investment vehicle, what you will invest in, and how
long it will take you based on your career trajectory. Since there are always detours
along the way during periods of unemployment, financial hardship, and unpredictable
inflation periods the process will need to be reevaluated time and time again.
There is a great advantage to knowing the intimate details of your plan and
getting a financial advisor to help you maximize the return on your investments.
If you wait until your 40s to get started on your retirement plan, it may mean
working years longer than you anticipated. Contributing to certain retirement
accounts allow you to postpone paying taxes on that proportion of income, which
helps you now and in the future.
8) Don’t leverage yourself to keep up with the Joneses – The temptation when you are doing
well at your job is to flaunt your success by buying stuff with credit i.e. buying
a mega house, boats, fancy cars, etc. to impress your peers. This mentality is risky
since you can lose your job at any moment and lose the ability to pay your debts.
Even if you continue to work consistently, you are slowing your momentum to retire
quicker by spending money that could have otherwise been invested and compound
interest accrued.
9) Make it a goal to be out of consumer debt by age 40 – This doesn’t mean that you can’t
have student loans, a house payment, or a car payment at age 40. It’s just that
you should have your consumer debt paid off, as well as your long-term debt
payments consolidated at a manageable low interest level. The key is that you
don’t want excessive debt hanging over your head when you should be investing
your money for retirement. Debt payments could slow down your retirement goals
in a dramatic way. Keep the rule of 72 in mind that your money doubles every 10
years if you average a 7.2% rate of return. This is particularly valuable to
have money invested in your early career years to allow for a possibility of
doubling 3 or 4 times before you need it.
10) Finish qualifying for your career (if necessary) – If there are
credentials or degrees you need to progress in your career, finish it in your 30s.
Although it’s still possible to go back to school in your 40s and 50s, it’s questionable
whether the investment is worth it that late in life. Employers are less likely
to hire at an entry level and invest in you if you are already supposed to be
in your mid or late career. Taking on the debt and being out of the work force
could make sense in this decade, but definitely try and finish getting
qualified by the time you’re 35. That gives you up to 30 years of time in the
workforce before you reach retirement age.
11) Work hard at your career and become irreplaceable – Starting in your career job, you’ll
want to prove your worth by working hard and long hours if necessary, which
will give you job security and a strong reputation for having a strong work
ethic. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t have a good work-life balance, but
a good attitude to do the job the right way will help you climb the ladder to
success.
12) Don’t be afraid to shift career directions – It’s not at all uncommon to switch
career paths in today’s market even in midcareer. Many people have done it
successfully. If you are in an industry that is dying or you simply can’t bear
the thought of staying put for 30 years, this is a decade where it’s not always
foolish to take a few risks and try a new path. You may have to take a pay cut
and lose a lot of your direct work experience, but you may find the
psychological advantage of starting anew will extend your career.
13) Keep your mind active – Your formal education may be complete by now, but that
doesn’t mean that you should stop getting an informal education. Challenge
yourself mentally by taking on projects that require mental effort. Keep
reading books, writing, and travel the world if your priorities permit. Your
mind dulls without exercise, so keep it actively engaged.
14) Don’t give up on your dreams: just tweak when necessary – So you didn’t win American Idol
like you planned to. The windows of opportunity may close on things you aspired
to in your teens and twenties, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t build on
what you’ve worked hard for even if leads down a different path than you
envisioned. Also, don’t beat yourself up for making mistakes along the way.
Mistakes are often learning moments that often provide you wisdom that will
benefit you later in life. Aisha Tyson summed it up this way:
Your journey has molded you for your greater good, and it was exactly what it needed to be. Don’t think that you’ve lost time. It took each and every situation you have encountered to bring you to the now, and now is right on time.
15) Stand for something – Now that you are an adult, it’s time to stand up for the
principles that you believe in whatever they may be. If you allow the winds of
life and societal trends to shape your philosophy, you won’t recognize who you
will become in the future. “If you stand for something you will have people for you and people
against you. But if you stand for nothing you will have nobody for you and
nobody against you.”
16) Everybody is on an individual journey that can’t be adequately
judged by others – Just because you are going at a slower pace than your peers,
it doesn’t make you a failure. You can go at whatever pace makes you and your
family happy. No matter what anyone else thinks of your path, it is still yours
to choose.
17) Life is a marathon so pace yourself – With the advances in medicine, it's very likely that many people will live past 80. This means that your thirties are really in the first half of life and the first third of your adult years. There are certain opportunities that are more easily accomplished in these years than in the golden years, so don't procrastinate. At the same time, life could be long so you don't need to do everything in your 30s. Pace yourself.
No comments:
Post a Comment