267. Starting over in your 20s

Some people call it like the thirty before thirty right, moving out of home, graduating university, tick, get a good job, tick, find a life partner, solidify like your lifetime friendship group, buy a house, travel, invest etc. Etc. There is this very almost omnipresent blueprint given to us by society, by our peers, by our parents, by the media about how this decade is meant to look. And it's quite linear

and consecutive. It's constantly moving forwards and upwards. But what if you are one of those people, one of many of us who find themselves completely starting over in their twenties, starting from scratch. The carefully laid plans, you know, kind of may have crumbled. The future that we'd imagined and had been so sure of suddenly doesn't seem that fun and enjoyable anymore. Maybe we've realized that we've made a mistake.

We need to leave the relationship, leave the job, leave the city we're in, leave the friendship, leave the life that we've kind of created so far. That is a reality for a lot of us. It is very hard to admit to ourselves when and that we do need to start over, so hard, in fact, I think that few of us ever really do. Instead, we endure a life, and we endure a reality that doesn't fit us, because the prospect of the unknown and of starting over feels

not only shameful but very scary. However, when we do admit it to ourselves that we are ready to start over, or when that decision is kind of thrust on us, I think it can be quite liberating if we take a different perspective on it. Now. I don't want to discount that there is going to be fear. There. There is going to be confusion, especially since we feel like we've fallen off the blueprint. We maybe don't have plans anymore, We don't have seemingly in our mind an ideal sense

of the future. But I really want to talk about why that is okay, and why this is actually a very common experience. And if you're feeling isolated, overwhelmed, maybe shameful as were ashamed, as we mentioned before, that is exactly what I would expect you to be feeling in this moment. But it shouldn't discourage you, or shouldn't make you feel like you haven't made the right choice, or that this is actually going to turn out completely entirely okay.

We are going to discuss some of the common ways that we are forced to start over in our twenties, the biggest reasons why we have so much fear towards this experience, whether that's because of timeline comparison, or the fear of the unknown, lots of identity, our attachment to comfort.

We're going to discuss all of those factors plus, and this is the most important part of this episode, how to shift from that really fear based mindset to an opportunity based mindset when you encounter the opportunity to start over in your twenties. I also really want to share

some listener stories. I've been doing that more and more because I just feel like, there is so much wisdom from the community, and sometimes I think just hearing that other people are going through what you are going through is the assurance that we all need. And I want to remind you just because something about your life isn't working out right now doesn't mean that the rest of your life is doomed. That is the main philosophy and

theme that we will be promoting in this episode. So I hope that if you are in this position, this brings you comfort, knowledge, information, maybe just a sense of calm. And without further ado, let's get into the episode What does it feel like to start over in your twenties? I want to share a story from a listener actually to start us off, and I think this story just really captures the I don't know the essence of what

it feels like to start over. Hey, g Emma, I want to share my story of starting over in hopes that it will help someone else feel less like a failure because they didn't get it right the first time. When I was twenty seven, I had my dream job. I was making commercials, working my way up to potentially being a film director. I had all of these friends, a nice flat I was living in London with my boyfriend who I'd met at twenty two. We lived together and we had a cat, and I thought for sure

he was going to propose in the next year. Everything basically just seemed laid out perfectly in front of me. Within the span of two months, I lost my job when COVID started, my boyfriend broke up with me because he caught feelings for one of his co workers, and my dad had a stroke, so I moved back home to take care of him. Enter my dark days for the next year, it felt like my trajectory was permanently changed and I was going to be a failure and miserable.

This was the beginning of the end. I hadn't felt this uncertain since I was seventeen, because in the last ten years, the next step had always been obvious for me, and I guess I took that for granted. Slowly but surely, I started to really think, what do I want the next ten years of my life to look like? What is going to make me happy? I started to put things into action, and now I can confidently say that I am happier than ever. My dad got better, and now I live in Italy and I teach yoga. I

got certified two years ago. I run my own business as well. I live in my own apartment with my two cats now, and I have a beautiful community around me. It honestly scares me to think that this life almost didn't happen, and that I thought what I had before was the peak of happiness, not even close. So this email, I got this email before I even announced that I

was going to do this episode. This person must have just known that maybe someone else out there needed to hear it, and it honestly left me really emotional, And I just want to repeat my favorite part once more because it's incredible. This is the part that I love. It honestly scares me to think that this life almost didn't happen. Now, is that not the most beautiful and wise reminder from someone who has lived through and experienced this thing that we kind of fear everything falling apart.

