Thelife- Your 20s can be a confusing and difficult time, but you can still achieve success.
- A therapist said you should be open to failure and self-exploration.
Your 20s are marked by substantial change: navigating college, securing a job, finding an apartment, entering and leaving romantic relationships, to name a few.
Since there's a lot of uncertainty in this decade of life, Insider spoke with five coaches and psychologists about how to slow down, decipher your values, and take steps to help you succeed in your 20s and beyond.
Don't be afraid to fail, because you will
Amanda Jablon, a therapist in Long Beach, California, said 20-somethings needed to be comfortable with failing.
"One of the most common themes I see in my practice is that people in their 20s don't feel like they can make mistakes," Jablon told Insider.
By approaching failures without judgment, you can more clearly see what needs to change, Jablon said. Maybe you get a bad performance review because you don't like your job, or maybe you keep fighting with your partner because the relationship isn't a good fit.
Your 20s are a window to release what you are "supposed" to be doing and understand what makes you satisfied. Embracing failure is an important step toward this, Jablon said.
Set up a financial plan
Entering adulthood often means you have control over your money for the first time, which frequently includes debt. In the US, 34% of adults ages 18 to 29 years have student-loan debt, according to Federal Reserve data.
Financial experts say it's essential to create a plan to pay off your initial debt while planning for long-term goals. For example, if you start saving for retirement at 25 instead of 35, you'll have nearly twice as much in the bank by 65.
While balancing debt and savings may be confusing at first, taking time to clarify your financial goals can be one of the most impactful things you do in your 20s — and it will pay off, literally, for decades to come.
Focus on what you need and why you need it
Liz Tran, a corporate coach and the author of "The Karma of Success," said self-knowledge was key to a successful decade. To do this, identify your "hygiene" factors and "purpose" factors.
Hygiene factors are the everyday essentials you need to feel good, such as the number of hours you need to sleep, time spent alone versus with people, and exercise.
Purpose factors, in contrast, are the "why" of your life: Why do you wake up every morning and feel inspired to go about your day? For example, some people are motivated by community impact, while personal financial goals inspire others.
Tran recommends people explore what motivates them on a deeper level. She told Insider these insights could help determine how to thrive in daily life, such as understanding whether you work best in an office setting or should consider running your own business. In this way, you can develop an understanding of what success looks like for you — and how to achieve it.
Cultivate meaningful connections
One of the greatest challenges of your 20s is finding ongoing, meaningful connections. Loneliness can lead to adverse health outcomes such as depression and anxiety — which means cultivating connections throughout your 20s is crucial.
"You really have to make an intentional effort to put yourself out there," Tyler Mafi, a therapist in New York who specializes in helping people in their 20s transition to the fast-paced city, told Insider.
Putting yourself out there, he added, doesn't mean just going to events.
"It's hard, but you have to make an attempt to speak to someone," Mafi said.
Experiment with romantic and sexual relationships
Dating in the era of apps such as Hinge and Tinder can be difficult, and the "hook-up culture" these apps have created can be deeply satisfying for some people and isolating for others. The important thing is to use your 20s as a form of experimentation, Simone Farschi, a sex and intimacy coach in California said.
"Dating is the time to get to know yourself, what you like about relationships or not, your communication style and preferences, and what you will want in a more serious relationship," Farschi told Insider.
While it may seem daunting, she advises practicing "sexual agency," which means understanding what you want, communicating that, and experimenting with practices such as sober sex to more intimately understand your body.
Don't count your achievements
Many of us, Tran said, struggle with the "arrival fallacy," the belief that once we achieve a certain milestone of success, such as marriage, we will finally be happy. In reality, studies have found that these public-facing achievements don't make us happy in the long run.
While there's nothing wrong with reaching these goals if they're what you want, success in the long run is all about how you define it — and self-knowledge is the first step.