What Contribution Taught Me about Connection (and Why I Refuse to Lose Faith in Humanity)

by CHELSEA DINSMORE

Have you ever had an experience that changed you? One that touched you so deeply or inspired you so fully, it caused to to act differently from that point on? Well, here’s a little story about one of those experiences for me…

I visited Africa for the first time 9 years ago. Shortly after that trip, I quit my soul-sucking Public Relations job and decided to pursue something that actually mattered to me. It wasn’t just being away from the office for a few weeks that did it. It was the lessons that lingered afterwards, the reminders that I couldn’t seem to shake.

I recently shared 8 reasons why I think exploration is the best education—but really, it’s pretty simple. It’s because:

Your experiences create your passions.

So, after that initial trip and quitting my job, I had plans to go spend some time in Africa through a fellowship program. But Scott and I then decided it was something we wanted to do together (and was what we had planned to do after summiting Kilimanjaro). I put that dream on hold for a bit to prioritize some other things in my life—a decision I am glad I made today. 

But to honor that lingering spark inside of me, recently I joined a trip to Kenya where the focus was adventure and contribution:

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13:32:00 - By Vincent 0

What Most Entrepreneurs Never Share: 7 Honest, Actionable Answers to Your 7 Most Debilitating Fears & Challenges

by SCOTT

“It’s not an adventure until something goes wrong.”

– Yvon Chouinard, Founder of Patagonia

Urgent Note: Live Your Legend RAW, our latest creation, went live a couple days ago. You have 2.5 more days (until this Sunday at midnight PST) to get early Insider’s (and very discounted) lifetime access + a live mentoring call with me. Lots more details below, or if you’re a member of our free LYL community, check your email for access.

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The Fun of Things Going Wrong…

The above is a snapshot of Chelsea learning to drive a stick shift on a wide open road in Northern Argentina a few days ago. Usually I do the driving in foreign countries, especially when a stick shift is involved, but I managed to leave my driver’s license at a bike shop in Uruguay a couple weeks ago, and despite endless attempts by me and our Argentinian friends, I don’t think I’m ever going to see it again.

That road might look tame enough for learning stick, and it was, right up until it turned to dirt, rocks, mud and river crossings a few miles later – which have become the ‘normal’ driving conditions for the past few days and 10+ hours on the road.  #saygoodbyetopavement #lovemywife

And that is why the above quote from Yvon Chouinard might be my favorite quote of all.

The best stuff is never planned, and if you knew what was coming, you’d likely never start. 

Life (and business) have a funny way of working like that.

And that is exactly why I created Live Your Legend RAW – to share the behind-the-scenes stuff that most entrepreneurs are too scared to share.

It’s a window into the “inner circle” so to speak – of what it takes to live your own legend.

More specifically, it’s a resource for honest, uncut, weekly lessons, guidance & focused actions on how to successfully pursue a dream & do work you love.

Despite some incredible (read: laughable) technological challenges of running a web-based business in rural Argentina (Yvon’s words strike again), LYL RAW went live two days ago (3 weeks behind schedule).

And I’m effing pumped that many of you have already joined!

In building RAW, I asked all of you what your biggest questions and challenges were in pursuing work you love and surrounding yourself with the people who make it possible.

That’s what I always do before creating something new for our community – so I know exactly what would help you the most.

Almost immediately, we had nearly 1,000 responses.

And after reading through them, we found a few things that everyone seems to be struggling with.

This used to surprise me. Now I expect it – it turns out, regardless of what we’re all trying to build, change or improve, or where we are in the process, the same challenge always seem to come up.

So, in honor that, I want to share some brief answers to your biggest questions and challenges.

Over the coming months, we’ll dive incredibly deep into these (and a ton more) in our weekly RAW sessions and lessons.

Honest, Actionable Solutions to Your 7 Biggest Challenges

#1.“What the heck am I supposed to do? I have so many interests and no idea how to choose. How do I find a dream big enough to inspire me?”

