Make new acquaintances and friends

It became so popular that I involuntarily had the desire to write exactly the same, but for those who are now 20 years old.

I remember myself at 20 years old. This was the fourth year of the institute. I just went to work at the bank with wages 60 dollars. I wouldn’t even think about looking for a job at the institute, but my girlfriend at the time, now my wife, said that it was time to start looking for a job. And she, of course, turned out to be right.

But just a few months before that, my life looked like this...

I woke up early in the morning in the hostel to the alarm clock with my girlfriend. She was getting ready for classes at the institute, and I was making her morning tea. I needed a second pair, so I took my time. Then my friend Vlad came from home. Since it was early and we didn’t want to have a couple, we turned on the Enigma album and slept safely until the third or even fourth couple. Then we woke up and went to the institute, which was only 200 meters from the hostel.

In our fourth year at university, we were fooling around. Nobody did their homework. In classes we sat on our phones.

My main hobby was watching movies in the evening with friends in the dorm or constantly running Need for speed. We are also into Far Cry, Mafia, GTA and a bunch of other games.

Writing theses, essays and printing cheat sheets provided good pocket money.

Life seemed carefree and fun.

Then it was the fifth year, several more of my classmates went to work, and the rest continued to just have fun.

What happened to me in 10 years?

Starting a career in a bank; moving to another bank where they paid more; an offer of promotion after just a week of work; an offer to move from Kharkov to Kyiv after six months of work, moving to Kyiv; another promotion in a year, then another in six months and another in a year; unexpected reduction.
Position of HR director at 24 years old.
Buying an apartment on credit in dollars, difficult 2008, difficult 2014. Each time the dollar exchange rate grew 1.5 times.
Buying a car on credit, paying off the loan, buying a car for the wife.
Birth of a child.
The first trip to Turkey for the first bonus, then a trip to Egypt for my birthday, then, after a long pause, a trip to Tunisia.
About 100 and daily work on yourself to eliminate all your psychological limitations and self-doubt.
Development of personal qualities - communication, persuasion, public speaking, time management.
Professional growth. Although I was asked to write my first article for the Computer Review magazine in 2006, it took eight years to learn how to write something really interesting so that other publications would want to re-publish the articles, and I began to be invited as a speaker to all key HR conferences.
Entering the TOP-20 best HR directors in Ukraine at the age of 30.

What do I want to advise those who are now 20 years old?

So that their life becomes truly successful, because in 10 years you can achieve truly high results.

1. Choose a career in which you want to be fulfilled

I'm sure that 9 out of 10 of your friends don't know what career they will build. They think they will do it sometime in the future, but they never do. They will end up finding themselves incompetent and earning little.

Why do I insist that you should start building a career now? Yes, because you are laying the foundation. Either your career will develop in the same way as the careers of 94% of all people, and by retirement you will, at best, earn $2,000-$3,000, or you will build a brilliant career with an income level of up to $50,000 per month (average income general director large company).

Here's a graph that shows how many dollars you can earn per month with career controls (top graph) and without career controls (bottom):

This means that over your lifetime you will earn 10 times more, or $12,000,000 more. Even if you spend half of the extra money you earn on a comfortable life, then with $6,000,000 you can buy yourself a cool house, a cool car, provide a decent old age for your parents, educate your children and take care of your health in old age.

That's why I don't talk about saving money. You need to build a career, and the money will come by itself.

How to choose your dream job?

Consider the following four career areas:

What do you love to do most?
What do you do better than others?
What profession is your knowledge in demand?
What professions have good income?

To make a list of what you like to do, fill out the table:

You can fill out a list of your skills and talents in this table:

Question	Answer
Listen to what others say about you and what your talents are. What do they say about you often, but you didn’t even pay attention?
What do you do easily that others work hard on?
What do you love most? What would you spend your free time on?
What do you like to talk about a lot? More than your friends are willing to listen to? Maybe the subject of conversation is your talent, or is it somehow related to talent?
Ask other people who will tell you the truth, what is your talent?
Remember when you lost your sense of time, forgot to eat and sleep, what did you do? What qualities did you use?
What subjects at university did you study more than was enough?

You can create a list of professions that pay well and a list of professions that use your knowledge yourself.

Now fill out the table, to do this, write down all the positions that you have chosen in the “Case” lines, and in subsequent columns write down the numbers from 1 to 10, where 10 means that the selected position best matches the column heading.

