I recently came across a post in the Deciding To Be Better subreddit which was getting a lot of attention. It was a warning from someone who said they wasted their 20’s, and what I found so compelling is that it described nearly every pain point I have repeatedly heard from young guys who are struggling with a lack of drive and purpose, usually combined with an excess of anxiety or depression.

The author of the post says he never moved from his hometown, still lives with his parents, is still a virgin, never kissed a girl, and feels like he has wasted the most fruitful period of his life.

If you read on… it actually sounds like he has done a lot of things right. He has a good job, dedicated himself to music, works out, reads, he tried to start a business, and on top of that, he is only 27, but he is talking like it is all over.

He says, “My ecosystem is barren… I’m just a shell of a man (if I can be called that) waiting for my time to be swept off this earth.

The reason I identify with the guy in this post so much is that I was him.

From 7th grade on I always the shyest person in the room. As I went into my 20’s, still a virgin, with very few friends, still mortified of social situations, I felt like I was doomed to live the rest of my life completely trapped in my own head.

Like the guy in this post, I spent most of my life focusing on everything that hasn’t happened for me. Everything that was going wrong instead of what was going right, or what I could change going forward.

Many of us do this all the time, and much of it has to do with that cruel mistress who accompanies us through life, and that is our social anxiety. That is why getting over this is the #1 way to come out of your 20’s feeling motivated and fulfilled.

Get over your anxiety

You may be familiar with the book The One Thing by Gary Keller. The foundation of this book is the simple, yet powerful, concept of focusing on what matters most in our personal and professional lives.

Let’s say you want to lose weight, make money, or build strong relationships, and you decide to attack all these things at once. You may be able to juggle them for a few days or weeks… but sooner or later everything will come crashing down. If you want to make a change you begin by focusing your attention on one thing at a time.

But with so much to accomplish, how do we decide what to focus on first?

The answer is to focus your attention on the one thing that will have the biggest impact across every aspect of your life.

That is why crushing your social anxiety is number 1 on this list… because it will make everything else I mention in this video much, much easier.

Big goals require big steps that are often very scary, and social anxiety makes us hesitate. When we hesitate, those opportunities slip through our fingers. Like the guy who wrote that original post, I spent so many years waiting for the perfect girl, the dream job, and the dream life to just fall in my lap.

Eventually I became so tired of the excuses, the self-pity, the constant inner monologue of…

“if only I wasn’t anxious”.

“If only I could be confident and outgoing like other people.”

Eventually I hit a breaking point where the pain of going on in this way was so much greater than the perceived pain of making a change so….

I immediately began putting myself in as many uncomfortable social situations as I could find. I was scared of talking to strangers, so I started talking to every person I saw. Even if the only words I could mutter were “Hi” I knew that every time I made the words come out I was getting a little more comfortable, a little more confident, and I was slowly working myself free of this fear that had gripped me for so long.

A lot of people think overcoming social anxiety means being 100 percent confident in every situation…. but this is absolutely not the case.

The goal is not to be comfortable and confident all the time, but to have the confidence to know that no matter how scary the situation seems, even if it goes completely wrong, you will not only get through it, but you will grow and learn from it.

Of course, you don’t have to do this the same way I did.

For the guy in that post, facing his anxiety could come from joining a band right now. Just doing it and fucking up along the way. He never joined the band because he was too afraid to mess up. If you talk to any musician, they will tell you they mess up all the time.

But here’s the thing…



Almost nobody notices and almost no one cares. And even if they did…

Those are the moments where you can consciously choose to own it and learn to be comfortable in your own skin.

The fact that it makes you anxious is the reason you should do it.

Move away from home

Living at home well into your twenties is becoming more and more common. In fact, 63% of single adults between 20-29 still live with their parents. More kids just out of high school are deciding to keep that umbilical cord intact… and for seemingly good reasons. When you consider the thousands of dollars you will be saving on rent over the years, it seems like a no brainer, until you weigh the hidden cost of making this choice.

If getting over social anxiety makes everything easier living at home makes everything harder. It will be much harder to start a romantic relationship.

Knowing that rent payment is due every month will force you to learn financial responsibility. And if you know that you will have to take that leap sooner or later… why not choose sooner?

What usually begins as a temporary transition stage often extends indefinitely. You become used to the security and comfort and it becomes increasingly harder to leave the nest.

The struggle of going out on your own is an incredibly important learning experience. The times you spent in a crappy apartment, living off nothing but top ramen and vodka, these are the experiences you are going to look back on fondly… not staying with Mom and Dad (Even though I love you guys).