AKA: Choosing & Defining a Passion & Dream Worth Fighting (& Living) For

ACTIONABLE ANSWER: 

Follow the path of excitement – follow the spark. No one ever totally figures this out. I’m learning more about it every day (hence creating LYL RAW). And that’s the fun part. Stop putting so much damn pressure on yourself to find that ONE THING.

It’s not about what you’re ‘supposed’ to do. It’s about what you’re meant to do. That passion and fire comes from doing the things that intersect with your talents, strengths, values, beliefs and how you can actually make someone else’s life better. Everything you do – every success or failure, is part of the grand experiment. It’s a data point to better direct you towards the work you can’t not do. You just have to pay attention and do something with it.

Think about what makes you incredibly angry to talk about – something wrong about the world that you can’t stop thinking about. Focus your energy on helping with a solution. And start on an incredibly small scale.

Don’t worry about picking the ‘right’ passion or direction among all your interests.There will always likely be more than you can handle at any one time – and the list will only grow as you continue to pursue what lights you up.

The only way to have a chance at doing it all, is to pick ONE thing right now and move forward with it. The irony is that when you give incredible focus to one of your interests, that often opens up doors to incorporate others.

A few years ago I was terrified to launch a site that was only about doing work you love. There was so much other stuff I wanted to talk about. But now that incredible focus has allowed me to incorporate social dynamics, human connection, relationships, entrepreneurship, physical fitness and a lot of adventure (as I write you from a tiny town in Northern Argentina).

But if I started with all those things, most of you probably would have never heard of LYL. There would have been no clear and specific reason to pay attention.

#2. “I have no idea where to start and can’t find the motivation & momentum to keep going. How do I create a business without having it all figured out first? What’s the very, very first step?”

AKA: Starting (& Finishing) Your Most Important Projects & Finding the Unshakable Courage to Pursue Your Dreams

ACTIONABLE ANSWER:

No one has it all figured out. No one. And anyone who says they do is a liar. If fact, the more you learn and figure out, the more you realize you have to learn and figure out. But that’s part of the party that is pursuing a dream, doing work you love and making a difference in the world.

All that matters is the next step. If you can take that, then you can take the next. That’s what makes magic. Stop spinning your tires trying to figure out how to build the whole damn castle. Find a good plot of dirt and a couple good bricks. Make the steps so incredibly small that they’d be impossible not to take.

And in case you’re wondering what to specifically do first or next, it’s the thing that scares you the most. And the thing that’s likely to help others the most. It’s not getting business cards or a new suit or even your website URL.

It’s getting out in front of people and finding a way to change their life. That is all of our biggest task. Figure out how to use your talents, strengths and passions to make one person’s life better. Then do it with another, and another. Only after you’ve nailed that, do you think of how to apply tools and technology to scale your impact. Almost everyone gets this backwards (I know I did). Nail your impact first, then scale.

And if you’re lacking motivation, start spending time with other people with similar dreams. That’s why we created our free LYL Local communities. None of this is meant to do alone. Be grateful for the fact that you’re even able to read this and have the ideas that you do. Then realize that it’s your ultimate responsibility to do something with it!

#3. “How do I start something that makes real money, on-the-side, so I don’t have to take all the risk of dropping everything. I just can’t just check out and take all that financial risk right now!”

AKA: Building a Risk-Averse Passion-Based Business On The Side

ACTIONABLE ANSWER:

No one can just drop everything and leave. And even if you could, it’s often not the smartest thing to do.

Create your side hustle first. Build out your idea on the side, and use your current gig as a learning ground, as you test out what you love, how you can help people and what is going to actually work.

Live Your Legend was a side project for over five years before I went full time. And by then I was sure it was going to work, because it already had. The community was growing, the revenue was growing and I clearly found a way I could change peoples’ lives.

I cannot stress this enough – do not quit tomorrow with no idea of what’s next.There are so few people that can thrive in an uncertain environment like that, that I’m now just telling everyone to wait. If you jump ship without having a clear idea of what you actually want to be doing, the uncertainty will likely cause panic, which will lead you to another miserable job – and another 6-12 months of wasted time. Nothing’s worse than that.