Then compare the scores in the “TOTAL” column and select the position that received the maximum number of points. Build a career in it.

2. Don’t chase wages, but constantly strive to increase them

When choosing a job, never be guided by the salary offered. Look further - what are the prospects career growth there is in this company, how much the company pays in comparison with the market.

For you, the company's potential should now be much more important than your immediate salary.

It is much more important for you to gain knowledge, experience and a good manager than a quick income. Give preference to large companies with over 2,000 employees, preferably with foreign capital.

This company must have a very good reputation, and its top manager must be included in the list of TOP 100 most successful managers.

At your age, you can afford to find such company.

But as soon as you find a job, apply all my advice from the article “”.

3. Create a detailed vision of yourself at 30 and follow it

This is the most amazing advice. Once upon a time, when I was 16 years old, I read the book “Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Gil. I lived in Kharkov and studied at the Lyceum. One of the exercises there was to write a vision of yourself in 20 years. Then I wrote that I wanted to live in Kyiv, have my own apartment, car, director position and family. I couldn’t even imagine then that all this would come true just 14 years later.

So let's now write your vision in 10 years.

To do this, in each line, describe how you imagine your life in each area in 10 years. There must be specific measurable things.

Review your vision every year and make changes.

4. Spend a lot of money and time on your training

At the age of 20, it seems that attending trainings and reading professional books is expensive. But if you do not develop yourself, then you will pay a much higher price for your ignorance. So here's your plan for the next 10 years:

1 professional (best) conference per year.
1 training on the development of personal qualities per year (negotiations, public speaking, time management).
2 specialized inexpensive events per year.
1 book per month on a professional or business topic, I highly recommend reading:
♦ Tony Hsieh, Delivering Happiness;
♦ Sam Walton "Made in America";
♦ Lee Iacocca's "Manager's Career";
♦ Walter Isaacson "Steve Jobs";
♦ Howard Schultz "Pour Your Heart Into It";
♦ Richard Branson "Losing My Virginity";
♦ Max Kotin "And nerds do business" « Chichvarkin E...genius. If out of 100 times you are sent 99”;
♦ ;
♦ ;
♦ Jack Canfield "Chicken Soup for the Soul"
1 fiction or motivational book every two months, if you haven’t read it yet, be sure to read:
♦ Jack London "Martin Eden", "Time Doesn't Wait";
♦ Theodore Dreiser "The Financier", "Titan", "Stoic";
♦ Erich Maria Remarque "Three Comrades";
♦ Benvenuto Cellini “Notes of Benvenuto Cellini, Florentine goldsmith and sculptor”;
♦ Philip Stanhope Chesterfield, Letters to a Son.
1 audiobook or audio course per quarter.
1 specialized magazine every six months.
Once every 2 weeks, go to different evening meetings, meetings on professional and business topics. Participation usually costs from 10 to 30 dollars.

5. Play sports, only it will help you overcome the most difficult challenges

I started playing sports in the third grade. I went to track and field athletics, then quit. In eighth grade I went to school for the first time Gym. I walked five days a week for 1.5 hours and even achieved good strength results, although I didn’t gain weight due to the fact that I spent a lot of calories and ate as usual. Then I attended ninth grade for about six months and also quit for the same reason - there was no visible result. There were also attempts to study at home on the horizontal bar and at the institute.

After college I didn't play sports. Over the course of 10 years, I gained 16 kilograms of weight, mostly fat. Then I went to the gym, but this time I read a lot of articles and advice and changed my diet. I finally gained weight and visually became bigger.

But this is nothing compared to my discovery: I have become much more resilient, more self-confident, more persistent, more creative and more productive. I can safely say that it provided me with a serious breakthrough in life. It was thanks to him that I went through the crisis in 2014 quite calmly, while in 2008 it was very difficult for me. And the point is not that this is the second crisis in my life, but the gym really helped me.

6. Find a wife/husband, then your standards will be too high

This needs to be done for a number of reasons. Indeed, the older we get, the more pragmatic we are. We are no longer ready to put up with shortcomings and know our worth. It’s hard for a guy, like a girl, to find a partner and get married after 25.

Meanwhile, family is a very strong incentive for developing and living a more conscious life.