That is what happened to her, and she's fine now. You know. I just couldn't not include this story because sometimes, like I said, just hearing how someone else's circumstances have turned out is enough to sue our own doubt In a way, I think this story is also incredible because it touches on three very unique ways that we may be forced to start over in our twenties relationships, career and location, but also family and priorities sore actually almost five,

and each of them feels so uniquely significant. It just blows my mind that this person experienced so many different you know, so many different ways of life becoming chaotic all at once, and she survived. So let's talk about the ways in which we might be forced to start over.

And I'm going to focus on career first, because I think when our career intentions and dreams change or our path becomes unclear, we can feel very unmoored, usually because our identity is somewhat, if not seriously, tied to our vocation and what we do for a living, what we're pursuing. Especially in our twenties, right, it just feels like work is at the center. We are meant to be climbing the corporate ladder, working really hard figuring out what we

want to do. So when we don't feel like we know, or we feel like we do know and it's not working out, it can be very distressing. There are many ways that this kind of happens to us. You may have been unexpectedly fired or made redundant in the last couple of years. You may even get to a stage where you realize that you're just faking it. You know this isn't what you want anymore, or the industry is changing and you just can't get the job. You've pushed

yourself so hard you're not getting any traction. Sometimes we rereach a tipping point in these circumstances where we realize, okay to go. It might be time to abandon ship. I'm not happy here anymore. It's not working out, and yes, the future feels unclear, but so does this current timeline

that I'm on. When you really actually consider it and sit with this reality for a lot of people, you kind of realize that a lot of us are basically forced to put ourselves on a career or a professional trajectory very early on, at like seventeen or eighteen years old. And I don't know about you, but seventeen year old Gemma, she had no idea what she wanted. She thought she knew, she thought she was a genius, she thought she had it all figured out. Absolutely no way. She was so naive.

That was a big wake up call when you know, I started to think, huh, maybe what I dreamt about it seventeen or eighteen isn't what twenty four year old me actually cares about anymore. And if you're going through that right now, I really feel for you. But I also think it's important to actually periodically reflect on what you actually want from your professional life and make changes where you deem necessary, kind of before it's too late. The second biggest dimension area where we feel like we

could be starting over is our relationships. Now I mean both platonic and romantic, but let's really zoom in on romantic for a second. So I was talking to my friend's Steph the other day about something that's happening in our and our friendship circle, which is there has been a series of long term relationship breakups that have occurred amongst our friends, and I am talking like five, seven

to ten year relationships all coming to an end. It's like everyone turns twenty seven, realizes they're closer to thirty than ever before, they're satin returns, and they break up. So that period between around twenty seven to twenty nine is when a lot of us experience our first major breakup with a long term partner. Maybe that's someone that you've fallen in love with in your early twenties and now you know you are faced with the idea of entering thirty with them, you realize that you want to

enter it with someone else. But it's very common for people to reach their late twenties and see a real flip in their relationship priorities, and it's not a coincidence. It's been suggested by some social psychologist that twenty seven to thirty twenty seven to twenty nine is a very serious and key stage in relationships where you're kind of at this age where you either get serious or you get out. I think that's how a lot of us feel. This is also known by another name. It's called the

seven year itch. I don't know if you've heard that name before, but it basically refers to this idea that at around seven years, a relationship either needs to change or or needs to be left behind, and either you evolve together or you go your separate ways. This is actually one of the main timeline hurdles for a relationship. It's typically six months, two years, and seven years. Those are the times in which people are most likely to break up. It follows a very similar pattern for a

lot of us. Even as I'm telling you this, though you might be comforted by the science, you might be able to say, oh, okay, so this is normal. I don't think that reduces the fact that it's a very serious, deep, profoundly moving loss. No one enters a relationship thinking this has an expiry date and at twenty seven I'll break up and find someone new. Like typically, we are in it for the long haul. We're committed to this person.