Eventually you will have to make that leap… and when you do it will always be an adjustment. The quicker you make that adjustment the quicker you can get on living the life you want to live.

Stay Fit

Obviously that top ramen and vodka thing was a joke because you should definitely be trying to eat healthy and stay fit.

It happens to almost everybody. You graduate and are out on your own for the first time. You either go off to college, live on your own, or even if you never left your mom’s basement, finally, you can eat whatever you want, whenever you want. If you were lucky enough to stay in shape throughout high school, it is likely that most of it will be lost after a few years in the real world.

It happened to me. I never got extremely out of shape. But I allowed by body and my mind to get soft when I was no longer involved in high school sports.

Of course, when it comes to staying in shape, prevention is the best road you could take. If you never allow yourself to get out of shape you will never experience the struggle of digging yourself out of that hole. But if it has already happened it can feel like quite a daunting task to take on.

While I am on this topic, I want to address one of the most common fallacies I hear, which is that you can’t get into shape if you are in your 40’s, 30’s, or even late 20’s.

Obviously, most of us know this is not true… but when faced with the choice of a treadmill or a donut… it is easy to rationalize that we are too old to get in shape, so why bother?

I want to use the example of a good friend of mine who got out of a marriage in their 30’s. He was out of shape. He basically worked, came home, drank booze, and played video games or watched tv. Then he went through his divorce, and to distract his mind he started yoga and rock climbing, got into great shape, started volunteering, made a ton of friends, all while working a demanding job, going to school, and raising two kids.

If he can do it so can we.

Another pitfall people commonly run into is they get really motivated to get in shape, they go to the gym, and absolutely crush it. They work out ferociously and they are feeling great about it, until the next day, when they wake up feeling like they got hit by a bus.

The key when you are starting out is to focus on consistency over intensity.

This runs right in the face of our modern, hyperactive world, and that is also why there is a 95% recidivism rate with any new diet or workout plan.

Instead of going balls to the wall right away… go to 50,60, or 70 percent of your max output… and then call it a day.

Guess what will happen?

You will wake up refreshed and ready to do it again.

Your post-workout feeling will be energized instead of beaten down.

And if you do this for 30-40 days straight you are on your way to getting in shape for the rest of your life.

Try to start a business

Our redditor has already taken this big step. He tried to start a business and failed. The only mistake he made was not following through with his failure. Very rarely will your first idea work out, and many successful people fail well into their 30’s, 40’s, or 50’s. Something like 90% of startups have said they either entirely scrapped their original business model or massively overhauled it. Even with my business I am still failing and learning all the time. Failing is part of the game. Come up with an idea and fail until you know why it’s failing and how to change it.

I would say one of the main keys is to not get into a lot of debt when you are just starting out. Been there. Done that. Don’t recommend it. Set your business up in a way that it can fail for years until you figure things out. Even if that means working, going to school, and still finding a few hours a week to start building something that is entirely your own.



“But I don’t have any ideas.”

You probably have many ideas… you may have just not taken the time to flush them out. Let me ask you this… what do you like? Everybody likes something. 30 years ago, you couldn’t say “I want to play video games for a living… and I want to make millions doing it”. And now we live in an incredibly unique time where people can take their hobbies and turn it into a business. Do you like travelling? Makeup? Cars? Camping?

Take that thing you love most, buy some cheap equipment, look up some quick video tutorials, and just try it out.

Fail over and over again until finally…. things will start to click.

Start small

Trying to tackle a giant goal is going to feel so overwhelming that you likely won’t even get off the couch. That is why we are going to move in baby steps and set achievable goals, even if they are ridiculously small. If you want to get over your social anxiety and you can’t approach someone, try and simplify it all the way down to saying “hi” to someone as they pass.

The same thing with getting in shape. Don’t set your goal to have a six pack when you’re 100 pounds overweight. That can be your long-term goal, but in the meantime, make sure you are also setting short-term goals that are easily attainable… something like going to the gym 4 days a week or trying to lose 1 pound a week.

And above all….

Realize it’s never too late

Your 20s might be the height of your theoretical attractiveness but they aren’t the best years of your life by a long shot. There is so much you don’t know in your 20’s. So much confusion and uncertainty. The reason everybody talks about how awesome your 20’s are is that you don’t have to get your shit together yet. When I think back to my 23rd birthday, which I spent drinking alone in my room, to one year later, when I spent it surrounded by friends having a great time, it’s incredible to me that this guy who is still so young is talking like it’s all over.

If you truly commit yourself you will be amazed at how quickly your life can change in just one year.

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