October 6, 2025 • 39 mins
Today I'm reflecting on some of the lessons I've been taking from my early 20s. We all have regrets about things we wish we'd done differently or not done at all, and I'm hoping you can learn from mine.
We talk about everything from bad financial decisions, ghosting friends, staying in relationships farrr too long, to impulse buying, ignoring gut feelings and fighting with family. Listen now to hear all ten!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Psychology of Your Twenties,
the podcast where we talk through some of the big
life changes and transitions of our twenties and what they
mean for our psychology. Hello everybody, Welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
Welcome back to the podcast. New listeners, old listeners. Wherever
you are in the world, it is so great to
have you here back for another episode as we of
course break down the psychology of our twenties. Okay, if
the audio sounds a little bit different on this episode,
it's because Sydney Airport today decided that it would be
(00:47):
really fun to divert all of the airport traffic over
my house. So I was like trying to record this.
I have tried to do like this episode four or
five times, and every time I'm about to get into it,
like hl mega cargo plane is like a kilometer away
from like my windows. So we kind of changed things
(01:09):
up today and I'm recording in my hallway cupboard situation,
so breaking the fourth wall there to address if this
sounds like a little bit different from my other episodes.
But today, guys, we're gonna do a little bit more
of a personal episode. Obviously, I like to talk about
our twenties in general, and I like to have like
(01:32):
psychological conversations around why we experience what we do when
we do in this decade, why it's so chaotic. But
every now and again, I do like to do a
little bit more of a personal episode more so for me.
I feel like this podcast is many things to many people,
but for me, it's also kind of like a personal
diary or a little bit of like a kind of
(01:53):
like what are those things called a time capsule where
I want to do certain episodes specifically for future me to.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Listen to and to reflect on, And this today is
one of those episodes. A couple of months ago, I
released one of my favorite episodes ever, which was the
twenty Biggest Mistakes People Make in their twenties. That was
like so many months of work went into that episode
and it but basically just you know, we talked to
over five thousand people about what they've regretted and why.
(02:24):
And since that, I've really started to think about, hey, like,
what do I regret about my twenties so far? What
are the things that I might point to later on
in life and say, oh, I wish I'd done that differently,
and so since that episode has come out, I've kind
of started compiling my own list and like writing things
down here and there, both like from recent memory and
(02:45):
from like my much earlier twenties and today, I thought
that I would share that list now, especially as I'm
kind of definitely entering my later twenties. I have found
that I've become more reflective. I'm definitely waiting for my
sat and return to like come and kick me in
the butt, and before that happens, I want to make
sure that I have been taking as many lessons as
(03:08):
I can from my experiences and that the stuff that
I'm going through, whether good or bad, will actually stay
with me. So this is kind of the combination of
all of that thinking and all of that reflecting on
what I regret, what I would change, how I want
to kind of go into the last few years of
my twenties really prioritizing and thinking about and I thought maybe,
(03:32):
just maybe someone else could benefit from this as well. So,
without further ado, We're going to talk about my ten
biggest regrets from my twenties so far, spanning from dating
to friendship to money, my health, how I've made use
of my time and certain chapters of my life and
(03:54):
so many other things. I hope you enjoy it. I
hope you learn something. Let's get into it. Okay. So,
when I was thinking about one of my biggest regrets,
the first one was so painstakingly like obvious to me,
(04:16):
like there is no question that the biggest regret I
have so far is doing things for others that I
really didn't want to do. That's my biggest regret. Number
one is all the times when I have felt, deep
in my stomach and deep in my body, I don't
want to do this, I don't want to be here.
(04:38):
Why did I say yes to this? Why do I
continue to say yes to these things? And yet I'm
still in that situation time and time again. This is
probably the biggest thing that I am currently trying to
sort out within myself and trying to make better. I
think at least once a week I have like a
(05:00):
conversation with myself where I'm like, what are we doing?
Why do we agree to go to this event? Why
do we agree to say yes to this thing even
though like it's incredibly like time heavy, and you're not
getting paid anything, and you don't even like these people
like that was a recent one where I was like,
(05:20):
what am I? Why did I say yes to that?
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Why did I.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Agree to help with this person's I don't know baby
shower when they've never actually ever been very nice to me?
Why did I do this favor for someone? Like It's
a repeat pattern that I honestly find myself in more
often than I want to be, and I regret it.
(05:45):
I regret it every single time I think when I
really like break down why this is happening, Like it's historical,
it's deeply historical, and it's deeply like related to the
worth I felt as a child, and I've speake, I've
spoken about this on the podcast before. But when I
was a kid, when I was in primary school and
(06:06):
even when I was in high school, I was bullied really,
really badly, and I had all these experiences where I
really wanted a friend and I really wanted people to
like me, and like I just couldn't figure it out.
Like all these other kids seemed to just like have
this quality about them that made other people like them,
and I didn't have that quality. In fact, I had
(06:27):
the quality that made people find me irritating or not
like me or kind of victimize me in a bit
of a way, and so as I got older, I
think one of the strategies I learned is that if
you just constantly do things for other people, then they'll
like you more. If you are constantly like the yes
person and the pushover, you get invited.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
You get to.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
See behind the scenes, people include you, and they include you,
maybe not because they consciously know this, but unconsciously because
they know that you will help them, and you will
bend over backwards for them, and you will sacrifice for them,
and you won't stand up for yourself. This obviously was
(07:13):
like very helpful to me, and I have to acknowledge
it was helpful for me when I was younger and
when I just really wanted to be liked and I
really just needed a friend. Nowadays, like I have friends,
and I have a really great life, and I feel
a lot more confident. I have a much greatest sense
of self esteem. This is no longer helpful for me,
(07:34):
and it's no longer useful, and in fact, it's like
really starting to cost me. And I'm trying not to
go into specifics because like I'm sure there are people
who I've said yes to when I really didn't want
to do things in the past who I'm listening to
this podcast, And the thing is is that it's not
their fault, right, It's this is another lesson, like it's
(07:54):
not someone's fault if I continue to say yes when
I want to say no. Yeah, yes, There is certainly
like perhaps layers of recognition that this is a weakness
of mine and maybe a desire to manipulate that without
them knowing it. But at the end of the day,
these things that I'm saying yes to are relatively like
(08:15):
low stakes. They're just irritating to continually do. I kind
of have to I don't know, I need to like
woman up and say no to these things. That's a
summary of my biggest regret, and obviously you can tell
that it's something that I'm still trying to undo and
hopefully in five years time when I'm making like the
(08:35):
final complete list of my regrets of my twenties all up,
this does not make the list, and it is something
that I've recovered from. But yeah, I'm sure a lot
of people can can relate to it. My second biggest regret,
I feel like the first one is very existential and
very much about like self concept and self respect and
childhood wounds. This next one is not so much it
(08:58):
is impulse buying cloth that weren't comfortable or didn't fit
or I knew I would never wear big tone shift
there a big one eighty. But I'm obviously like preparing
to move countries at the end of the year, like
visas are approved, flights are booked, plans and preparations are
(09:19):
in process, and I am like looking through my wardrobe
and realizing that I may have like an impulse spending
problem and that I buy a lot of stuff that
I never wear, and it is a huge money pit
for me. I genuinely think I wear the same six outfits,
(09:43):
like I yeah, I really like I've been doing the
math and I've been asking myself the question and getting
rid of things like have I worn this in the
last six months? And there are probably like twelve items
of clothing that I genuinely wear, and the rest is
just stuff that like sits there and is filled with
the potential of like maybe one day I'll wear this.