So I also think that even if you know deep down this is what is right, you will find someone else or you will be okay alone. It doesn't lessen the sting, at least in the first three to six months. It's definitely, I think, not made any easier by this societal stigma around being single and the sense that if you're not partnered up, you are not whole. You're either in a couple or you're half a person. You must

be either looking for love or in love. You know, how could you possibly be in that middle space of just being happy by yourself. Another way that we typically start over in our twenties is financially, maybe you've made a big purchase, maybe you've lost money, maybe you've gone all in on traveling and you've come back with nothing. I see this a lot. I actually don't think it's a bad thing. I think that what is money if it's not something that unlocks a better life for you?

And for some people, money unlocks the security and comfort of a home or of long term financial stability. For others, it unlocks things like travel, and it unlocks things like giving yourself the experiences you maybe always wanted as a child, or giving yourself kind of that texture to life. So financially, I think, obviously I'm not going to give you financial advice, and you do what is best for you and what

feels most aligned with your life priorities. But I think starting over financially in our twenties is not always this big, dark, looming cloud that is promising you failure for the rest of your years. Right. I don't think that it's a mistake to spend your money, even if it means not having as much as people your own age, or feeling like you don't have as much saved as you know Tom down the road or Beth up the street. Also kind of honest similar not not really, but moving This

is a time. Our twenties are a time when a lot of us want to live in and see new places. The amount of friends that I have who have moved to London in the last year shocking, shocking. Have this joke that like re Australian turns twenty five and moves to London, and every person in the UK turns twenty five and moves to Australia like it honestly feels that way, But really it is a time when we're looking for a refresh, We're looking for a new environment, we're looking

for new friends. Adjusting to that though, isn't always going to be a fairy tale. We like comfort, we like what we know, and there will be probably a period of disconnect where you don't have the same community or knowledge of a city or a space that you did

when you lived back at home. I have a rule for situations like this, though, If you are lucky enough to move to a new city or a new country, I need you to give it at least six months, six months where you cannot decide whether to stay or to go, because that period of time is typically how long it does take to learn a new place to solidify some new friendships, to feel comfortable in a new job,

and to get a sense of home. So if part of your fresh start in your twenties has been a significant move and you're struggling, you're thinking, oh my god, like fuck, it made it terrible decision. Please keep the six month rule in mind. One final way that we typically see people restarting during this decade is almost like a complete overhaul. It's not to do with finances, this

is not to do with relationships, career. It's everything. It is a refresh and a rebirth or most of our entire personality, where we decide we need new hobbies, we need new beliefs, we need new clothes, new habits. It's

part of our personal evolution. And I think normally when we get to that point where we do feel like we need to transform ourselves as people, we've definitely reached an internal or emotional tipping point where at some stage you realize that you are no longer happy and you will never be happy in this current version of yourself.

So that is definitely another way that we are promised a fresh start in our twenty So these are the most common core examples I'll also say that at the time of recording this, you know, there are huge fires in LA and many people have had to start over because of something completely drastic, dramatic out of their control, like a natural disaster, And those experiences for other people

sometimes really put into perspective our own problems. But it really does go to show that you can do everything right, and there can still be factors outside of your control that can get to you and that can force a

fresh start. So when we are either involuntarily or voluntarily pushed to restart and start over in our twenties, we are likely to encounter some pretty emotional, psychological hard barriers or things that make it difficult and that bring about doubt and confusion, And I want to talk about all

of those after this shortbreak. Admitting to yourself and I guess to others that you have had to start over in your twenties in some capacity, it can bring about a lot of shame and fear, and we associate it with feeling like we failed, or feeling like we're disappointing people, or like you've wasted those early years. Why does it feel so weird to admit to ourselves and to others that we're starting over. I think the first reason that this is so hard, and I would say the primary

reason in this generation is timeline comparison. As humans, part of our DNA, I guess, part of our blueprint, our social blueprint has evolved to compare to look at our peers or our friends as a way to see whether we are doing this whole life thing correctly. And if the majority of people are where we are, we largely assume we're doing okay. If they're at a similar point in you know, their life as us, we kind of think, okay, no problems, We're fine, We're not going to fall behind,

no disaster. But if our perception of other people's progress and success is that they are much more advanced than us, and that is the norm, we are engaging in something called upward social comparison, and that can really bring about a sense of pressure or shame, doubt, confusion that we are falling behind. Milestone or life trajectory is probably one of the main things that we compare ourselves on in our twenties, most likely because there is no guidebook for

