1) Travel more and sooner
“We’ll start traveling next year honey”, and 20 years later you wonder where the time has gone by. In another 20 years, you probably won’t be able to hike up that mountain or trail to see the view. Do yourself a favor and stop procrastinating on exploring the beautiful world we are born into.
2) Enjoy food with your loved ones
With all the new diet trends and obsession to be healthy and fit, you often find yourself to be the only one eating a grilled chicken salad with half the dressing while you’re out with friends or family. Eating clean is undoubtedly great for your body, but balancing your diet out once in awhile doesn’t hurt either. Those couple hundred calories won’t matter over the years, but the memories and laughter you share with your loved ones are forever.
3) Do what you love
Your happiness matters much more than money. If making 120k a year meant that you would be miserable, please do yourself a favor and pick a happy and enjoyable life with the job that pays you 70k instead. Your job will one of the biggest, if not biggest part of your life. It’s where one spends the most time, meets most of their post-college and life-long friends. Make sure you do something you love. Being constantly stressed has many side effects for your body, such as weight gain, weakened immune system, and brain fog.
4) Leave no regrets
The last thing anyone wants is to have regrets when they’re in retirement. This goes for anything, from pondering what if you just talked to that cute guy from class to wishing you could have taken the job offer and moved to Australia. Whatever it is, please do it while you’re young and rid your life of regrets, they’re honestly the worst.
5) Stay in touch with your old friends
All it takes is a simple message once a year to catch up and it is actually incredibly beneficial for you according to an 80-year study done at Harvard. “Those who were happiest and healthier reported strong interpersonal relationships, while those who were isolated had declines in mental and physical health as they aged.”
6) Don’t work so hard
Everything around you happens so fast. Your children’s first baseball game, your parents’ birthday, your spouse’s recital. Working hard is good, but making a conscious effort to have a more balanced lifestyle will make sure you don’t miss out on the precious moments of life. You can always make more money and work harder 20 years from now, but you can never rewatch your kid’s game that you missed.
7) Save up your money
Starting today, put away a part of your paycheck every single month into a savings account. It’s a simple change in habit and will be sure to save you a ton of stress down the road.
8) Being happy is more important than being right
Your relationship with your significant other is one of the most precious things ever, and everyone should make an active effort to deeply cherish it. Challenges will arise and fights are bound to happen. Just remember that in the midst of all of the fighting, both of you were brought up differently. What seems like common sense to one could seem absurd to the other, and absolute right’s and wrong’s does not help a fight end any faster. Instead, ask yourself if you care more about being happy with your partner or being right about this one singular issue. Listen to each other, be honest, be vulnerable about your feelings, try your best to be empathetic, and your marriage/relationship will blossom throughout the years.
9) You will inevitably make enemies
It’s impossible to avoid, so please don’t sweat it too much. Simply take away what you can from the situation and take it as a learning experience. Life is too short to worry about your enemies.
10) You are who you surround yourself with
If your friends are always negative, discouraging your ambitions, and bringing you down, they may still be friends, but they are definitely not the people you should be hanging out with every week. Change your inner circle immediately. There are plenty of like-minded positive individuals out there, you simply have to go out and meet them.
Just remember, it’s never too late to take this advice and implement it into your daily life. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, and you can make a positive change in your life along every step of the way.