(10:04):
Maybe one day I'll be confident enough to wear that.
Maybe one day I'll suddenly be this different person who
wears these things. And I just kind of know that
I'm not, Like, I know that these things don't make
me comfortable, and I just really regret how much money
I have put into clothes or items that I thought
were gonna be the final thing that made me feel good,
(10:26):
or like the final thing that was going to fill
the void, or like the final item that I needed
to have the most perfect wardrobe and feel confident every
single time I put something on it is honestly just
a waste of space. And I am seriously considering doing
a little bit of a capsule wardrobe, just selling everything
except for like the clothes I know I wear on
(10:47):
a daily and starting from scratchl just like not buying
anything else and seeing how long I can last. I
feel like my move to London is going to be
a great opportunity for me to try out the minimal lifestyle.
I don't know how successful I will be, but yeah,
the second biggest regret is the money that I have
put into clothes and items that were really just like
(11:12):
representing my desire to be someone that I was not,
and I haven't like really recognized that until now. My
third biggest regret now it kind of turns more towards relationships,
and I honestly think it's one that I wasn't like.
I know this was when I wasn't going to include
because of how it may make me look like a
(11:32):
bad person or made me look inconsiderate, But it is
ghosting friends, even people who were not good friends to me.
There is like one person in particular that I think
about who our friendship was deeply problematic for many reasons,
(11:54):
emotional but also financial reasons, Like at the end of
the day, the reason it didn't last was because of
how this person treated money and how they kind of
took advantage of me for money in a way that
felt like really awful. And I know that we were
(12:17):
like we weren't meant to be friends and that there
were things that couldn't be repaired, but I really regret
not having that final conversation with this person and not
just clearing the air. I don't think it would have
done anything. I don't think that they would have changed,
but sometimes I yeah, I just maybe they wouldn't have
(12:40):
seen that it was an issue. But I really regret
not giving them that and not giving myself that as well.
And my frickin' phone has been doing this thing where
they have where it's been like showing me photos of
this person. Like every single day I get a photo
of this previous friend and I can't stop thinking about them,
and yeah, like wanting to reach out, but also knowing
(13:02):
it's not for the best. And I just think that
that is a lesson. The only thing left in that
is the lesson to not do that in the future
and to have hard conversations. I've definitely done it in
the past as well, but I do think that my
default is to just like not hurt people's feelings and
to not want to let people down, not realizing that
(13:25):
sometimes that's kind of selfish, Like it's kind of selfish
to not want to experience the discomfort of upsetting people,
but therefore maybe actually making it a more upsetting experience
for them. Bigger lessons in that, but it has been
a regret of mine, and I wish that I could
(13:45):
go back and finish certain friendships and finish certain relationships better.
Maybe not relationships. I will say I feel like I'm
pretty I'm someone who's pretty good break up with and
I'm good at doing the breaking up, but definitely friendships,
Like I just feel like the way that you really
(14:08):
love someone is reflected in how the relationship ends, and
I definitely could have honored other friendships and friendships of
mine better in the goodbye. That's regret number three. Let's
talk about regret number four before we take a short break.
And this is one that I think I wish. I
(14:28):
wish someone had told me at nineteen and I had
listened to them. Although I don't think I would have,
I regret focusing too much on dating in my early twenties.
If you are nineteen or younger, or if you are
twenty or twenty one, listen to me closely right now.
(14:49):
If you do not have a boyfriend or a girlfriend
or a partner right now, and you are thinking that
you need one to kind of fulfill other people's expectations
or to make you happier, you do not. Please please
be single right now. Have a lot of fun, make
a lot of amazing friendships. Make the first five years
(15:12):
of your twenties be about building stable community and support network.
You do not need to start focusing on dating until
you are at least twenty five. And I know that
that brings up complicated feelings. I know that a lot
of people may have met the love of their life
in their early twenties, and it's worked out incidentally, like
(15:34):
really amazing. And I know a lot of people have
a lot of fears around being a late bloomer or
never finding anybody, or not having experience, But I am
telling you from my perspective and looking back at my life,
I regret so deeply how much time and energy I
put into trying to make men like me, trying to
(15:55):
fall in love, trying to force relationships that did not work,
when I could have spent all of that energy on
so much else. Like there was a particular relationship I
had in my early twenties, like when I was twenty one,
I went through two breakups in one year, and in
that same period of time, like being in those relationships
(16:15):
like decimated half of my friendships, And oh my god,
for what, like genuinely for what, I take like full
accountability for the fact that you know, being in that
relationship was a terrible decision and made me act terribly
as as a person. And I just wish I could
(16:36):
like I didn't really learn anything from it. I can
like fully say that now, like I don't think I
learned much from it other than that I shouldn't do
that again. And you know, I can never get back
like that time, and it can never get back the
friendships that it that like my selfishness and that relationship ruined,
and I just wish, Like I have younger sisters and
(16:59):
I was talking to them because they were staying with
me this weekend, and I was like, probably like scaring
them a little bit, but I was like, are you
guys dating anyone? And they were like, none of your business,
and I was like, well, you shouldn't be tell me,
but also like break up with them, like you need
to be single, like move to London with me, Like
move to Sydney, Like just do something wild and adventurous
and crazy whilst you can, because you will meet someone eventually,
(17:23):
and if you don't, you will still benefit more from
spending that time building self confidence and self love and
a really rich ecosystem of friendships and relationships rather than
just like kind of martyring yourself for people who don't
respect you. This kind of brings me. Sorry, I know
(17:44):
I said I take a break, but this fifth regret
is actually really relevant to this, and that is tolerating
bad behavior from people I was dating because I wanted validation,
and that really kind of comes back to that relationship
I was talking about. Like the respect that I let happen,
(18:05):
and I'm not like blaming myself, but like the disrespect
that I overlooked because I wanted this mediocre person to
like me is wild in hindsight. Like the way this
person would make me feel, the way he would like
talk down to me in front of others, the way
(18:27):
he would discredit my passions, the way he would never
like meet my emotional needs, and yet I continue to
like come back to him and like worship him is
a huge regret for me. It's a massive one. The
question that I wish i'd ask myself and which I
now tell people to ask themselves in these similar situations,
(18:49):
is if this was your soulmate, would your soulmate treat
you this way? Is this how you want to be
loved for the rest of your life? Because I think
in our twenties sometimes the stakes don't feel that high, right,
It doesn't really feel like this person is going to
be forever, But like it doesn't matter every moment that
(19:11):
you stay in those situations where your confidence and your
sense of self and your sense of self esteem is
like degraded is a moment you don't get back and
is important. So I wish I hadn't. I wish i'd
put my foot down. I wish that I'd just cut
my losses a bit sooner. And you know what, I wish,
(19:33):
in like kind of a cruel way, that I'd had
like that final moment to like look this person in
the eye and be like you really have lost out,
Like there's a self like this, like little like cheeky,
kind of mean part of me. That's like God, I
wish I could have just like given them a piece
of my mind. Maybe not immediately when we broke up,
(19:56):
because like the way I broke up with this person
was like a whisper rather than a shout, But I
wish that, like six months later I'd run into him
and I could have just been like yeah, like I
don't know. Maybe it's like a reclaiming of the confidence
I wish I had during that period. But Okay, I
promised us a break. I promised some time for you
(20:16):
guys to go get some tea to enjoy my ads.