how well we should be going. There is no unique special way that we should be doing things, so we tend to use examples in our environment, like our friends, our similarly aged colleagues, people we see online as a way to tell us. We don't realize though when we do that, either consciously or unconsciously, we don't realize that we have a real blind spot. We do not have an accurate sample. We are not seeing the whole picture. We are not seeing the areas of these people's lives

where they themselves feel behind. In fact, recent research would tell you that when we compare, we are actually most likely to choose the most accomplished person we know and treat them as the average, when really they're not. It's a cognitive bias that we have. The truth is there is no one correct path, but we also tend to forget that because social comparison is not rational, it's emotional. It is going to make you feel more insecure as a way to motivate you in this very human way

to be like everyone else. Compounding this, I think, is this cultural narrative that we all encounter that our twenties are a make or break time, one where we are supposed to have it all figured out or at least be on our way, and this pressure really feeds into imposter syndrome, making us feel like we are constantly falling short, that we don't deserve to be where we are, or that even when we are somewhere that we're happy to be,

we could be further along. The thing is is that this kind of timeline comparison, and I'm certainly not blaming you for indulging in it. I definitely do it as well. Sometimes it's just instinctual, but it's actually not making it any easier for us to change our lives or to

move in the direction that we want. So there was a twenty twenty two study from the University of Florida that found that the more frequently we compare ourselves on things like timelines, the fewer positive feelings we have about ourselves, and the less we feel that we can act to change our life or be better do better. So it becomes a bit of a trap. You feel shit in comparison to someone else. That's going to make you feel like you have no capability or agency to make your

life better, so you stay stuck. I think again, what exacerbates this and makes it harder is when nobody is talking about it, When nobody is willing to say yeah, I made a mistake and I'm starting over. Or this didn't work out and I'm starting over. So just simply telling your story and being open about how your life is turning out and how it might not be turning

out as planned. We feel like we are the only one who is experiencing this, and we feel like we are admitting to some failure that brings a lot of shame about not just what we are doing, but our inherent qualities. Right. This is why it can be so painful, because we think that admitting to our life plan not working out shows that we are someone who wasn't good enough, wasn't capable enough, wasn't resilient enough, didn't deserve some success, when really that is not the case. Your brain logic

in this instance is not working in your favor. It's actually sabotaging our ego and sense of self further almost because it would prefer that we be the ones to tell ourselves that we're a failure, then have someone else tell us. So if we go into this and we have no examples of anyone else experiencing what we're experiencing or normalizing it, and then we feel like we have

to tell people and admit to it. Our brain's going to convince us that we are much more horrible, terrible, much more of a failure than we actually are, almost as a way to protect our ego by injuring it in the first place. So comparison, I fear of failure. That's definitely what makes starting over externally scary. But let's talk about some of the internal, more personal reasons that we do tend to struggle in these situations. The first

big one is a fear of the unknown. Truly, any fear that you have comes down to this greater fear of the unknown. Because if you knew what was going to happen, if you knew that the snake wouldn't bite you, the plane wouldn't crash, that everything would turn out okay, you wouldn't be scared. You wouldn't be scared. So it's the uncertainty that matters. How many of us have wished someone would just be able to concretely say that, for certain,

everything will be all right. Oh and you know, by the way, in three months, that's when you're gonna find the new job, and you're going to meet your soulmate. In approximately seventeen months and nine days, and in two weeks you'll have one of those days where everything about this new life makes sense. We all hunger and crave that kind of validation that we are on the right path. Thing is, no one can tell us that. No one is going to be able to give you the answer

and tell you when it's all going to fall into place. Therefore, we have to manage this very natural anxiety around the unknown by ourselves the best we can. The alternative is staying attached to what is comfortable. The stagnant career, the unhappy relationship, the unfulfilling friendships, the city, the place that doesn't give you any joy. You could always stay there. You could always remain in this nice, comfortable, safe bubble because you are too scared of what might happen. I

just don't think that is a good alternative. And what are you going to be more glad that you did in a year, in five years, in ten years, are you going to be glad that you stayed safe and you stayed locked away or are you going to be glad that you looked at your life you said I'm not happy here and you change things. I do also want to offer you a different way of framing this, which is that life would be utterly and completely boring if you knew how it was all going to turn out.