If you figure out how to add massive value to someone’s life, then you can find a way to build a successful business around it. That first step is the hard part. Then you can find models of people who have successfully built the businesses and lives that you want. Study them like crazy.

The incredible thing about being alive today, is that we rarely need to invent something from scratch – the business models and examples are everywhere. We just have to figure out how to apply our ‘thing’ to them.

Start with making your first dollar from adding meaningful value to someone’s life.If you can make $1 from that, you can make a lot more.

#4. “How do I meet people who actually support me pursuing these ‘crazy’ dreams of mine. My friends and family don’t get it.”

AKA: Finding YOUR People Who Refuse to Let You Fail

ACTIONABLE ANSWER:

Start with one person who inspires you. A family member, a friend, a friend of a friend. Anyone who is somehow linked to you or someone you know. Reach out to them, tell them what you admire about them and what you’d like to build. Start by spending a few minutes on the phone or an hour out on a workout together.

At the same time, spend one less hour with the people who drain your energy. We all know who they are. Make a list of your toxic friends and slowly spend less time with them as you spend more time with people who inspire you.

Then join a Live Your Legend LOCAL group (or start one) in your home town. We now have them in over 300 cities in 70+ countries. They are 100% free and are full of ‘crazy’ people who believe what you believe. People just like you and me.

Tell the people closest to you what your goals and dreams are and why. Sit them down 1:1 and tell them how much you love and care about them and how you believe your plans will make you a better person – and improve your relationship with them. Make it crystal clear that you are not asking them to change. Show compassion.

Then spend another hour hanging around someone who inspires you. Then another. And another. Life’s too short to spend time with people who kill your dreams.

#5. “I feel guilty charging others for giving my advice, especially knowing there are other people better than I am at what I’m offering.”

AKA: Making Your First Dollar & Becoming a Practical Expert

Actionable Answer:

There will ALWAYS be people better than you. No matter how hard you work. That’s not the point.

The point is to find the intersection of your unique talents, passion and experience +the people who desperately want and need help with what you know. That is what it means to be a practical expert. And that is all you need to help people in a massive way and build an awesome business around it.

If you wait until you’re the leading expert in the world, you’ll never get anywhere.The world’s greatest experts earned those titles by doing things long before they were as qualified as they are today.

The only qualification, credential and definition of expertise that matters is getting massive results for people. You can start doing that in some capacity right this second.

And believe it or not, people will value and appreciate you more if you offer an honest and congruent way for them to compensate you. When people receive massive value, they want to pay for it. And if they do, then they’re much more likely to actually value and implement what you teach them.

Every person that’s been on this earth for a couple decades or more, has some talent or experience that another group of people is dying for help on. Those people would happily pay you for your services – and thank you for it.

That starts by finding one person. By changing one life. That will give you the confidence to start charging for the value you’re providing.

Most of the time the only thing keeping you making money from your talents and passions is…YOU. You’ll probably start making money as soon as you decide to start putting a price on what you’ve got to give.

Don’t overthink this.

#6. “How do I get people to even pay attention? Where do I find them and what should I be doing to build that online following?”

AKA: Building a Loyal & Raving Audience

Actionable Answer:

First start with one person – in the real world. See above – you noticing a pattern here? Then use those in-person interactions to craft a very specific and concise description of how you’re helping people (i.e. your personal positioning statement). For LYL this is ‘how to find and do work you love and surround yourself with the people who make it possible.

Then create a platform (a website or blog with just one or two pages to start) and create incredibly useful and directly actionable content to help the people you want to help. Put your absolute best stuff out there.

Then create incredibly useful content for other websites with similar and bigger audiences. This is what many call “guest posting.” Do this as far and wide as possible. Start with small sites, build credibility, then ladder up to bigger sites.