So stay with us. We will be right back. Welcome back.
As a reminder, we are talking about the ten biggest
regrets that I have about my twenties. So far, we
have talked about relationships. We've talked about shopping randomly, We've
(20:39):
talked about ghosting friends. I want to talk now more
about how I chose to use my time and my
energy and this what are we up to? Sixth regret
has to do with journaling actually, and how I processed
emotions or took notes of pivotal points in my life.
(21:02):
I wish that I had journaled more, especially in my
early twenties, rather than relying on my memory to accurately
describe things when I was a teenager. I have these
incredibly intricate journals and reflections on my life, and there
(21:23):
are all these characters, and they are all these like
plot twists that actually happened to me, and it's honestly,
really delightful like reading them back. I feel as if
people journal for two reasons. They journal for emotional processing
and as a form of coping, and they also journal
as a form of memory keeping and as a way
(21:46):
to see it coherent, to kind of be able to
see the story of their life right. And there is
this big chunk of my story that is missing. If
you were only to read my journals because I just
I was so distracted that I didn't do it and
I didn't think it was important. And I just really
(22:06):
regret that because I wish I had a more like
I was gonna say, objective, but like objective is in
of the time recount of what I was going through
and what I was learning at that time. I guess
this episode is like a way to do that for
me right now. And I guess maybe it really like
aligned with when I started doing the podcast and I
(22:27):
kind of felt like I didn't have to do it
as much, but I did and I still do and
now I'm kind of getting back into it. But I
really wish that i'd done that more. It's such an
important practice for me, and I don't know necessarily why
I neglected it, but I know I regret it. My
seventh regret is overthinking things rather than just doing them.
(22:49):
And yet again, this is another kind of routine way
that I operate that I am trying to not necessarily
unlearn but just acknowledge and be friends with. You know,
I might and probably will never change my brain's tendency
to overthink, but I think I can overcome the instinct
(23:11):
to just ruminate forever and ever and ever. My tendency
to overthink rather than just do is both like innocuous
and deeply like influential. It happens every single day. It's
like from small things like not being able to choose
an ice cream flavor and then like getting to the
(23:33):
counter and having something in mind that I want and
then choosing something completely different and being disappointed, to overthinking
my future to the point where I don't ever act
on certain things, or don't ever act on opportunities because
I've just been so obsessed over whether they're going to
be right and whether they're going to set me on
(23:55):
a path that I can't come back from. That's just
like so ridiculous, right, Like we have no idea how
a decision is going to work out. I always give
people advice to just do, to just make the decision,
to just go with one choice rather than going with
no choice, And yet it's something that I still struggle with.
(24:16):
I definitely do act, and I definitely do make the
decision eventually, but I just wonder how much time and
opportunity I've wasted thinking about it, especially like to break
the fourth wall yet again, when I think like in
like year two of the podcast, when like people were
listening right, really listening, and it felt like I was
(24:36):
doing something important rather than just a hobby. I would
obsessively think about which episodes to release next, and it
meant that I had all these really good ideas, and
I had all these stories that I think would have
been really important to share, and I didn't because I
kept questioning and overthinking whether people would find them valuable,
whether than you know, whether I would find them. And
(25:01):
I feel like that was a big mistake and it's
something that I again I regret. I've also done it
with job opportunities in the past, where I've overthought something
to the point where they've basically been like, well, we're
gonna give it to someone else, and I totally respect
that decision, but I wish that I wasn't in that situation.
So something that I want to do in the next
(25:23):
three years of my twenties is to just listen to
my gut a little bit more and to just trust
the first thought that comes into my brain, even if
it's wrong. And this is what I think about this.
I think that there is so much to be said
about trial and error in further honing and fine tuning
(25:49):
your gut instinct and your intuition. The only way you
can know what is intuition and what is anxiety is
to just act on whatever comes up first and figure
it out and then kind of reverse engineer or kind
of understand in hindsight or distinguish in hindsight which was
which right and what they why they might subtly feel differently.
(26:11):
So this is something that I want to be better at.
Not trusting my gut instinct has also gotten me in
a lot of trouble in the past. That kind of
brings me to my eighth regret, which is the times
that I didn't trust my gut instinct when it came
to large financial decisions and letting people pressure me into
(26:31):
things that I knew were not right and that I
had a bad gut feeling about. I don't really talk
about money on the show very much just because I
to be real, I'm not particularly very good with money.
Like I've definitely been more dedicated to learning about it
and to investing in things and to using my money wisely.
(26:53):
But like you know, I have an economics degree doesn't
mean I really understand everyday financial decisions very well. But
last year I didn't necessarily lose, but I invested like
what was a very significant sum of money for me
because of advice from someone else who I didn't want
(27:18):
to disagree with. It's not that I wanted to impress them,
but I felt like I couldn't say no, and I
felt like pressured into making this decision. And every part
of me was like, don't do that, Like, don't spend
this money. You don't want to do this. This actually
isn't going This isn't the right decision for you, This
isn't going to lead to a better outcome for you.
(27:41):
And yet I did it, and I really deeply regret it.
I really deeply regret that I didn't listen to my intuition.
And you know what, it wasn't a total loss, and
in the grand scheme of things, like, yeah, it was
a lot of money at the time, I'm sure future
me is not going it is not like it wasn't
(28:04):
like the amount that you would need to buy a
house or even a car or anything like that big.
But I just I just wish that I had listened
to myself a little bit better and that I had
been more more trusting in my own research and the
information I had to make a better decision and again
(28:24):
less peer pressure. I will also say this is a
bonus regret that I talked about that in the main
episode that I did on this the twenty Biggest Regrets episode,
not investing sooner. It was a big one for a
lot of people in that episode, and it's a big
one for me once you realize how many people are
just like making money from their money, like it's shocking
(28:49):
and you never look back. And we're kind of at
a point now where you don't necessarily need to be
like a unicorn investor a multimillionaire to have access to
these opportunities. I think, like even twenty to fifty dollars,
like you can put into shares or bonds or stocks
and you can get returns, and I wish, like, it's
(29:11):
not free money. I will say, it's not free money.
