10 tips for those in their thirties from those in their forties

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

An example of collective wisdom.

A few weeks after his thirtieth birthday, writer and entrepreneur Mark Manson asked his blog subscribers over thirty-seven to share their experiences from thirty to forty.

More than 600 people responded to the request, many of whom sent detailed answers on several sheets. Analyzing them, Mark, not without surprise, discovered that some advice over and over again sounds from a wide variety of people and in one form or another occurs hundreds of times. Apparently, it is these few thoughts that describe as accurately as possible what happens to a person who has changed his fourth decade.

Below are ten of the most common tips from 600 letters sent to Mark, mostly in the form of direct quotes. Some indicated their age and name, and some wished to remain anonymous.

1. Start saving for old age now, without delay

I lived to be 30 without thinking about anything, but after thirty you have to make a big financial breakthrough. Pension savings should not be put on the back burner. You need to learn how to understand how things like insurance, retirement plans and mortgages work, because now this burden is on your shoulders.

Cash 41 years

The most important advice that was present in literally every letter sent: immediately start building your financial well-being in order to start saving savings for old age.

To do this, the readers suggested taking the following actions:

1. Make it your top priority to pay off all your debts and loans as soon as possible.
2. Create a personal financial "stabilization fund". Thousands of people were left without a livelihood due to health problems, lawsuits, divorce, business problems and so on.
3. Spend a portion of each paycheck on a fast-track loan or save it in a savings account.
4. Avoid frivolous purchases. Do not buy a home until you can secure the most affordable loan or mortgage conditions for you.
5. Don't invest in what you don't understand. Don't trust stock brokers.

One reader wrote: “If your debts exceed 10% of your annual salary, this should be a serious warning to you. Stop unnecessary spending, pay off your debts, start saving. " Another: “I would like to save more money for a rainy day, because unexpected spending literally killed my budget. And I would like to pay more attention to my pension savings, because today they are very small for me."

Some have had big problems in life due to their inability to save after thirty. A reader named Jody wished she had started saving 10% of every paycheck when she was 30. Her career eventually went downhill, and at 57, she still lives paycheck to paycheck.

Another 62-year-old woman also did not make personal savings, as her husband earned more than her. Subsequently, they divorced, and all the money received after the divorce, she was forced to spend on solving sudden health problems. She, too, still lives paycheck to paycheck with the prospect of ending her days in a nursing home. Another reader said that he was forced to live on his son's money, as he unexpectedly lost his job during the 2008 crisis, having no savings in his account.

They all agree on one thing: start saving as early and as much as possible. Indicative is the story of a woman who, at the age of 30, with two sons, worked in a low-skilled job and still managed to save money for a retirement account. Since she began to invest her savings early enough and successfully, at the age of 50 she achieved financial stability for the first time in her life. Her words: “You can achieve anything. You just have to do it."

2. Start taking care of your health now, without delay

Your mind considers itself to be 10-15 years younger than the actual age of your body. Your health will go away faster than you think, and you will not even have time to notice it.

Volume 55

We all know how to take care of our own health. We know how to eat right, how to sleep right, play sports, and so on on the list. But, as in the case of retirement savings, the opinion of the elders is always unanimous: become healthy and stay healthy in old age. Almost everyone who took part in the survey said this, saying about the same thing: what you do with your body has a cumulative effect. Your body does not suddenly break down one fine day; it gradually collapses imperceptibly over the years. Over the next 10 years, you should slow this destruction down.

We are not talking about the banal "eat more vegetables" advice. Cancer patients, survivors of heart attacks and strokes, diabetics and hypertensive patients, people with sore joints and chronic pain - they all say the same thing:

“If I could go back and start over, I would start eating healthy foods and exercising nonstop. Then I found excuses for myself, but did not imagine the consequences."

3. Don't hang out with people who treat you badly

Learn to say no to people, actions, and commitments that are of no value to your life.

Hayley 37 years old

After the calls to take care of your physical and financial health, the most frequent advice from those who have already lived in their fourth decade was quite interesting: they would gladly go back in time and erect stronger restrictions in their personal lives in order to spend more time with good people. …

What exactly did they mean?

Jane, 52: “Don't tolerate people who don't treat you well. Point. Do not tolerate them for financial gain. Don't tolerate them for emotional reasons. Do not tolerate them for the good of your children or for your own good."

Avoid mediocre people in friends, work, love, relationships, and life.

Sean 43 years old

Usually, people overcome their own limitations because they find it difficult to offend other people's feelings, or they fall into the trap of wanting to change the other person, to please him or make him feel better about himself. It never works. In fact, it even makes things worse. One reader wisely remarked, “Selfishness and self-interest are two different things. Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind."