Then point those readers to a specific page on your site that gives huge value and asks them to join your community (i.e. subscribe to email list). Like we do at liveyourlegend.net/toolkit. Sending them to a specific page will literally increase your conversion rate by 5-20x. No joke. It’s incredible.

The formula is simple: Create massively useful content for you tribe + create massively useful content for other tribes. Repeat a lot of times.

Then continue to blow your audience’s mind with value.

#7. “How do I know which areas of my business to focus on when? What’s the ideal 80/20 time management breakdown?”

AKA: The Best Daily Habits, Tools & Routines for Handling Stress, Pressure, Fear & Rejection

Actionable Answer:

Let’s keep this one dead simple.

Do your most important task right when you wake up – the one that scares you the most. You know what’s most important or at least one of the most important things. Don’t do any other work until this is done. Then the rest of the day will be a victory no matter what.

Put all your creative energy into how to help people with the things you’re good at and enjoy. Be relentless with this. Turn off all your BS notifications for emails, Facebook and all else. Install Freedom or RescueTime or something similar to block websites. Or better yet, don’t turn on the Internet (disconnect wi-fi) until you’ve done what matters.

And give your body and mind first priority. You can’t operate at full potential if you miss workouts, eat like shite, rush non-stop through everything and leave no time for yourself and those you love. This is not optional. Taking care of yourself is more important than any of the other stuff.

Your body fuels your mind and they both fuel your potential. 

Meditate.

Breathe.

Love.

Play.

Slow down.

Know Enough to Take the Next Step…

I know these answers barely scratch the surface, and that’s the point.

Because knowing enough to take the next step is all you ever need – and usually all you should realistically expect to find. As much as you want it all laid out, with perfect clarity, before taking the first steps – that’s just not how it works.

That’s not how anything meaningful comes to life.

Start with the dream and vision of the world you want to live in.

Then take the most educated next step possible – TODAY, right this second. 

Know that all of it is going to evolve as you blaze the trail. Welcome the adventure. Because that’s what makes it worthwhile (and so much damn fun).

Especially if we get to all do it together.

That’s why we’ve created Live Your Legend RAW.

And I cannot wait to see what you do with it.

Ciao from Tilcara, Argentina…

-Scott
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12:30:00 - By Vincent 0

THE MOST IMPORTANT QUESTION OF YOUR LIFE

By Mark Manson

Everybody wants what feels good. Everyone wants to live a carefree, happy and easy life, to fall in love and have amazing sex and relationships, to look perfect and make money and be popular and well-respected and admired and a total baller to the point that people part like the Red Sea when you walk into the room.

Everyone would like that — it’s easy to like that.

If I ask you, “What do you want out of life?” and you say something like, “I want to be happy and have a great family and a job I like,” it’s so ubiquitous that it doesn’t even mean anything.

A more interesting question, a question that perhaps you’ve never considered before, is what pain do you want in your life? What are you willing to struggle for? Because that seems to be a greater determinant of how our lives turn out.

Everybody wants to have an amazing job and financial independence — but not everyone wants to suffer through 60-hour work weeks, long commutes, obnoxious paperwork, to navigate arbitrary corporate hierarchies and the blasé confines of an infinite cubicle hell. People want to be rich without the risk, without the sacrifice, without the delayed gratification necessary to accumulate wealth.

Everybody wants to have great sex and an awesome relationship — but not everyone is willing to go through the tough conversations, the awkward silences, the hurt feelings and the emotional psychodrama to get there. And so they settle. They settle and wonder “What if?” for years and years and until the question morphs from “What if?” into “Was that it?” And when the lawyers go home and the alimony check is in the mail they say, “What was that for?” if not for their lowered standards and expectations 20 years prior, then what for?

Because happiness requires struggle. The positive is the side effect of handling the negative. You can only avoid negative experiences for so long before they come roaring back to life.

At the core of all human behavior, our needs are more or less similar. Positive experience is easy to handle. It’s negative experience that we all, by definition, struggle with. Therefore, what we get out of life is not determined by the good feelings we desire but by what bad feelings we’re willing and able to sustain to get us to those good feelings.