I need to stop saying this. I said this to
my friend the other day who was an accountant, and
she was like, you can't say that it's free money,
but it is like your money working for you. And so,
as a bonus regrets, such thing I wish i'd done
sooner that is definitely one of them. I've kind of
lost track of where I'm up to now. I think
(29:31):
we are at number nine, our second last one, and
that is not making the most of my time off.
When I was at university, let me explain, I should
have taken advantage of how little I had on. When
(29:51):
I was a university student, I felt so much pressure
to like have the internships, to be applying for like
as many jobs as possible, and like boosting my resume
and like making it look more important. Obviously, I also
had to work because I needed to like pay my bills,
but I also spent a great deal of time just
(30:13):
like messing about and just like kind of hanging around
my college and like not really doing anything. And I
wish I hadn't done that. Like you get to the
stage and like adulthood and all the responsibilities just like
kind of take over, and you realize how rare that
time in your life was where you could just like
(30:34):
have a little bit of freedom. Often like every seven
weeks you would have like a break. Every twelve weeks
or so, you would have a break. And I wish
I'd just done a few more day trips. I wish
i'd done a bit more exploring. I wish I'd done
a bit more of the stuff that excited me rather
than what I thought I should have done. I remember
one winter, especially where I did this internship that everyone
(30:59):
told me was important. I have never been asked about
that internship. I even think that I got a job
without that internship on my resume, because it was an
old resume that I handed in, like and it was
so many hours of unpaid work that I thought was
expected of me to get ahead in like the previous
(31:19):
career that I was in, and I just won't get
that time back. And I really think that my character
and my sense of self and my like life enjoyment
would have been improved so much better by just having
some fun. I took my I took everything so seriously
when I was finishing up union, when I was in
(31:40):
my final few years and months of university, and I
didn't appreciate how much freedom and how much fun like
that time is and how you should really take advantage
of it. Nowadays, it's like so much harder. I don't
think I've had like a full week off without working
in like two years. I wish that I realized what
(32:03):
a gift that was back then, and that there is
so much time to get ahead and to do the
shoulds and to do the things that you feel like
obligated to do to get ahead later on, and yeah,
someone else might be doing those things now, and you
might feel like you're in this secret competition with all
of these people.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
You're not.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
People also want well rounded individuals, and you can't be
well rounded if you just continuously do things that are
expected of you or that you don't even care about
just because of how they look. That's my ninth regret,
and this is my final one. Delaying medical appointments sounds
(32:45):
like a weird one to make number ten on this list.
It is not. You guys know I had that really
well maybe you don't know if you didn't listen to
that episode, but at the start of the year I
had this really intense health scare where I went to
the optometrist and literally within days I was getting MRIs
(33:07):
to see if I had a brain tumor and they
were testing to see if I had MS or I
had all of like all of these different diseases. Essentially,
my optic nerve in my eye was like really really swollen,
and yeah, I, Oh, my god, I should know what
it's called. Optic neurosis, I think is what the symptom is.
(33:31):
And I just I'd missed that I'd been having all
of these like weird things and I hadn't obviously paid
attention to them. And then suddenly it was like, oh
my god, my life is flipped upside down in like
a matter of seconds. Literally just last week, I went
and I did all of my appointments for the next year.
I went and got my blood's done. I went and
(33:51):
got like all of my like screenings done. I went
and got a bunch of like ultrasounds and a bunch
of other stuff, just to like look at things that
I have been annoying me and that are obviously causing
pain or discomfort in my body that I would ordinarily
just like ignore, but I know I need to pay
attention to now before they get worse. I always have
(34:14):
to give this caveat. I live in Australia, right, God
bless universal health care, because all of those appointments cost
me fifty dollars and I really did take advantage of
those perks, like I really did get the whole. I
got the whole, like bodily review the whole like I
did everything, and so I know every time I give
(34:36):
this piece of advice or I talk about this regret,
I always get people who are not in countries that
are as blessed as Australia being like, that's not that's
not like obtainable for everybody. That's okay. You should still
do it if you have the means, If you have
any form of means or any way of doing this,
even if it's through like free programs through your university,
(34:59):
especially when you're young and it may be discounted, or
you may still be underneath your parents' health insurance, go
and do it. I also just got my skin checked
for skin cancer. I spend a lot of time like
baking my body in the sun when I was in
my late teens and early twenties, and I was like,
(35:20):
I have to do this. I kept getting it put off.
The peace of mind that I felt afterwards was so relieving.
Please do it for me, do it, do it for us,
Go and do your medical appointments. It's worth it, and
that also counts for your mental health as well. I
haven't always been the best at that. I feel like
I let things get to a crisis point sometimes before
(35:41):
I take action. And after everything I went through last
year with my mental health, I'm definitely trying to be
aware that that is a pattern for me, and I'm
trying to unload it. I think that's all of them.
I think we have done my ten regrets. I do
have one more on this list that I must have added,
number eleven. Letting people who I don't respect make me
(36:02):
feel bad about myself. That's kind of a big one
to end on. But this is especially like to do
with people online. I talk so much about like how
I'm so easy to rage bait. I know this about myself.
I get so frustrated at people who like criticize other
people online behind behind like a troll account or like
a faceless profile, or people who are like you did
(36:25):
that wrong, and like they've never actually attempted to make
anything in their life or like put themselves out there.
And so this is one that I'm just like, I
regret all the emotional time and energy I invested into
people that I would never meet, who had opinions about
me that were completely unfounded. That's like a little bonus
one if you are someone and to be honest I
(36:46):
still don't know how to not do it, so it's
an ongoing regret. Maybe that's why I didn't make the
full list. But if you're someone who feels the same
and who has easily been rage baited recently or is
easily getting frustrated by people's opinions, you are not alone.
But that's everything. That's everything on my list, and I
feel like that list is going to change in the
(37:07):
next couple several years, as like I get older and
I feel like I'm going to learn more. So I
think I might come back in the last season of
The Psychology of Your Twenties, the last season before I
turn thirty, and redo this list and see, like where
I've kind of what ones I've overcome, which things I've
learned from, which things I regret a little bit less.
(37:27):
But for now, that's really what I'm taking away from
my early and mid twenties, And I hope that if
you know you're at a similar point in your life,
if you're in your early twenties, you can learn something
from those regrets and maybe not make the same mistakes.
Or maybe it's just the case that everyone has to
go through some of this stuff and figure it out
on their own. So whatever it is, I don't know,
(37:51):
hopefully it was helpful, and feel free to share your
regrets below. I know we have that full episode, but
I genuinely think that the easiest way to learn is
obviously to make the mistake yourself. The second easiest way
is to hear from others and reflect on their takeaways
and their learnings from those moments. So if you feel
(38:12):
the need to share, please do leave a comment below
what is your biggest regret in your twenties so far.
Also make sure that you are following us on Instagram
or you are following us wherever you are listening right
now on Spotify, on Apple Podcasts. We also have a
YouTube and we have a substack, so if you want transcripts,
(38:33):
I know a lot of people want that. If you
want some of the studies, references to the studies that
we cite in some of our episodes that is now available,
there will be links in the description. You can always
there's links everywhere. Everyone's got a link to something, but
it will be clear where it is. Follow that to
find what you're looking for. But until next time, stay safe,
be kind, be gentle to yourself, learn from your regrets
(38:55):
and we will talk very very soon.
Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Psychology of Your Twenties,
the podcast where we talk through some of the big
life changes and transitions of our twenties and what they
mean for our psychology. Hello everybody, Welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
Welcome back to the podcast. New listeners, old listeners. Wherever
you are in the world, it is so great to
have you here back for another episode as we of
course break down the psychology of our twenties. Okay, if
the audio sounds a little bit different on this episode,
it's because Sydney Airport today decided that it would be
(00:47):
really fun to divert all of the airport traffic over
my house. So I was like trying to record this.
I have tried to do like this episode four or
five times, and every time I'm about to get into it,
like hl mega cargo plane is like a kilometer away
from like my windows. So we kind of changed things
(01:09):
up today and I'm recording in my hallway cupboard situation,
so breaking the fourth wall there to address if this
sounds like a little bit different from my other episodes.
But today, guys, we're gonna do a little bit more
of a personal episode. Obviously, I like to talk about
our twenties in general, and I like to have like
(01:32):
psychological conversations around why we experience what we do when
we do in this decade, why it's so chaotic. But
every now and again, I do like to do a
little bit more of a personal episode more so for me.
I feel like this podcast is many things to many people,
but for me, it's also kind of like a personal
diary or a little bit of like a kind of
(01:53):
like what are those things called a time capsule where
I want to do certain episodes specifically for future me to.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Listen to and to reflect on, And this today is
one of those episodes. A couple of months ago, I
released one of my favorite episodes ever, which was the
twenty Biggest Mistakes People Make in their twenties. That was
like so many months of work went into that episode
and it but basically just you know, we talked to
over five thousand people about what they've regretted and why.
(02:24):
And since that, I've really started to think about, hey, like,
what do I regret about my twenties so far? What
are the things that I might point to later on
in life and say, oh, I wish I'd done that differently,
and so since that episode has come out, I've kind
of started compiling my own list and like writing things
down here and there, both like from recent memory and
(02:45):
from like my much earlier twenties and today, I thought
that I would share that list now, especially as I'm
kind of definitely entering my later twenties. I have found
that I've become more reflective. I'm definitely waiting for my
sat and return to like come and kick me in
the butt, and before that happens, I want to make
sure that I have been taking as many lessons as
(03:08):
I can from my experiences and that the stuff that
I'm going through, whether good or bad, will actually stay
with me. So this is kind of the combination of
all of that thinking and all of that reflecting on
what I regret, what I would change, how I want
to kind of go into the last few years of
my twenties really prioritizing and thinking about and I thought maybe,
(03:32):
just maybe someone else could benefit from this as well. So,
without further ado, We're going to talk about my ten
biggest regrets from my twenties so far, spanning from dating
to friendship to money, my health, how I've made use
of my time and certain chapters of my life and
(03:54):
so many other things. I hope you enjoy it. I
hope you learn something. Let's get into it. Okay. So,
when I was thinking about one of my biggest regrets,
the first one was so painstakingly like obvious to me,
(04:16):
like there is no question that the biggest regret I
have so far is doing things for others that I
really didn't want to do. That's my biggest regret. Number
one is all the times when I have felt, deep
in my stomach and deep in my body, I don't
want to do this, I don't want to be here.
(04:38):
Why did I say yes to this? Why do I
continue to say yes to these things? And yet I'm
still in that situation time and time again. This is
probably the biggest thing that I am currently trying to
sort out within myself and trying to make better. I
think at least once a week I have like a
(05:00):
conversation with myself where I'm like, what are we doing?
Why do we agree to go to this event? Why
do we agree to say yes to this thing even
though like it's incredibly like time heavy, and you're not
getting paid anything, and you don't even like these people
like that was a recent one where I was like,
(05:20):
what am I? Why did I say yes to that?
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Why did I.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Agree to help with this person's I don't know baby
shower when they've never actually ever been very nice to me?
Why did I do this favor for someone? Like It's
a repeat pattern that I honestly find myself in more
often than I want to be, and I regret it.
(05:45):
I regret it every single time I think when I
really like break down why this is happening, Like it's historical,
it's deeply historical, and it's deeply like related to the
worth I felt as a child, and I've speake, I've
spoken about this on the podcast before. But when I
was a kid, when I was in primary school and
(06:06):
even when I was in high school, I was bullied really,
really badly, and I had all these experiences where I
really wanted a friend and I really wanted people to
like me, and like I just couldn't figure it out.
Like all these other kids seemed to just like have
this quality about them that made other people like them,
and I didn't have that quality. In fact, I had
(06:27):
the quality that made people find me irritating or not
like me or kind of victimize me in a bit
of a way, and so as I got older, I
think one of the strategies I learned is that if
you just constantly do things for other people, then they'll
like you more. If you are constantly like the yes
person and the pushover, you get invited.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
You get to.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
See behind the scenes, people include you, and they include you,
maybe not because they consciously know this, but unconsciously because
they know that you will help them, and you will
bend over backwards for them, and you will sacrifice for them,
and you won't stand up for yourself. This obviously was
(07:13):
like very helpful to me, and I have to acknowledge
it was helpful for me when I was younger and
when I just really wanted to be liked and I
really just needed a friend. Nowadays, like I have friends,
and I have a really great life, and I feel
a lot more confident. I have a much greatest sense
of self esteem. This is no longer helpful for me,
(07:34):
and it's no longer useful, and in fact, it's like
really starting to cost me. And I'm trying not to
go into specifics because like I'm sure there are people
who I've said yes to when I really didn't want
to do things in the past who I'm listening to
this podcast, And the thing is is that it's not
their fault, right, It's this is another lesson, like it's
(07:54):
not someone's fault if I continue to say yes when
I want to say no. Yeah, yes, There is certainly
like perhaps layers of recognition that this is a weakness
of mine and maybe a desire to manipulate that without
them knowing it. But at the end of the day,
these things that I'm saying yes to are relatively like
(08:15):
low stakes. They're just irritating to continually do. I kind
of have to I don't know, I need to like
woman up and say no to these things. That's a
summary of my biggest regret, and obviously you can tell
that it's something that I'm still trying to undo and
hopefully in five years time when I'm making like the
(08:35):
final complete list of my regrets of my twenties all up,
this does not make the list, and it is something
that I've recovered from. But yeah, I'm sure a lot
of people can can relate to it. My second biggest regret,
I feel like the first one is very existential and
very much about like self concept and self respect and
childhood wounds. This next one is not so much it
(08:58):
is impulse buying cloth that weren't comfortable or didn't fit
or I knew I would never wear big tone shift
there a big one eighty. But I'm obviously like preparing
to move countries at the end of the year, like
visas are approved, flights are booked, plans and preparations are
(09:19):
in process, and I am like looking through my wardrobe
and realizing that I may have like an impulse spending
problem and that I buy a lot of stuff that
I never wear, and it is a huge money pit
for me. I genuinely think I wear the same six outfits,
(09:43):
like I yeah, I really like I've been doing the
math and I've been asking myself the question and getting
rid of things like have I worn this in the
last six months? And there are probably like twelve items
of clothing that I genuinely wear, and the rest is
just stuff that like sits there and is filled with
the potential of like maybe one day I'll wear this.
