Feeling Lost in Your 20s? Here Is What You Need to Hear

If you are in your 20s and you feel lost, this is for you.

I am 31. I just recently came out of my 20s. So I understand exactly how confusing this decade is. We feel lost across different areas of life. We do not know what is happening, what to do, what not to do. There is so much stress. Things change suddenly. Because in our teens we were living a chill life, and then the 20s hit and suddenly life is unpredictable and slapping us from every direction.

I am not going to give you useless philosophical advice like "everything will be fine." No. My intention is to give you actual clarity and direction. Why things are happening the way they are, and what you should actually do about it.

Let me break this down into the core areas of life. One by one.

Career

In your 20s, career is the most important thing. You need to make money. You need to set the base for your financial life. For your family, for yourself.

Here is what usually happens. School and college finish. Most people go into jobs. They get stuck in competition. Some think they will do an MBA. Some think they will move abroad or find a better job. Some try to make small amounts of money on the side, thinking an extra 10,000 rupees will solve things. Then the salary comes, expenses increase, and nothing is left. And you start questioning: what am I doing wrong?

You spent 15, 20, 21 years studying. You had a plan. Study engineering, get a job, do an MBA, get a better job, everything will be sorted. But then you actually enter the real world and realize it is nothing like what you imagined. The pay is low. The work is boring. You are sitting in a cubicle doing the same thing thousands of others are doing. A 10% annual increment means it will take years to reach even 2 or 3 lakh a month. And when you talk to your seniors, the picture gets even worse.

That is when you get slapped by reality and start questioning everything.

Here is what I learned. We grow up like horses with blinders on. The system shows us only one path: study, job, study, job. Remove those blinders. Think bigger. Think further ahead.

When you are 70 or 80 years old, what will you feel proud of? The job you did? Or something you built on your own? Maybe a business. Maybe something you loved. Something that made you a lot of money and gave your family a great life.

Long story short: think business. Think about building something of your own.

Now the question comes: which business? Simple. Start a business in whatever genuinely interests you. Do not chase where the money seems to be. Money is in every business. Even a vegetable vendor in a famous market makes more than a 10-year engineering job holder. A simple suit shop in Chandni Chowk earns more than most corporate salaries. Money is everywhere.

Do not jump into AI because AI is trending. Do not jump into crypto because crypto is trending. Go where you want to go. Pick a career you would pursue even if you did not get paid for it.

Ask yourself: if I was not getting paid, would I still do this job for 6 months? If the answer is no, that is not your path.

I will give you my own example. I started internet businesses in 2012 during my second year of college. I tried blogging. Then affiliate marketing. Then digital products. Then I built an agency. From 2012 to 2017, five years, I tried many things. But in 2017, I found the business I fell in love with. The one that made me a lot of money, the one I enjoyed, the one that changed my life. But it took me 5 years to find it.

Looking back, if I had stuck with the first business, I could have made money faster. Because the problem was never the car. The problem was the driver. Every business was fine. I was the one who kept switching because I thought the next thing would be easier. Nothing is easier. Everything is difficult.

So pick the mountain you enjoy climbing. Rain, storms, snowfall, falling down, it does not matter. You love the mountain. You will climb to the top. Give it at least 6 months. Do not think the next thing will be easier. It will not be. You just do not know its difficulties yet.

Once you identify your thing, go deep. Find a mentor online. Take their course, join their coaching, read their books, attend their events. Surround yourself with people already in that business. Learn from them. It will not be easy. You will feel alone. But keep learning and keep moving forward.

And when the money starts coming, aim for a 10:1 ratio. Your income should be 10 times your monthly expenses. If your expenses are 30,000, aim to earn at least 3 lakh. If your expenses are 50,000, aim for 5 lakh. So that 90% of your money goes into investments, savings, and building toward financial freedom. Put that money into mutual funds, stocks, gold, fixed deposits, PPF, whatever makes sense after proper research and advice from a financial advisor.

Earn your main money from business. Invest it wisely. That is the career advice.

Love

In your 20s, heartbreaks happen. You fall in love. You cannot express your feelings. You lack confidence. You think others are better than you. You think they will never accept you. You get cheated on. Or maybe you cheat on someone else. These things happen.

Some people decide that love is nonsense and they will just focus on career. These are the same people who, when their 20s are ending, go crazy trying to find someone to marry. They end up on matrimony sites, showing their salary slips and bank accounts, searching for partners like they are closing a deal. Then they tick the marriage box on their life checklist and move on.

Do not do that.