People want an amazing physique. But you don’t end up with one unless you legitimately appreciate the pain and physical stress that comes with living inside a gym for hour upon hour, unless you love calculating and calibrating the food you eat, planning your life out in tiny plate-sized portions.

People want to start their own business or become financially independent. But you don’t end up a successful entrepreneur unless you find a way to appreciate the risk, the uncertainty, the repeated failures, and working insane hours on something you have no idea whether will be successful or not.

People want a partner, a spouse. But you don’t end up attracting someone amazingwithout appreciating the emotional turbulence that comes with weathering rejections, building the sexual tension that never gets released, and staring blankly at a phone that never rings. It’s part of the game of love. You can’t win if you don’t play.

What determines your success isn’t “What do you want to enjoy?” The question is, “What pain do you want to sustain?” The quality of your life is not determined by the quality of your positive experiences but the quality of your negative experiences. And to get good at dealing with negative experiences is to get good at dealing with life.

There’s a lot of crappy advice out there that says, “You’ve just got to want it enough!”

Everybody wants something. And everybody wants something enough. They just aren’t aware of what it is they want, or rather, what they want “enough.”

Because if you want the benefits of something in life, you have to also want the costs. If you want the beach body, you have to want the sweat, the soreness, the early mornings, and the hunger pangs. If you want the yacht, you have to also want the late nights, the risky business moves, and the possibility of pissing off a person or ten thousand.

If you find yourself wanting something month after month, year after year, yet nothing happens and you never come any closer to it, then maybe what you actually want is a fantasy, an idealization, an image and a false promise. Maybe what you want isn’t what you want, you just enjoy wanting. Maybe you don’t actually want it at all.

Sometimes I ask people, “How do you choose to suffer?” These people tilt their heads and look at me like I have twelve noses. But I ask because that tells me far more about you than your desires and fantasies. Because you have to choose something. You can’t have a pain-free life. It can’t all be roses and unicorns. And ultimately that’s the hard question that matters. Pleasure is an easy question. And pretty much all of us have similar answers. The more interesting question is the pain. What is the pain that you want to sustain?

That answer will actually get you somewhere. It’s the question that can change your life. It’s what makes me me and you you. It’s what defines us and separates us and ultimately brings us together.

For most of my adolescence and young adulthood, I fantasized about being a musician — a rock star, in particular. Any badass guitar song I heard, I would always close my eyes and envision myself up on stage playing it to the screams of the crowd, people absolutely losing their minds to my sweet finger-noodling. This fantasy could keep me occupied for hours on end. The fantasizing continued up through college, even after I dropped out of music school and stopped playing seriously. But even then it was never a question of if I’d ever be up playing in front of screaming crowds, but when. I was biding my time before I could invest the proper amount of time and effort into getting out there and making it work. First, I needed to finish school. Then, I needed to make money. Then, I needed to find the time. Then… and then nothing.

Despite fantasizing about this for over half of my life, the reality never came. And it took me a long time and a lot of negative experiences to finally figure out why: I didn’t actually want it.

I was in love with the result — the image of me on stage, people cheering, me rocking out, pouring my heart into what I’m playing — but I wasn’t in love with the process. And because of that, I failed at it. Repeatedly. Hell, I didn’t even try hard enough to fail at it. I hardly tried at all.

The daily drudgery of practicing, the logistics of finding a group and rehearsing, the pain of finding gigs and actually getting people to show up and give a shit. The broken strings, the blown tube amp, hauling 40 pounds of gear to and from rehearsals with no car. It’s a mountain of a dream and a mile-high climb to the top. And what it took me a long time to discover is that I didn’t like to climb much. I just liked to imagine the top.

Our culture would tell me that I’ve somehow failed myself, that I’m a quitter or a loser.Self-help would say that I either wasn’t courageous enough, determined enough or I didn’t believe in myself enough. The entrepreneurial/start-up crowd would tell me that I chickened out on my dream and gave in to my conventional social conditioning. I’d be told to do affirmations or join a mastermind group or manifest or something.