(10:04):
Maybe one day I'll be confident enough to wear that.
Maybe one day I'll suddenly be this different person who
wears these things. And I just kind of know that
I'm not, Like, I know that these things don't make
me comfortable, and I just really regret how much money
I have put into clothes or items that I thought
were gonna be the final thing that made me feel good,
(10:26):
or like the final thing that was going to fill
the void, or like the final item that I needed
to have the most perfect wardrobe and feel confident every
single time I put something on it is honestly just
a waste of space. And I am seriously considering doing
a little bit of a capsule wardrobe, just selling everything
except for like the clothes I know I wear on
(10:47):
a daily and starting from scratchl just like not buying
anything else and seeing how long I can last. I
feel like my move to London is going to be
a great opportunity for me to try out the minimal lifestyle.
I don't know how successful I will be, but yeah,
the second biggest regret is the money that I have
put into clothes and items that were really just like
(11:12):
representing my desire to be someone that I was not,
and I haven't like really recognized that until now. My
third biggest regret now it kind of turns more towards relationships,
and I honestly think it's one that I wasn't like.
I know this was when I wasn't going to include
because of how it may make me look like a
(11:32):
bad person or made me look inconsiderate, But it is
ghosting friends, even people who were not good friends to me.
There is like one person in particular that I think
about who our friendship was deeply problematic for many reasons,
(11:54):
emotional but also financial reasons, Like at the end of
the day, the reason it didn't last was because of
how this person treated money and how they kind of
took advantage of me for money in a way that
felt like really awful. And I know that we were
(12:17):
like we weren't meant to be friends and that there
were things that couldn't be repaired, but I really regret
not having that final conversation with this person and not
just clearing the air. I don't think it would have
done anything. I don't think that they would have changed,
but sometimes I yeah, I just maybe they wouldn't have
(12:40):
seen that it was an issue. But I really regret
not giving them that and not giving myself that as well.
And my frickin' phone has been doing this thing where
they have where it's been like showing me photos of
this person. Like every single day I get a photo
of this previous friend and I can't stop thinking about them,
and yeah, like wanting to reach out, but also knowing
(13:02):
it's not for the best. And I just think that
that is a lesson. The only thing left in that
is the lesson to not do that in the future
and to have hard conversations. I've definitely done it in
the past as well, but I do think that my
default is to just like not hurt people's feelings and
to not want to let people down, not realizing that
(13:25):
sometimes that's kind of selfish, Like it's kind of selfish
to not want to experience the discomfort of upsetting people,
but therefore maybe actually making it a more upsetting experience
for them. Bigger lessons in that, but it has been
a regret of mine, and I wish that I could
(13:45):
go back and finish certain friendships and finish certain relationships better.
Maybe not relationships. I will say I feel like I'm
pretty I'm someone who's pretty good break up with and
I'm good at doing the breaking up, but definitely friendships,
Like I just feel like the way that you really
(14:08):
love someone is reflected in how the relationship ends, and
I definitely could have honored other friendships and friendships of
mine better in the goodbye. That's regret number three. Let's
talk about regret number four before we take a short break.
And this is one that I think I wish. I
(14:28):
wish someone had told me at nineteen and I had
listened to them. Although I don't think I would have,
I regret focusing too much on dating in my early twenties.
If you are nineteen or younger, or if you are
twenty or twenty one, listen to me closely right now.
(14:49):
If you do not have a boyfriend or a girlfriend
or a partner right now, and you are thinking that
you need one to kind of fulfill other people's expectations
or to make you happier, you do not. Please please
be single right now. Have a lot of fun, make
a lot of amazing friendships. Make the first five years
(15:12):
of your twenties be about building stable community and support network.
You do not need to start focusing on dating until
you are at least twenty five. And I know that
that brings up complicated feelings. I know that a lot
of people may have met the love of their life
in their early twenties, and it's worked out incidentally, like
(15:34):
really amazing. And I know a lot of people have
a lot of fears around being a late bloomer or
never finding anybody, or not having experience, But I am
telling you from my perspective and looking back at my life,
I regret so deeply how much time and energy I
put into trying to make men like me, trying to
(15:55):
fall in love, trying to force relationships that did not work,
when I could have spent all of that energy on
so much else. Like there was a particular relationship I
had in my early twenties, like when I was twenty one,
I went through two breakups in one year, and in
that same period of time, like being in those relationships
(16:15):
like decimated half of my friendships, And oh my god,
for what, like genuinely for what, I take like full
accountability for the fact that you know, being in that
relationship was a terrible decision and made me act terribly
as as a person. And I just wish I could
(16:36):
like I didn't really learn anything from it. I can
like fully say that now, like I don't think I
learned much from it other than that I shouldn't do
that again. And you know, I can never get back
like that time, and it can never get back the
friendships that it that like my selfishness and that relationship ruined,
and I just wish, Like I have younger sisters and
(16:59):
I was talking to them because they were staying with
me this weekend, and I was like, probably like scaring
them a little bit, but I was like, are you
guys dating anyone? And they were like, none of your business,
and I was like, well, you shouldn't be tell me,
but also like break up with them, like you need
to be single, like move to London with me, Like
move to Sydney, Like just do something wild and adventurous
and crazy whilst you can, because you will meet someone eventually,
(17:23):
and if you don't, you will still benefit more from
spending that time building self confidence and self love and
a really rich ecosystem of friendships and relationships rather than
just like kind of martyring yourself for people who don't
respect you. This kind of brings me. Sorry, I know
(17:44):
I said I take a break, but this fifth regret
is actually really relevant to this, and that is tolerating
bad behavior from people I was dating because I wanted validation,
and that really kind of comes back to that relationship
I was talking about. Like the respect that I let happen,
(18:05):
and I'm not like blaming myself, but like the disrespect
that I overlooked because I wanted this mediocre person to
like me is wild in hindsight. Like the way this
person would make me feel, the way he would like
talk down to me in front of others, the way
(18:27):
he would discredit my passions, the way he would never
like meet my emotional needs, and yet I continue to
like come back to him and like worship him is
a huge regret for me. It's a massive one. The
question that I wish i'd ask myself and which I
now tell people to ask themselves in these similar situations,
(18:49):
is if this was your soulmate, would your soulmate treat
you this way? Is this how you want to be
loved for the rest of your life? Because I think
in our twenties sometimes the stakes don't feel that high, right,
It doesn't really feel like this person is going to
be forever, But like it doesn't matter every moment that
(19:11):
you stay in those situations where your confidence and your
sense of self and your sense of self esteem is
like degraded is a moment you don't get back and
is important. So I wish I hadn't. I wish i'd
put my foot down. I wish that I'd just cut
my losses a bit sooner. And you know what, I wish,
(19:33):
in like kind of a cruel way, that I'd had
like that final moment to like look this person in
the eye and be like you really have lost out,
Like there's a self like this, like little like cheeky,
kind of mean part of me. That's like God, I
wish I could have just like given them a piece
of my mind. Maybe not immediately when we broke up,
(19:56):
because like the way I broke up with this person
was like a whisper rather than a shout, But I
wish that, like six months later I'd run into him
and I could have just been like yeah, like I
don't know. Maybe it's like a reclaiming of the confidence
I wish I had during that period. But Okay, I
promised us a break. I promised some time for you
(20:16):
guys to go get some tea to enjoy my ads.
