When you are out there in the world, living on your own and paying your own bills for the first time – prioritize you first. Your dreams, savings, free time, adventures and travel – put you first. Let the relationships and career building come after. Get to know yourself before anyone or anything else.
Build a savings strategy for retirement for you first. See how it’s feeling when it’s going forward over the years.
Spend free nights and weekends with yourself first. See what YOU like doing before you start adapting to other people’s time.
Dream for yourself alone, first. Fortify your future vision with your heart’s desires, always, first.
Take trips (sometimes) just for yourself. See where your own wanderlust takes you before you follow other people’s agendas.
Journal. Just let it flow and see what you notice and what is underneath all the things.
Learn about the progress you are making and the changes you are seeing before you try changing someone else.
Decorate for yourself first. Sure, change your preferences repeatedly. See how they all feel in time.
Determine your own style first. Wear it. Change it up. Learn how you feel when you present yourself in different ways. Discover new versions of you.
Try to develop skills yourself first, then lean on other people if they are better, later. You might be surprised what you are good at.
I wish, looking back, I could have had the foresight to know that a sense of personal achievement would not come from finally having a marriage or a certain amount of money or a level of job title. Trusting that if I had all these pieces in place, all the sense of peace and happiness would follow, was a mistake. I am fortunate that in the future, I didn’t lose everything or fall entirely apart as a result. But I sure struggled and hurt more than I probably had to.
For any twenty-something folks out there reading this too: Hang on to all those dreams and wishes of the list above when it pertains to other people, relationships, careers and money. For sure, it’s not all bad. But when you get the choice early on to start investing your time, your dollars, your energy or your someday vision of happiness on other things – take that opportunity to do it for you first. It’s amazing how much easier and enjoyable the rest will follow if you build that awareness with yourself first.