But the truth is far less interesting than that: I thought I wanted something, but it turns out I didn’t. End of story.

I wanted the reward and not the struggle. I wanted the result and not the process. I was in love not with the fight but only the victory. And life doesn’t work that way.

Who you are is defined by the values you are willing to struggle for. People who enjoy the struggles of a gym are the ones who get in good shape. People who enjoy long workweeks and the politics of the corporate ladder are the ones who move up it. People who enjoy the stresses and uncertainty of the starving artist lifestyle are ultimately the ones who live it and make it.

This is not a call for willpower or “grit.” This is not another admonishment of “no pain, no gain.”

This is the most simple and basic component of life: our struggles determine our successes. So choose your struggles wisely, my friend.

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12:30:00 - By Vincent 0

12 Things You Don't Actually Need to Have Figured Out by Age 30

BY LOCKE HUGHES

In our early 20s, many of us are introduced to the post-grad world, which is apparently full of possibilities. The sky’s the limit! Anything we can put our mind to we can accomplish! Live your dreams!

Or so we’ve been told. Bombarded by messages of endless opportunity, it’s not insane to expect things to just sort of work out as they’re supposed to—just like they did while you plodded through high school and (if you're lucky) college, from class to class and grade to grade.

Once you accept that being 'grown up' isn’t exactly what you thought it would be, it can be pretty freeing.

But as you’ve probably realized by now, life isn’t always linear. Things don’t always turn out the way you pictured in elementary school, doodling your dreams in your favorite Lisa Frank notebook. While it’s sort of terrifying, once you accept that being “grown up” isn’t exactly what you thought it would be, it can be pretty freeing.

I’m not saying setting goals isn’t worthwhile (it is)—but when your goals take a little longer to reach or you end up shifting your priorities, that’s OK too. From settling down to paying off all your loans, here are 12 things you don’t have to have figured out quite yet.

1. How to Travel the World

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I don’t think I have to tell you that traveling is awesome: It opens your eyes to new cultures, beautiful sights, and different types of people. But it’s also stressful, time-consuming, and expensive. And when you follow the adventures of travel bloggers on Instagram, days spent in a cubicle don’t quite compare.

However, putting off a career (and real life) to bounce from Yacht Week to music festival to 10-day yoga retreat isn’t 1) all that realistic and 2) all it’s cracked up to be. Science even confirms it: One studyfound that social media does a great job of highlighting all the glamorous upsides of a jet-setting lifestyle—without portraying the potential drawbacks. As this writer puts it, a picture might be worth a thousand words, but it also leaves out two thousand others.

2. The Person You’ll Marry

As if relationships weren’t tough enough, we now have Tinder and every other app thrown into the mix, making dating in your 20s a whole new game. All that swiping makes it seem like there are a ton of fish in the sea, so when you don’t find the Nemo to your Dory, it kind of sucks.

If you haven’t met the love of your life—the person you want to wake up next to every day for the rest of your life—it’s OK. That’s a huge decision. Don’t let other people’s expectations (or nosy questions) make you rush into something that isn’t right. That’ll just lead to way more heartache down the road. And if you’re putting pressure on yourself because you must. Settle. Down. By. Age. 30, maybe it’s time to rethink your time frame.

3. Your Dream Job

While it's awesome to be ambitious, the reality is that most of us start in entry-level jobs with mind-numbing tasks like checking email and fetching coffee (been there, done that). But no matter where you start, even on the lowest rung of the corporate ladder, there's ample opportunity to grow, network, and learn from the people around you. Getting the career you want involves busting your ass—and being humble in the process.

Also: If you find out your so-called dream job is a dud (or even if you get let go of said dream job), there’s a silver lining. As this articlepoints out, that kind of “career reality check can inspire soul-searching—and ultimately lead you in an unexpected, more satisfying direction.” And your 20s are meant to be a time for finding that out.