So stay with us. We will be right back. Welcome back.
As a reminder, we are talking about the ten biggest
regrets that I have about my twenties. So far, we
have talked about relationships. We've talked about shopping randomly, We've
(20:39):
talked about ghosting friends. I want to talk now more
about how I chose to use my time and my
energy and this what are we up to? Sixth regret
has to do with journaling actually, and how I processed
emotions or took notes of pivotal points in my life.
(21:02):
I wish that I had journaled more, especially in my
early twenties, rather than relying on my memory to accurately
describe things when I was a teenager. I have these
incredibly intricate journals and reflections on my life, and there
(21:23):
are all these characters, and they are all these like
plot twists that actually happened to me, and it's honestly,
really delightful like reading them back. I feel as if
people journal for two reasons. They journal for emotional processing
and as a form of coping, and they also journal
as a form of memory keeping and as a way
(21:46):
to see it coherent, to kind of be able to
see the story of their life right. And there is
this big chunk of my story that is missing. If
you were only to read my journals because I just
I was so distracted that I didn't do it and
I didn't think it was important. And I just really
(22:06):
regret that because I wish I had a more like
I was gonna say, objective, but like objective is in
of the time recount of what I was going through
and what I was learning at that time. I guess
this episode is like a way to do that for
me right now. And I guess maybe it really like
aligned with when I started doing the podcast and I
(22:27):
kind of felt like I didn't have to do it
as much, but I did and I still do and
now I'm kind of getting back into it. But I
really wish that i'd done that more. It's such an
important practice for me, and I don't know necessarily why
I neglected it, but I know I regret it. My
seventh regret is overthinking things rather than just doing them.
(22:49):
And yet again, this is another kind of routine way
that I operate that I am trying to not necessarily
unlearn but just acknowledge and be friends with. You know,
I might and probably will never change my brain's tendency
to overthink, but I think I can overcome the instinct
(23:11):
to just ruminate forever and ever and ever. My tendency
to overthink rather than just do is both like innocuous
and deeply like influential. It happens every single day. It's
like from small things like not being able to choose
an ice cream flavor and then like getting to the
(23:33):
counter and having something in mind that I want and
then choosing something completely different and being disappointed, to overthinking
my future to the point where I don't ever act
on certain things, or don't ever act on opportunities because
I've just been so obsessed over whether they're going to
be right and whether they're going to set me on
(23:55):
a path that I can't come back from. That's just
like so ridiculous, right, Like we have no idea how
a decision is going to work out. I always give
people advice to just do, to just make the decision,
to just go with one choice rather than going with
no choice, And yet it's something that I still struggle with.
(24:16):
I definitely do act, and I definitely do make the
decision eventually, but I just wonder how much time and
opportunity I've wasted thinking about it, especially like to break
the fourth wall yet again, when I think like in
like year two of the podcast, when like people were
listening right, really listening, and it felt like I was
(24:36):
doing something important rather than just a hobby. I would
obsessively think about which episodes to release next, and it
meant that I had all these really good ideas, and
I had all these stories that I think would have
been really important to share, and I didn't because I
kept questioning and overthinking whether people would find them valuable,
whether than you know, whether I would find them. And
(25:01):
I feel like that was a big mistake and it's
something that I again I regret. I've also done it
with job opportunities in the past, where I've overthought something
to the point where they've basically been like, well, we're
gonna give it to someone else, and I totally respect
that decision, but I wish that I wasn't in that situation.
So something that I want to do in the next
(25:23):
three years of my twenties is to just listen to
my gut a little bit more and to just trust
the first thought that comes into my brain, even if
it's wrong. And this is what I think about this.
I think that there is so much to be said
about trial and error in further honing and fine tuning
(25:49):
your gut instinct and your intuition. The only way you
can know what is intuition and what is anxiety is
to just act on whatever comes up first and figure
it out and then kind of reverse engineer or kind
of understand in hindsight or distinguish in hindsight which was
which right and what they why they might subtly feel differently.
(26:11):
So this is something that I want to be better at.
Not trusting my gut instinct has also gotten me in
a lot of trouble in the past. That kind of
brings me to my eighth regret, which is the times
that I didn't trust my gut instinct when it came
to large financial decisions and letting people pressure me into
(26:31):
things that I knew were not right and that I
had a bad gut feeling about. I don't really talk
about money on the show very much just because I
to be real, I'm not particularly very good with money.
Like I've definitely been more dedicated to learning about it
and to investing in things and to using my money wisely.
(26:53):
But like you know, I have an economics degree doesn't
mean I really understand everyday financial decisions very well. But
last year I didn't necessarily lose, but I invested like
what was a very significant sum of money for me
because of advice from someone else who I didn't want
(27:18):
to disagree with. It's not that I wanted to impress them,
but I felt like I couldn't say no, and I
felt like pressured into making this decision. And every part
of me was like, don't do that, Like, don't spend
this money. You don't want to do this. This actually
isn't going This isn't the right decision for you, This
isn't going to lead to a better outcome for you.
(27:41):
And yet I did it, and I really deeply regret it.
I really deeply regret that I didn't listen to my intuition.
And you know what, it wasn't a total loss, and
in the grand scheme of things, like, yeah, it was
a lot of money at the time, I'm sure future
me is not going it is not like it wasn't
(28:04):
like the amount that you would need to buy a
house or even a car or anything like that big.
But I just I just wish that I had listened
to myself a little bit better and that I had
been more more trusting in my own research and the
information I had to make a better decision and again
(28:24):
less peer pressure. I will also say this is a
bonus regret that I talked about that in the main
episode that I did on this the twenty Biggest Regrets episode,
not investing sooner. It was a big one for a
lot of people in that episode, and it's a big
one for me once you realize how many people are
just like making money from their money, like it's shocking
(28:49):
and you never look back. And we're kind of at
a point now where you don't necessarily need to be
like a unicorn investor a multimillionaire to have access to
these opportunities. I think, like even twenty to fifty dollars,
like you can put into shares or bonds or stocks
and you can get returns, and I wish, like, it's
(29:11):
not free money. I will say, it's not free money.
I need to stop saying this. I said this to
my friend the other day who was an accountant, and
she was like, you can't say that it's free money,
but it is like your money working for you. And so,
as a bonus regrets, such thing I wish i'd done
sooner that is definitely one of them. I've kind of
lost track of where I'm up to now. I think
(29:31):
we are at number nine, our second last one, and
that is not making the most of my time off.