7. Travel while the kids are away

Of course, there are exceptions, but the typical family is not very comfortable. But there are so many interesting countries, where you can go while you are young and have no children, or you will go there when your children become adults - , ...

In addition, traveling is a powerful way to develop your horizons. When you see a fundamentally different life, you begin to think differently. Don't visit the same countries. Change your geography often. Don't think that traveling is expensive. Sometimes it’s even cheaper than a trip to Crimea.

8. Treat yourself with gifts

While you are young, you will be pleased with a brand new iPhone, a fitness bracelet, the next Macbook model, the latest Adidas sneakers and much more. It’s stupid to deny yourself all this, because then you won’t be interested in it anymore. Don't save money - think about how to earn money.

9. Get an apartment on credit

Yes, I am against loans. I think mortgages are evil. But you have no other way to buy your own home by the age of 30 except with a loan. Sometimes a loan is more profitable than renting a home. But keep in mind that you must fulfill the following conditions:

The loan payment should not be higher than 35% of household income (this means that when one of you loses your job, the loan will be 70% of the other's income if you earned the same).
For a whole year, set aside a monthly amount equal to the loan payment - you will test yourself and collect an advance.
Take out a loan only in national currency. Savings on interest from a foreign currency loan will always be eaten up by an increase in the exchange rate. And the national currency is subject to inflation of about 10% annually, and this works for you.
Get your mortgage tax credit back. This is 15% of the interest paid. How? Find out from the lawyers you know, it’s really simple.
If you can, instead of a bank loan, take an installment plan from the developer: he usually does not charge interest for using the loan.
After applying for a loan, collect a deposit in the amount of six monthly loan payments in case of a crisis.
Can't pay? Go to the bank and demand a temporary simplification of the loan payment terms - do not get into debt with relatives or another bank.

10. Buy a car

You will save a lot of time if you have a car. Your car can be the place where you listen. I bought a car at 23 years old. In it I listened to about 50 audiobooks and trainings. Sometimes my audiobooks were the only salvation during difficult career turns.

Nowadays a car is not that expensive. A good, solid Smart can already be found for $4,500. It will last you for five years. It is economical and does not require capital investment. And you can raise money for it with a salary of $1,000 per month.

11. Make new acquaintances and friends

At 30, you realize that your best friends are those you met before you were 25. Then.

But you can make not friends, but interesting acquaintances. Over time, you begin to understand how cool it is when you have unusual and interesting people as friends. With their help, you will be able to solve your problems, develop, and find new ways to solve problems.

How to find such people? Just pay attention to those who have been more successful in their careers than others. I'll give you a small example interesting people people I've met over the past month:

An artist who draws sketches during a speaker's speech at a conference. He also draws animated sales videos.
Chairman of the condominium association (association of apartment building owners).
Energy Efficiency Manager.
Director of a recruiting agency.
Head of a youth organization.
Director of the language school.

Imagine how many different useful tips and recommendations I can get from these people. In turn, I can be very useful to them.

12. Have a baby at 26

Earlier - it’s too early for a career, later - it will be difficult. I think this is the optimal age.

And it's not that difficult:

Government assistance is really quite good.
Maternity and sick leave amounts to approximately five salaries.
Finding an adequate nanny nowadays is already possible.
Paying a nanny is cheaper than wage a person who is building a career.
All other expenses for the child: food, toys, clothing - fit harmoniously into the family budget and find their place there.

13. Keep a list of your achievements

Firstly, the very fact of having achievements in life increases a person’s level of happiness.

Martin Seligman, American psychologist and founder positive psychology, identified five components of happiness:

Positive emotions (more about them below).
Engagement is when you build a career you love and use your talents.
Relationships - there was tip No. 11 about them.
Understanding the meaning of life (next advice).
Achievements - having success in life.

Keep a diary of your achievements and you will be surprised at how positively it affects you.

14. Pay attention to your philosophy

Usually between 20 and 30 years old people begin to think about their purpose and... Everyone goes through their own unique path, and giving universal advice will not work here. But usually it happens like this: you begin to be interested in issues of psychology, philosophy, religion, and some topics, or movements, or teachings attract your attention.

15. Look for positive emotions

I would like to end on a positive note, so this advice is in last place, but it is not the least important.

Positive emotions are generally the meaning of our life. But, oddly enough, they can be controlled.

Fill out the table. Look for more encounters with the first column and avoid the second.

