Balancing your twenties

The biggest challenge for motivated professionals in their mid-twenties has to do with balance. Balancing ambition (professional fulfillment) with taking full advantage of an exciting time in your life (personal fulfillment). Free from serious family and financial responsibilities, the few first years after college are a time for having fun, traveling, meeting new people, and experiencing new things. Unfortunately, it’s tough to find time for all of these things if you have made career ambitions a priority.

For many of us, our jobs are the means to an end of being able to take advantage of these years. We work 10 hours a day in order to live in a city we like, go out with friends a few times a week, and save up cash to take a trip once or twice a year. For a while, this seems great. We’re making more money than we’re used to. Maybe we’re getting ahead at our day jobs, presumably setting up a nice career path at that company.

In my experience, and speaking with others, this lifestyle goes stale after a few years. Now we’re ready to really hit the ground running in our careers; finally become the person we aspire to be. This takes a toll on our non-work lives. For example, to truly get ahead in the tech world, one has to hustle 12 hours a day, not just at your day job, and maybe work on a side project on the weekend. In other sectors, young professionals on lucrative career paths are working 70-80 hour weeks they hope will pay off years down the road. But in living these workaholic lifestyles, how are we supposed to take that trip, meet new friends, or get to know a new love interest? And what about everything else going on outside our own bubble? How can we be well rounded enough to hold engaging conversations with these new people, that new love interest, or even our oldest friends?

All of this can be very daunting, and has proven to be an ongoing challenge. Unless of course you have decided on one or the other.