When I was at university, let me explain, I should
have taken advantage of how little I had on. When
(29:51):
I was a university student, I felt so much pressure
to like have the internships, to be applying for like
as many jobs as possible, and like boosting my resume
and like making it look more important. Obviously, I also
had to work because I needed to like pay my bills,
but I also spent a great deal of time just
(30:13):
like messing about and just like kind of hanging around
my college and like not really doing anything. And I
wish I hadn't done that. Like you get to the
stage and like adulthood and all the responsibilities just like
kind of take over, and you realize how rare that
time in your life was where you could just like
(30:34):
have a little bit of freedom. Often like every seven
weeks you would have like a break. Every twelve weeks
or so, you would have a break. And I wish
I'd just done a few more day trips. I wish
i'd done a bit more exploring. I wish I'd done
a bit more of the stuff that excited me rather
than what I thought I should have done. I remember
one winter, especially where I did this internship that everyone
(30:59):
told me was important. I have never been asked about
that internship. I even think that I got a job
without that internship on my resume, because it was an
old resume that I handed in, like and it was
so many hours of unpaid work that I thought was
expected of me to get ahead in like the previous
(31:19):
career that I was in, and I just won't get
that time back. And I really think that my character
and my sense of self and my like life enjoyment
would have been improved so much better by just having
some fun. I took my I took everything so seriously
when I was finishing up union, when I was in
(31:40):
my final few years and months of university, and I
didn't appreciate how much freedom and how much fun like
that time is and how you should really take advantage
of it. Nowadays, it's like so much harder. I don't
think I've had like a full week off without working
in like two years. I wish that I realized what
(32:03):
a gift that was back then, and that there is
so much time to get ahead and to do the
shoulds and to do the things that you feel like
obligated to do to get ahead later on, and yeah,
someone else might be doing those things now, and you
might feel like you're in this secret competition with all
of these people.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
You're not.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
People also want well rounded individuals, and you can't be
well rounded if you just continuously do things that are
expected of you or that you don't even care about
just because of how they look. That's my ninth regret,
and this is my final one. Delaying medical appointments sounds
(32:45):
like a weird one to make number ten on this list.
It is not. You guys know I had that really
well maybe you don't know if you didn't listen to
that episode, but at the start of the year I
had this really intense health scare where I went to
the optometrist and literally within days I was getting MRIs
(33:07):
to see if I had a brain tumor and they
were testing to see if I had MS or I
had all of like all of these different diseases. Essentially,
my optic nerve in my eye was like really really swollen,
and yeah, I, Oh, my god, I should know what
it's called. Optic neurosis, I think is what the symptom is.
(33:31):
And I just I'd missed that I'd been having all
of these like weird things and I hadn't obviously paid
attention to them. And then suddenly it was like, oh
my god, my life is flipped upside down in like
a matter of seconds. Literally just last week, I went
and I did all of my appointments for the next year.
I went and got my blood's done. I went and
(33:51):
got like all of my like screenings done. I went
and got a bunch of like ultrasounds and a bunch
of other stuff, just to like look at things that
I have been annoying me and that are obviously causing
pain or discomfort in my body that I would ordinarily
just like ignore, but I know I need to pay
attention to now before they get worse. I always have
(34:14):
to give this caveat. I live in Australia, right, God
bless universal health care, because all of those appointments cost
me fifty dollars and I really did take advantage of
those perks, like I really did get the whole. I
got the whole, like bodily review the whole like I
did everything, and so I know every time I give
(34:36):
this piece of advice or I talk about this regret,
I always get people who are not in countries that
are as blessed as Australia being like, that's not that's
not like obtainable for everybody. That's okay. You should still
do it if you have the means, If you have
any form of means or any way of doing this,
even if it's through like free programs through your university,
(34:59):
especially when you're young and it may be discounted, or
you may still be underneath your parents' health insurance, go
and do it. I also just got my skin checked
for skin cancer. I spend a lot of time like
baking my body in the sun when I was in
my late teens and early twenties, and I was like,
(35:20):
I have to do this. I kept getting it put off.
The peace of mind that I felt afterwards was so relieving.
Please do it for me, do it, do it for us,
Go and do your medical appointments. It's worth it, and
that also counts for your mental health as well. I
haven't always been the best at that. I feel like
I let things get to a crisis point sometimes before
(35:41):
I take action. And after everything I went through last
year with my mental health, I'm definitely trying to be
aware that that is a pattern for me, and I'm
trying to unload it. I think that's all of them.
I think we have done my ten regrets. I do
have one more on this list that I must have added,
number eleven. Letting people who I don't respect make me
(36:02):
feel bad about myself. That's kind of a big one
to end on. But this is especially like to do
with people online. I talk so much about like how
I'm so easy to rage bait. I know this about myself.
I get so frustrated at people who like criticize other
people online behind behind like a troll account or like
a faceless profile, or people who are like you did
(36:25):
that wrong, and like they've never actually attempted to make
anything in their life or like put themselves out there.
And so this is one that I'm just like, I
regret all the emotional time and energy I invested into
people that I would never meet, who had opinions about
me that were completely unfounded. That's like a little bonus
one if you are someone and to be honest I
(36:46):
still don't know how to not do it, so it's
an ongoing regret. Maybe that's why I didn't make the
full list. But if you're someone who feels the same
and who has easily been rage baited recently or is
easily getting frustrated by people's opinions, you are not alone.
But that's everything. That's everything on my list, and I
feel like that list is going to change in the
(37:07):
next couple several years, as like I get older and
I feel like I'm going to learn more. So I
think I might come back in the last season of
The Psychology of Your Twenties, the last season before I
turn thirty, and redo this list and see, like where
I've kind of what ones I've overcome, which things I've
learned from, which things I regret a little bit less.
(37:27):
But for now, that's really what I'm taking away from
my early and mid twenties, And I hope that if
you know you're at a similar point in your life,
if you're in your early twenties, you can learn something
from those regrets and maybe not make the same mistakes.
Or maybe it's just the case that everyone has to
go through some of this stuff and figure it out
on their own. So whatever it is, I don't know,
(37:51):
hopefully it was helpful, and feel free to share your
regrets below. I know we have that full episode, but
I genuinely think that the easiest way to learn is
obviously to make the mistake yourself. The second easiest way
is to hear from others and reflect on their takeaways
and their learnings from those moments. So if you feel
(38:12):
the need to share, please do leave a comment below
what is your biggest regret in your twenties so far.
Also make sure that you are following us on Instagram
or you are following us wherever you are listening right
now on Spotify, on Apple Podcasts. We also have a
YouTube and we have a substack, so if you want transcripts,
(38:33):
I know a lot of people want that. If you
want some of the studies, references to the studies that
we cite in some of our episodes that is now available,
there will be links in the description. You can always
there's links everywhere. Everyone's got a link to something, but
it will be clear where it is. Follow that to
find what you're looking for. But until next time, stay safe,
be kind, be gentle to yourself, learn from your regrets
(38:55):
and we will talk very very soon.
Host
Jemma Sbeghen
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