The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter and How to Make The Most of Them Now by Meg Jay, PhD
So first, I love Dr. Meg Jay. I wish I could have had the opportunity for her to be my therapist! She is a clinical psychologist who specializes in twenty somethings. I discovered her in my first semester of graduate school while completing a research project. That is when I found her Ted Talk “Why 30 is Not the New 20”, and it inspired me to also want to work with twentysomethings. This decade of life is what I mean by working with individuals in “life transitions!”
I misunderstood what my 20’s were going to be about. When I graduated college at 22, and entered the “real world”, I felt lied to. Anyone else? I thought our 20’s were supposed to be the best years of my life. So why then, was everything so hard? Why hadn’t anyone taught me how to handle personality changes that led to me discover what I majored in in college was actually not at all what I wanted to be doing with my life? Or how this was going to affect friendships and other relationships? By the way, your 20’s is when the most personality changes happen in your life; your brain changes more in your 20’s than any other time in your whole life! Your frontal lobe fully develops, which means part of your 20’s you might still feel impulsive and focused on pleasure seeking, yet the other part of your 20’s you all of a sudden have more access to the part of the brain that processes logic and judgement. So has “confusing” been a word you’ve used to describe your 20’s? Brain development might be contributing to that feeling!
Not only is your body and brain going through biological changes in your 20’s, but so much of your environment and social supports are changing as well. With these two areas of life changing right before your eyes, your 20’s are the perfect time to make transformations that will truly impact the rest of your life. 85% of life’s biggest events happen before 35, which means most of those “biggest events” are going to happen in your 20’s. This isn’t meant to be scary, but empowering! In the book, Dr. Jay breaks it down to 3 parts: Work, Love, and The Brain and Body. For work, she talks about setting your earning potential in your 20’s, using connections, and the importance of making decisions instead of avoiding decisions. When it comes to Love, Dr. Jay covers all things from important conversations to have with potential partners, what happens when you live together while dating, and what it means to pick your own future family. In the last part, she goes over what it takes to grow your confidence, investing in adulthood, and adjusting to becoming independent of your parents.
For too long this narrative of “30’s are the new 20’s” has made twentysomethings place too much psychological distance between their 20’s, and the rest of their life. Career goals, family planning, retirement all seem so far away, but they’re not. It’s okay that your 20’s are confusing. They are confusing years for everyone. But it’s important to start seeing yourself for the young adult you really are, and accepting personal responsibility for your future. Whether you’re just 21 or 22, or 29, this book is for you. It’s not too late, or too early, to start investing in your 20’s. If this is something that interests you, or causes you anxiety, I’d love to be your counselor through this stage of life. Let’s figure out what you really want out of your career, your future family, and do what we can now to set your future up for success!