13 Things We Wish We Knew in Our 20s

Your 20s are full of lessons. They’re simultaneously the most overrated and underrated years of your life, depending on who’s doing the romanticizing. House Guest host Kenzie Elizabeth met up with What We Said hosts Chelsey Jade and Jaci Marie to discuss what they wish they had known before they wasted time stressing about their Saturn return. Do you agree or disagree with their insights?

1. You’re actually still SUPER young.

Kenzie actually hadn’t even turned 30 yet at the time of this podcast, but even she can see, life is long. You’re younger than you think you are. “You think you’re so old,” she says, “But you might as well be prepubescent, truly.”

2. Lean into uncertainty.

“I wish that I would’ve leaned into uncertainty earlier,” Kenzie continues, “because your 20s are a decade full of uncertainty.” She spent years trying to force clarity on a fundamentally chaotic period, but says, “once I just leaned in, then I just started having fun and relaxing. You’re not supposed to have everything figured out.”

3. You don’t have to be perfect.

For Chelsey, that uncertainty was not easy to embrace. “I’ve had to overcome this need for everything to be perfect. Squeaky clean, no matter what it is,” she says. Whether it was healthy eating, working out, or relationships, she was obsessed with perfection. But over the last few years, she realized, “Perfect doesn’t exist. And you don’t even want [perfection.] Because even when things are good, they are always changing.”

Think about it. Even if you achieved your “perfect” life, a completely static life would inevitably get boring. So embrace the mess!

4. Invest in yourself.

Jaci credits her early success to one principle: she was willing to bet on herself when nobody else would. “I was thinking back to my early 20s when I was a photographer, and I was trying to start my brand. I invested in myself,” she says. While her photographer friends balked at spending money on studios or travel, she saw these expenses differently. 

“I would drive my crappy car to California and like pay for the gas and a crappy hotel. I would go alone just to shoot a model that I was looking up to, and I would invest my time and my money and my energy into that. I was just willing to put money back into myself. Any sort of success I got was from repeatedly doing that,” she says. Disclaimer: Jaci was living at home at the time, so had a little extra money to spend. But she used it all wisely, and it’s the mindset that matters. Your early 20s might be the only time when being slightly delulu about your potential is actually productive.

5. Figure out what you DON’T want.

All those false starts and abandoned projects? If you spend your time or energy on something and realize it isn’t a good fit for you, consider it a lesson learned.“Figuring out what you don’t wanna be is actually like 10 times more powerful than figuring out who you do wanna be,” Kenzie says.

Chelsey agrees: “Sometimes you have to try things to figure out, ‘That is not what I want.’ And you could be wanting it for so long and then you finally try and think, ‘Okay, that’s actually not what I am good at. That’s not who I wanna be. That’s not what I thought it was. So I gotta pivot.’”

6. Do it scared!

If you’re trying to start something new, don’t obsess too much before diving in. “Do it bad,” says Kenzie. “Just start whatever it is that you want to do. It’s probably not going to be your multimillion dollar idea. But whatever that experience is, and whatever the context is, the things that you learn are things that you’re gonna carry with you throughout life. And maybe that’ll lead you 15 years down the road to something that you really want to do. But I think in our 20s, so many people are paralyzed with the thought of starting something. And the idea of starting something new is a really scary thing.”

This is definitely true in business, but it applies outside of work as well. “Even in something as simple as a hobby, just start whatever you’re starting. If you want to do it, you start. It’s not gonna be good starting off. Like just do it bad. That’s really what’s going to give you fulfillment.”

Jaci agrees, and adds, “Make it exist first, then you can make it good.”

7. You have more time than you think.

A lot of us could’ve used this advice on our 29th birthdays. “Your life does not end in your 20s,” says Kenzie. “Most people who are very successful look back and they’re like, ‘God, that was a wash.’”

Kenzie theorizes that the pressure on women to get married and have kids by 30 “translated to everything in life. Like your life ended at 30 for whatever reason.” But the truth is, “It doesn’t matter. You could start a new career path in your 50s. You could start so many different things in your 60s. Life is long. You’ll be fine.”

Jaci adds, “I actually genuinely feel like I’m just now finding out who I am, or building who I am. And I know that that’s nowhere near over. I have like 30 or 40 solid more years of doing that.” Marriage + house + kids does not equate to “having your life together.” 

8. The people you admire are no different from you.

It’s great to have role models, says Jaci, but don’t put them on a pedestal. It might seem like those we admire have their life together. They don’t. “The people that you look up to are no more important than you are,” she says. “You are more than capable of living the life that you want to live. You create who you are.” There’s no secret sauce that makes successful people more deserving or talented. “The greatest power that you have in this life is that you are yourself. That is all you have, actually.”

9. It’s okay to be excited.

Chelsey says that she learned a big lesson from Taylor Swift in her 20s: “It’s okay to be excited about things. It’s okay to be cringey. It’s okay to be passionate about something and be excited. Be a fan girl.” The effort to seem unbothered or above-it-all is exhausting and ultimately pointless. “When I went to the Eras tour, watching certain people showed me, ‘Who cares? Why am I trying to be, like, too cool?’ It’s actually way more empowering to other people when you are allowing yourself to be excited about things and allowing yourself to be like, ‘I really care about this. Like I actually have a lot of care in my heart for this thing that I’m doing.’”

As Kenzie says, “Interested people are interesting people.” Care about what you’re doing! Be in the moment!

10. It’s also okay to fail.

“I’m an Enneagram three,” says Kenzie, “so my biggest fear in life is failure.” But she’s working to rewire her brain around the concept. “I’ve really reframed it to like, failure is just not trying. I think that everyone needs, like, exposure therapy to failing. The quicker you get comfortable with failing, the faster you’re going to get to, like, where you need.”

11. Know yourself like you know your friends.

“Know yourself like you would a friend,” sounds great in theory, but how? Kenzie suggests investing in hobbies which “build confidence because … you’re consistently showing up for yourself. And you also build self-esteem by showing yourself that you’re able to learn new things.”

If you’ve lost sight of your passions, this is a great way to check in with yourself and your roots: “I would look back at what you were interested in when you were five and just start doing that.” Your kindergarten self wasn’t worried about personal branding or career implications—you just liked what you liked. 

12. The best way to make mentors is by making friends.

Cold emailing someone and asking to “pick their brain is very annoying.” Kenzie notes. Instead, she built relationships with women 20 to 30 years her senior by creating genuine connections. “I’ve been able to build something that also benefits them, and then we’ve been able to build a relationship through that.” 

Kenzie says that part of the reason she even started podcasting was to get into rooms with women she admired. “I’ve been lucky to be in rooms with people who have been crazy successful and had so much wisdom. And those women, the majority of them have come on and are like mentors to me. They are still very invested in my life. I look up to them so much, but then also down the line, that’s helped my career so many times. They’ve connected me with some people that I’ve never asked or even really thought of.”

13. “Put down the tripod and the TikTok songs.”

This one seems a little influencer specific at first glance. Chelsey and Jaci mentioned that they’ve learned they need to “put down the tripod and the TikTok songs” and “act our age” as their podcast has matured.

But we think there’s some wisdom to be mined here, even for the non-podcasters among us. No matter what we do for a living, we could all stand to put down our phones a little more. Like Chelsey, Jaci, and Kenzie have been saying, your 20s are full of lessons and opportunities. Try to stay in the moment and enjoy them.

For more life lessons about career, relationships, and growing up, listen to Kenzie on House Guest, as well as Jaci and Chelsey on What We Said.