It would honestly be such a drag to know how everything was going to unfold, down to the minute details, how everything was going to turn out. Honestly, it would seem very pointless to be living this life with no anticipation and no surprises. So even if there is not a lot of joy in not knowing and not a lot of joy in the chaos, I do think that

the alternative would be even more horrendous. So let's talk about the final reason why I think starting over in our twenties is so hard, and that is because of the loss of identity that we experience when we transition away from our career choices, or our relationship or the places of comfort. A lot of people think that identity formation takes place in our childhood, and in many ways that is true, but it all so really gets tested

and solidified in our twenties. Our identity, I'd like to think about it as being made up of many buckets, from values, to culture, to relationships, korea, hobby is, appearance, beliefs. We tend to piece our identity together from things that surround us and attach significance to positions and roles like our job title, like who we're dating, like where we live,

our environment. Now, when those things naturally fall away, when we are forced to start over, when some spanner is thrown into the wheel, we feel very unmoored from the pillars of who we are. You kind of just left with a few remnants of your identity when material or I guess outside things full away. So let me use

the example of a long term relationship. When a long term relationship ends, often people will struggle rebuilding a full and complete sense of self because they've really tied themselves up in this other person. So they may have neglected the things that really do make them unique, like their

interests or their beliefs, or their values. And so you really have to work your way back to that place of deep self knowledge because you can no longer rely on this relationship or this other person to define you. And that is going to be emotionally painful and stressful and scary if you didn't think you were going to be here. I've seen this happen in so many friends' relationships,

And to be completely honest with you. I'm sure that if me and my boyfriend or my partner broke up right now, it would be likely that I would fall into this same spiral, because naturally, when you care about someone, when you're imagining a future with them, you sort of neglect the parts of you that would allow you to be fully independent and that would allow your identity to be fully formed on your own. I don't think that's a bad thing at all. I think that it's a

sign of healthy reliance and dependency. It is just an adjustment. Okay, so far we have really zoned in on explaining the hard parts of starting over and why our feelings about it to emerge. I think it is time that we shift to a more future oriented, positive approach and really examine how we can use psychology and what we know about ourselves as humans to use these unfortunate fresh starts to our advantage. So when we come back, I'm going

to talk advice. I'm going to talk leveraging transitional periods, and why the best time to start over is actually right now. We'll be back right after this short break, so I want to tell you why the best time I'm for you to start over is right now. As promised. If you were going to choose a moment to reinvent yourself and to lead environments, people in places that don't serve you in your twenties, it would be right now.

You will never be as young with as much future time in front of you as you have in this moment. You can spend hours, weeks, months ruminating on what could have happened. You can reflect and think, if I've just done this, if I've just done that, But these hypotheticals are not in the realm of your control. So unfortunate as it is, I think it is a lost cause to reflect on the past with longing, because it can't

change anything. But luckily you have been given the gift of a new beginning, and your twenties are a great time to start over again and again and again. Because of just how flexible and adaptable we are, and our lives are, and our brains are. It is such a unique time for reinvention. Although you know our brains continue to change and develop over our lifetime, our twenties are actually the second most formative period for brain development in

our life, and that works in your favor. It's easier for you to rewire certain pathways, to form new attachments, to learn new skills, to be resilient because we are so adaptable, and you can create a whole new neurological system based on this new life you're creating. I think we all know the saying you can't teach an old dog new tricks, and in some ways that's true. The old you get, the harder it is to give yourself

the gift of a fresh start. I also want to remind you you are still incredibly young, even if you are listening to this and you're not in your twenties, you're in your early thirties or your early forties. My gosh, there are people in their sixties, seventies, eighties who would look at your life and say, to have the time you have, if only I had changed at your age, if only I had let myself. I think I've said this quote before, actually, but it's one that really sticks

with me. It's not necessarily a quote, but it's a video of Reese Witherspoon, you know, from Legally Blonde, and she is being interviewed by someone who is twenty nine, and the girl tells her how old she is, and she says, how do you go about getting into film when you're a bit older, and Reese asks her how old are you? She goes, I'm twenty nine. She goes, Oh my goodness, you're just a baby. If you could see yourself from my perspective, you are so young and

you have so much time. And that gave me so much reassurance that really, all these experienced, wonderful people who a lot of us admire and respect would look at where we're at right now and say, this is just the beginning. If I was going to start over, I'd be doing it right now. It's also worth noting that I definitely believe that life comes in cycles, so you