For twenty-year-olds, the world seems open, filled with opportunities, and lack of experience makes them cling to people, even if they don't deserve it. But thirty-year-olds have already learned that good relationships come with great difficulty, that there will always be enough people in the world to be friends with, so there is no reason to waste your time on those who will not support us on our path in life.

4. Be nice to those you care about

Rebecca, 40: “Tragedies happen in everyone’s life, with everyone’s family and friends. Be the person you can count on in times like these. I think the interval between thirty and forty years is a decade when a lot of shit begins to happen to you and your loved ones that you might not even think about. Parents die, your spouses die or cheat, children continue to be born, friends get divorced … The list is endless. You probably cannot imagine how much you can help a person at such a time, just by being with him, listening, without condemning."

Accordingly, calling for greater personal boundaries in front of those whom we do not want to let into our lives, many readers advise spending more time with those friends and family members who are really close to you.

5. Focus on what you do really well

Everything in life is about compromise. You sacrifice one thing in order to get another, and you cannot get both together. Accept this.

Eldrie 60 years old

Twenty-year-olds are full of dreams. They are confident that they have all the time in the world. In my twenties, I myself harbored many illusions about my site - that it would be just one activity out of many. How could I have known that I would have to spend most of the next ten years in order to become competent enough in this area? And now that I have acquired the necessary competencies, I have tremendous advantages, I love what I do, so why would I give it all up for something else?

In short: focus. You can achieve more in life if you focus on doing one thing very, very well.

Erickson 49 years old

Another reader: “I would advise myself from the past to focus on one or two goals / dreams and work hard for them. Do not be distructed". And one more: “You have to accept that you cannot do everything. To achieve something in life, you have to sacrifice a lot."

Some readers have noted that most people choose their careers at the turn of their twenties, and like so many other choices made, this one is often wrong. It takes years to find what we are really good at and enjoyable with. But it's better to focus on your core values and maximize them year after year than to be half successful at something else.

I would tell myself in my thirties to put aside what other people think and define my natural strengths, my passion, and then build my life around that.

Sarah 58 years old

For some people, it will cost a lot of risks even at the age of thirty. This could mean the destruction of a career that has already spent ten years of their life building, the loss of the income level for which they worked and to which they are already accustomed. Which brings us to the point …

6. Don't be afraid to take risks, you can still change

Richard, 41: “Although by the age of thirty most people think they should stick to the chosen path, it is never too late to start over. Over the past ten years, I have seen people most regretful of their decision to leave things as they are, even though they thought it was wrong. These are such quick ten years of life that turn days into weeks, weeks into years. And at forty they found themselves in the midst of a midlife crisis, doing absolutely nothing to solve the problem that they knew about ten years ago."

What I regret most is that I didn't.

Sam 47 years old

Many have noticed that society requires us to "decide" by the age of thirty - with a career, marital status, financial situation, and so on. But this is not true. In fact, dozens of messages sent in literally begged not to let public expectations of an "adult" stop you from taking risks and starting all over again.

I will soon turn forty-one, and I would say to myself in my thirties: you should not bring your life in line with ideals in which you do not believe. Live your life, don't let anyone control it. Don't be afraid to put everything on the line, you have the strength to re-create everything.

Lisa 41 years old

Many readers were united by the decision to change careers after thirty and the ensuing improvement in their lives. One of them quit a high-paying job as a military engineer and became a teacher. Twenty years later, he calls it the best decision in life.

After asking my mother a question, I got the answer: “I would like me to think more outside the box. Your father and I made something like a plan: to do one thing, then another, then a third, but looking back, I understand that we shouldn't have done this at all. We were too limited in our judgments about our lives, and I regret it a little."

Aida, 49 years old: “Less fear. Less fear. Less fear. Next year I will be fifty, and I have just learned this lesson. At thirty, fear was the poisonous driving force in my life. He had an incredible negative impact on my marriage, my career, my self-esteem. I plead guilty to worrying about what people say about me. I thought that I might fail. Worried about the consequences. If I could live this time over again, I would risk more often."

7. You must continue to grow and develop

Stan, 48: “You have two assets that you cannot replace: your body and your mind. Most stop developing and working on themselves after twenty. Most in their thirties are too busy to worry about self-development. But if you are one of the few who continue to learn, develop your thinking and take care of your mental and physical health, by the age of forty you will be light years ahead of your peers."

If someone can change at thirty, then he must work on himself to become better. Many readers have noted that the decision to sit down again at thirty is one of the most rewarding things they have ever done. Someone signed up for courses and seminars. Someone started their own business for the first time or moved to another country. Someone started seeing a psychologist or started practicing meditation.

Your number one goal should be to become a better person, partner, parent, friend, colleague - in other words, to grow as a person.