4. Where You Want to Live for the Rest of Your Life

...let alone owning a home in that city. If you’re still renting your place, own it—er, be proud of it. This is probably the only time in your life you’re not going to be tied down by mortgage payments, a car, a partner, and/or kids. Move once (or twice). Check out new cities you may want to live in. Spend more time outside your apartment than you do in it. Unless you’re deeply in love with where you live (more power to you if so!), isn’t it more fun NOT to know where you’ll be in five, 10, or 20 years?

5. Running a Marathon

Or a triathlon or even a half-marathon. This is not a prerequisite you have to check off your life to-do list. Of course, if running, biking, or swimming is your thing, go for it. But there are plenty of other ways to work out that don’t involve losing toenails, peeing in a wetsuit, orexhausting yourself, physically and mentally. Move your body in a way that makes you feel good—that’s all that matters.

6. Starting a Side Business

 

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Sometimes it sounds like everyone has a side gig or passion project they work on after their 9-to-5. While there are definitely advantages to pursuing your passion outside of your day job, don’t beat yourself up if you haven’t quite found one yet. If you’d rather leave work, go home, and veg out in front of Netflix most nights, that’s your prerogative. And working hard at your day job—where they’re paying you to be fully present—is your no. 1 priority right now.

7. Your Faith

Maybe you grew up praying before every meal and going to church every Sunday. Maybe your parents couldn’t care less about religion. Either way, it’s now up to you to decide what type of role you want faith—in any higher power—to play in your life. In our 20s, many of us stray away from how our parents approached religion (and I bet your parents did the same thing). Whether you’ve gotten into mindful meditation, you still go to Bible studies, or you’ve stopped thinking about faith altogether, whatever you believe in is your choice. Just keep the faith you’ll figure it all out.

8. Cooking Fancy Meals

While we’re all about learning kitchen basics, if cooking just isn’t your thing, don’t beat yourself up about it. Knowing how to make pasta or the perfect boiled egg are nice skills to have, but don’t feel like you need to throw together four-course dinner parties for your friends every weekend. You’ll have plenty of time later in life to brush up on your knife skills.

9. The Right Balance Between Your Relationships

Your third decade of life may start in college, where you’re surrounded by friends day and night. By the end of it, some people will have settled down with just one person, maybe for life. In between, there will be periods of reveling in your glorious singledom as well as those crazy-in-love times when you can’t leave your S.O.’s side. Both are perfectly fine and normal, but finding the exact ratio of time to give your love interests, your friends, and your family is a giant balancing act that takes time to figure out. True friends will stick with you through it all (and call you out for being MIA when they haven’t seen you in weeks).

10. Allllll of Your Finances

There are a few things you should know about managing money in your 20s, but if you aren’t actively investing in the stock market or are still paying off student loans, it’s OK. (In fact, it’s probably smart to be wary of that app idea your friends think up one night at a bar.) While it’s great to sock some money away in a 401(k) if your company offers one, don’t sweat it if not. Just be sure to save some money, whether it’s in an IRA or a savings account!

11. Designing the ~Perfect~ Home or Apartment

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Truth: IKEA furniture rocks. (My couch and coffee table from that magical place still look good after almost six years.) So do picture frames and towels from Target. Whether you’re still in the roommate stage or living solo, you don’t need to have fully decked-out digs with pricey furniture and original artwork. Make your place as cozy and livable and cute as you’d like—there are plenty of ways to do that for almost no money. And be grateful if you don’t have to deal with a mortgage and yard maintenance (yet).

12. Exactly What You Want to Do in Life

Here’s a little secret: No one really knows what they’re doing—especially in their 20s. No, it’s not a throwaway decade, but it’s also not a race. Take the time to figure out what you really, really want in life and work toward it, but don’t freak out if you don’t haven’t achieved all the things you thought you would’ve by some made-up milestone. You only have one life, and it’s way too short to spend beating yourself up.

12:12:00 - By Vincent 0