just have to be prepared and open minded. You may be starting over now, and then you may be starting over again at forty at sixty five, but at least you'll have some experience on how to navigate this transition, and you have practice, because change is really the only thing that is promised, and if you hide away from it, eventually it will grab you, and it would be better

to know how to handle that. So that is some of my more philosophical advice ramblings around why this isn't the disaster that maybe you think it is, although you're allowed to feel that way. If you're still in the morning grieving period for what once was, that's okay. But I want to teach you how you can try and reframe this chapter of your life as hard as and confusing as it may have been, and move forward, and have some tips for you on that as well. Start small.

If you have experienced a setback or a failure and you're trying to rebuild, start small. Start small by talking to people in industries that you think you may enjoy. Start small, or by going on a really low key date by journaling what you could possibly what kind of life you could possibly fall in love with. If you're trying to restart after a big friendship, breakup or a loss, give yourself time to grieve and then slowly get back out there. Take baby steps so that every single step

of the way you are being intentional. I think let's use the metaphor of starting with a blank canvas when you're painting, right. I don't know many of us who would rush to fill every single square inch of that canvas in minutes, because inherent in that is that we see an opportunity to create something big and bright, and vibrant. You know, we've been given this huge canvas, this huge place to put all our feelings, so we want to

be intentional with what we're putting on there. And the same goes for rebuilding the area of your life where you may have felt like you had to start over. I would say, focus on one area that you really want to find either stability, abundance, growth, whatever it is,

and make a bit of a master plan. I have really fallen in love with the idea of a master plan recently, and basically it's like a map of the next six months to a year that holds multiple desires or dreams or goals for you, and it feels less specific than a strict singular goal that you're working towards.

It lets you focus on how you want to make progress in everything in your life, how you want to feel my master plan I really like to have you know, how am I going to be feeling in two weeks, in a month, in three months, in six months, What do I have to change now to get me there?

If it is that you want to feel more secure in your purpose and what you actually want to do in your life, maybe the first three months are going to be an explorative chapter for you, where you're just trying out different hats, where you are networking, where you are investigating what could really light your fire. That is great, that is still part of the master plan, that is

still progress forward. I really want to wipe away, get rid of this idea that when you start over you have to know exactly what you need and what you want from the get go. This is a time where you can really shake things up. You can change your priorities, you can reinvent yourself. So when you're putting together a master plan, maybe it's like a vision, a visual timeline of where you want to be in six months, with pictures with words, with different themes. Make sure that you

leave some space also just to explore. Also embrace a growth versus fixed mindset in this moment, a growth mindset. This was first described by the psychologist Carold Work, and it's this real belief that our abilities, our intelligence, our talent can be developed over time through effort, through learning, through perseverance. And this perspective really fosters resilience and it makes you curious. It makes empty space promising rather than restrictive,

because you know that you can fill it. With things that you love and that you are capable of creating the life that you want because you are in control, you have agency. In contrast, a fixed mindset really is this belief that the parts about you that you want to change they're unchangeable. You can't grow, you can't change, you're not capable, and that leads to a real fear of failure and an avoidance of risk, and a tendency to just give up and revert to what is comfortable

when we are faced with the unknown. Psychologically, a growth mindset is what we are after because it makes you better at responding to fear. It means that you're better at problem solving. It means that you are willing to learn. So when you are starting over in your twenties, what I want you to do, and the kind of growth mindset that I want you to adopt, is that you're going to view setbacks as opportunities for growth. You are

going to approach new challenges with curiosity. You're going to think, not what do I have to be fearful of here? But what can I learn even within the fear? And I want you to understand that this is a process and that you are actually writing a very interesting story. You are not writing a story just with a beginning, a middle, and an end. You are writing a story

with a plot. And I think that that is a much better way to think about it, and a much better attitude to bring to things, like I'm not looking for the easiest route. I'm looking for the route with the most experience and abundance and fucking fun, you know, and just cool stories and cool things that I get

to show and tell people about when I'm older. Another thing I would really say to do if you've just gone through a breakup, if you've just quit a job that was toxic, if you're moving somewhere new soon, do something that represents this new era physically, something that feels psychologically symbolic. So a new tattoo, a new haircut, a wardrobe perge, something or other that is going to make you feel like every single part of you is in this new version of you, and is in this new