Your life partner should be someone you can imagine spending your entire life with. They should be your best friend. Someone you can laugh with, cry with, share everything with. Physical beauty and the honeymoon phase are temporary. In the end, you need a partner you can actually spend your whole life with. Because eventually, kids will grow up. Your parents will not be around. It is going to be you and your partner. So you better pick someone you can spend your entire life with.

Everything else is secondary. What they earn, how they look, where they live, who their parents are. I am not saying these things do not matter. But the most important question is: can this person be my best friend? Do I love their company? Can I share everything with them? Can I listen to them talk for hours?

And here is a simple, logical piece of advice. The right kind of partner will get attracted to you when you have a purpose in your life. A direction. A vision. Quality people get attracted to quality people. When you are walking your path, someone who shares your values will notice you, get drawn to you, and come into your life.

So instead of chasing people, chase your path. Chase your vision. The right person will find you.

Heartbreaks and cheating will happen. But eventually, it will all be worth it. When life slaps you, understand that you are getting a lesson so that you do not get hit so hard next time that you cannot get back up.

Friendships

School friends will drift away. College friends will come and go. Work friends might only be there because of work. And you will wonder: who is actually with me?

Whenever you feel that confusion, remind yourself of one thing. The person who truly wants to be in your life will find a way to stay. It takes two hands to clap. If you are the only one putting in effort and the other person keeps making excuses, that person does not want you in their life. Accept it. Let it go.

Judge people by their actions, not their words. The person who is meant to stay will find ways to stay in your life. Just like you find ways to stay in the lives of people you care about.

Never be desperate or clingy. Maintain your self-respect. Sometimes people have things going on in their life that keep them busy. That is understandable. But when you can clearly see that someone has changed, that they are no longer interested, accept it. Let it go.

The person who truly wants to be in your life will make it happen. Just like you do for others.

Family

In your 20s, there is pressure to provide. To retire your parents. Give them a good house, a car, travel the world with them. Be available for them. Of course you need to be the provider. That is where your career becomes critical. How well you can give your family the life you dream of giving them depends directly on how seriously you take your career.

But money alone is not enough. Your presence matters just as much. Be as present as you can with your family. Your parents, siblings, spouse, children, whoever truly means something to you.

Find moments to be with them. Go out together. If you cannot go out, sit in a room and talk. Put your phones aside. Sometimes just sitting quietly together for a few minutes is enough. But have complete presence.

You might think you will always be together. But that is not how it works. So cherish the time you have. Be fully there when you are with them.

Your relationship with yourself

I think this is the most important one on the list. Your entire life depends on it.

When you are alone, what do you talk to yourself about? Your thoughts, your overthinking, your confusion. What is your relationship with yourself actually like?

Here is something important. A year ago you might have wanted one thing from life. But now, or 6 months from now, you might want something completely different. And there is nothing wrong with that. Our desires change based on our experiences and our journey. Do not curse yourself for changing your mind. It is natural.

Be very aware of what is going on inside. Spend time alone with yourself. Be your own best friend. Go on walks alone. Sit quietly. Journal. Send yourself voice notes and then listen to them. Study what is happening within you. What do I want from life? What is important to me? Am I actually living the life I say I want? Am I doing the things that will take me where I want to go?

If you say you want peace but you are stuck in a job that gives you nothing but stress, something is wrong. And do not think you will fix it later. To get where you want to go, you need to start pedaling now. From this moment. You need to become the person who deserves the life you are dreaming of.

Trust yourself. Because if you make decisions based on society, based on what others want, you will regret it for the rest of your life. I have seen it happen so many times. Parents said get married, got married, then divorced. Parents said have kids, had kids, now regretting it. Friends said engineering is the safe path, took it, now depressed.

What do you want? Only you know the answer. Every person will eventually leave. In the end, every human is alone. So when you are taking your last breaths, you should be able to say: I did what I wanted to do. I lived the life I wanted to live.

It is totally natural to feel lost in your 20s. Your 20s will build the base for the rest of your life. Things will be messy. You will never have everything figured out. If you think people in their 40s or 50s have it all sorted, they do not. Even your parents do not. Nobody does. Every stage of life brings different problems. Challenges will always be there.

The only thing you have control over is your choices. Life is all about choices. What is happening around me? How do I choose to respond? What do I want?

We feel imbalanced when we are doing something we do not want to do, or when we are not doing something we actually want to do. That is where the disbalance comes from. So bring yourself back to balance.

Be true to yourself. Focus on what you want. And whenever you feel lost, ask yourself one question: what do I want right now? What am I doing wrong?

This is life. It will be tough. And you are not alone. This happens to everybody. Just focus on yourself and keep walking.