Emilia 39 years old

8. Nobody understands what he is doing. Get used to it

Thomas, 56: “If you are not dead yet - mentally, emotionally or socially - you cannot predict your life five years into the future. It will not go as expected. So stop thinking that you can plan ahead, stop worrying about what is happening now because everything will change anyway, and get over the urge to control the direction of your life. You can take a lot of chances and not lose anything - you cannot lose what you never had. In addition, your sense of loss is the fruit of your reflections, which will fade over time."

One of the lessons I learned in summing up my twenties was that no one really knows what they are doing. According to letters from those in their forties, this rule continues to work at a later age - in fact, it works forever.

Most of what you think is important now will look completely unimportant in ten or twenty years, and there is nothing wrong with that. This is called "development." Just try not to take yourself too seriously all the time.

Simon 57 years old

Prue, 38: “Despite the feeling of invulnerability that has accompanied you this decade, you do not know what will happen. And nobody knows. While it worries those who cling to permanence and security, it gives freedom as soon as you realize the simple truth: everything is constantly changing. After all, there may be times of true sorrow. Don't numb the pain or avoid it. Sadness happens in everyone's life, it is the result of an open and passionate soul. Appreciate this. Above all, be kind to yourself and others, because life is a wonderful journey that keeps getting better."

I would like to inform myself at the age of thirty that by the age of forty my life will be filled with stupid things, varied, but stupid … So, thirty-year-old me, do not judge from above. You still don't know anything. And this is good.

Shirley 44

9. Invest in your family - it's worth it

Cash, 41: “Spend more time with your loved ones. As you get older, your relationship changes, and how exactly it changes is up to you. Your parents will always see you as a child, until you show yourself to them as an independent adult. Everyone is getting old. Everyone dies. Use the time allotted to you to build the right relationship and enjoy your family life."

I was inundated with letters about my family and stunned by their power. Family is a big new topic for our next decade of life, as it begins to touch us on both sides. Your parents are getting old and you need to think about how you will interact with them as an adult. You also need to think about building your own family.

Most agree that it is necessary to leave all resentments and problems with parents in the past and learn how to interact with them. One reader wrote: “You are too old to blame your parents for any of your own shortcomings. At twenty, you could have just run away from home. At thirty you are an adult. Seriously. Be above that."

Then each of us is faced with the following question: to have a child or not?

Kevin, 38: “You don't have time. You have no money. You need to make a career first. This will put an end to your usual life. Stop … Children are great. They make you better at everything. They force you to push your limits. They make you happy. Don't delay having babies. If you haven't done this before thirty, now is the time. You will never regret it.

The “right” time for children will never come because you have no idea what it is until you try it. If you have a good marriage and parenting environment, strive to have them as early as possible, it will give you a lot of joy.

Cindy 45 years old

Interestingly, there are many and similar letters. Anonymous, 43: “All I've learned in the last 10-13 years is bars, women, beaches, booze, clubs, trips to other cities, because I have no responsibilities other than work. I would give every memory of all this for a good woman who would truly love me … and maybe family. I would add that it is better to grow up for real and start a family than to be successful at work.

I still enjoy life, but sometimes at the next party I feel like a guy who keeps coming to school after he graduated. Around me, people fall in love and build relationships. All my peers have already got married, and many more than once! Being single all the time sounds cool to all my married friends, but no one should choose this path in their life."

I would tell myself to stop looking for a prince on a white horse and be grateful for a relationship with a nice smart guy who really cares about me. Now I'm lonely, and it looks like it's too late to do anything about it.

Farah 38 years old

On the other hand, several letters expressed the opposite point of view.

Don't feel obligated to have a family and children if you don't want to. What makes one happy does not make everyone happy. I decided to remain a bachelor with no children and still live a rich, happy life. Do what is best for you.

Anonymous 40 years old

Takeaway: While family is not something that is absolutely necessary for happiness, most find that family is always worth the effort they put into it. Of course, provided there is a healthy and harmonious relationship in her.

10. Be kind to yourself, respect yourself

Be a little selfish and do something good for yourself every day, something else every month, and something wonderful every year.

Nancy 60 years old

This point rarely stood out in the letters of readers, but somehow it was present in almost every one of them: treat yourself better. There is no one who cares or thinks of you as much as you do. Life is hard, so learn to love yourself now because it will be harder to do it later.

Many used the old cliché: "Don't waste your energy on the little things in life." Eldrie, 60, wisely remarked, “When faced with another challenge, ask yourself if the outcome will matter in five or ten years? If not, spend a few minutes on it and move on. " Most readers agree with a simple rule - accept life as it is, with all its imperfections.

Which brings us to the last quote from Martin, 58:

“When I turned forty, my father told me that I would like to be forty, because at twenty you think you know everything, at thirty you realize that you are not, and at forty you can finally relax and just accept things like that, what they are. At fifty-eight, I want to say he was right."