beginning with you. That old version of you. We respect them, we love them. They've taught us so much. It's their time to rest. Like it's their time. It's time to say goodbye to them. This new chapter is coming with a fresh, new look, it's coming with a new attitude, and we're going to represent that physically. If comparison is also the thing that you are struggling with the most in this moment, and I totally understand that, it would be right. As I said, it's something that's built into

our DNA as humans. I want you to make sure that any comparison statements you're making are not full sentences. So let me explain this a little bit further. When we have a tendency to compare, we might look at someone's life and go, oh, my gosh, she has everything. Her life is so perfect. I don't have that. But I want you to then take that sentence and expand it. I don't have that, but that doesn't mean I never will her. Her career looks so successful, and one day

mine will look like that as well. I am so jealous of her, whatever it is her relationship because mine failed, But that doesn't mean that every future relationship of mine is going to fail. Their success does not inherently mean my failure. Not everything has to be a competition. Sometimes the lives of people that we admire most shows up through jealous see and instead of treating them as this

person who we need to be threatened by. We can be inspired by them and say, huh, like, doesn't this just show me that this is capable, that I could do this. I'm sure they've experienced setbacks as well, and yet here they are finally surround yourself or reflect on examples of people who have started over and been successful in their twenties, and let me say, there's not many of them, because most people actually end up starting over later in their forties, in their fifties, Like, your twenties

is still your genesis, it's still your origin story. This is still the first timeline you were living. I love to give the example actually of my mom. My mom is one of those people who I love hearing the story of how when she was in her twenties, she was kicked out of her university faculty for such poor grades. She did absolutely terribly and you know, it looks like she wasn't going to get a degree, but she went

and she did other things. She quote unquote found herself, and she came back when she was older and wiser, and she gave it another go. And a lot of people were like, why are you doing that? You know you already failed once why are you trying this economics thing, this psychology thing for a second time. She ended up being the like valedictorian ducks of her class at university, and she went on to get this incredible grad job.

Now she is literally a CEO. And I love to look at that story and say, you know, she was an immigrant and she I don't know, so I'm getting so inspired by my mum's story. But I love to look at that story and go, Wow, this is someone who I admire, who has made my life possible. And she did not have the easiest ride of things. And there were so many times where I'm sure she was looking at other people thinking I'm never going to be at their level, and yet she still found great success.

Martha Stewart, Oh my god, you have to watch the Martha Stewart documentary if you haven't. But she didn't write her first cook until she was forty one, and that's what she's known for now. Steve Carrell, we love Steve Carrell. Michael in the Office. You know, he didn't have his big break until he was in his forties. Same with Harrison Ford. Most people do not find their greatest successes until later in life and they sure don't find themselves until later as well. So you have time. I promise

you have so much time. You are so young, and the power of your twenties is that all of the possibility lays ahead of you. There is so much room for reinvention and to be able to start over. Also, there's less consequences. You know, you don't have kids yet, you may not have a mortgage, you don't have other huge things to take care of that become more pressing the older you get. You have more time in front

of you than you have behind you. So I really want you to remember that when you are stressed or anxious about feeling like you failed the first time or you did get it right, because that again is part of the interesting story you are writing. And I think that is much more important than being able to say, yeah, I got it all right and did everything perfectly the first time, and I never made mistakes. Also means you

never learned anything. So I hope this episode has provided you with some clarity, maybe just some peace, just a sense of like, Okay, it's all going to be okay. That is really all I hope for with any of these podcast episodes is just that you can hear the words and the voice of someone else in their twenties and go, Okay, it's not just me, because it definitely isn't. Make sure that if you enjoyed this episode, you share it with a friend, you share it on your Instagram

story anywhere, and if you do, actually tag me. I love seeing the different parts of the world where people are listening. It's honestly one of my favorite parts of the day is being like, oh my gosh, someone in Kenya, someone in Breathels, someone in Bristol. So please feel free to share it over there. Make sure you are following along on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and that you have left a five star review if you enjoyed this episode. Also drop a comment below if you have further thoughts

about reinvention and starting revere in your twenties. I love to keep the conversation going there and I just love to hear from you guys. So until next time, stay safe, be kind, be gentle with yourself, especially if you are in these circumstances, and we will talk very very soon.