Here you can include people, places you visit, activities you do, and so on.

I can say that I was lucky to find these tips for myself and follow them between my 20s and 30s.

The main thing I remembered: if you really want something very badly and constantly move towards it, despite all the failures, you will achieve it. Now my credo is the phrase:

If you want to succeed at something, devote 10,000 hours to it.

I have new goal: I want to become a CEO by the age of 35, and I am devoting my time to this issue. This article is my 3 hours out of 10,000 hours because I believe that the ability to develop other people is one of the main hallmarks of a CEO.

Good luck in the next 10 years!

Otherwise, this thought will force you to focus solely on your career, and most likely you will not care whether it makes sense or how it affects your state of mind. But if you are truly passionate about what you do, it will eventually bring you money. Your twenties are the time when you are most flexible and energetic, don't waste your energy chasing other dreams. In addition, the first 10 years of work determine the direction of your future professional path. Take your time with your choice.

2. Don't work for a startup unless it's your own.

13. Never say “this is not for me”, “I will never be able to”, etc.

Twenty years is a time of change and experimentation. Don't give up on them.

14. You are not going to become a model.

In fact, you are going to gain weight. Most of the time before I was 30, I was waiting to lose weight and hoping to become another one. “And when I lose weight, I’ll go and buy those jeans.” And guess what? I still haven't bought those jeans. You look great now and you will never look that good.

15. Happiness is a myth invented by marketers

Move from full-time to own business- everything I dreamed of at 26 years old. This happened and brought with it many other problems. A long-term relationship is also a lot of work. All life is both pleasure and pain. So choose problems for which you are willing to suffer and for which you will be happy, because this is the only way to feel alive.

16. Dance

Even if you think you are doing it badly. Dance in the morning, dance at home, on the weekend, on a yacht and at a boring wedding. As Nietzsche wrote, “We must consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once.”

17. When you feel like you're doing wrong, know that you're doing wrong.

I often realized that I was wrong about something, but I was too afraid, too insecure to trust myself. When you have this feeling, know that it is worth listening to yourself.

18. Never swear via SMS or email

Like any 20-year-old who wants to get to the bottom of things quickly, I made a lot of mistakes. But difficult questions It's better to discuss face to face. In correspondence it is much easier to misinterpret words. Pick up the phone and call (and please don't leave voicemails).

19. Visit an unusual festival

You will be able to feel alive, loved and free.

20. Follow your dreams

At least once a week, after work or a few hours a month. I did it again two years ago, when I took on a project about what the war taught me. I haven't written anything since I was 16. The pleasure and relief I got from it was worth all the effort and time. Perhaps you want to sing, play the guitar, run, draw... Whatever it is, find time for it.

Imagine a speck of dust next to a planet that is a billion times larger than Earth. A speck of dust represents the probability that you will be born, a planet - the opposite - that you will not. So stop complaining about nothing. Don't be like the ungrateful person who received a palace as a gift and complains about mold in the bathroom. Stop looking a gift horse in the mouth.
Nassim Taleb, American economist and trader, author of the bestseller “The Black Swan. Under the sign of unpredictability"

You can often hear that opportunities for finding a job directly depend on age - it’s hardest for university graduates and people of pre-retirement age to find a job.

Indeed, conditions differ for different age groups. But what most young people aged 20–25 consider to be challenges are actually benefits.

We don’t hire – no experience

This is the formulation most often heard by yesterday’s graduates of universities and colleges when trying to get a job. However, lack of experience can be both a disadvantage and an advantage of an applicant. A 20-year-old person is like plasticine heated in his hands, from which he can mold any figure. Young people easily master the principles of work, are always on friendly terms with new technologies and, for the most part, are ready for overtime in order to build a successful career.

These qualities should be taken as the main criterion when searching for a job. Fortunately, on Russian market There are many companies that are ready to invest in improving the skills of young specialists. You have every chance of getting a job with such employers. The main thing is to demonstrate during the interview that you are ready to learn and will not run away to another company as soon as you gain some experience.

You'll have to start small

Another obstacle is insatiable ambition. These are proven specialists, for whom all enterprises in the city compete to attract them; they can discuss the size of the salary, demand a separate office and agree on other terms of cooperation. At the age of 20, you still have to become a professional in your field, so you shouldn’t be embarrassed by junior positions and small salaries.

Another thing is a career that should never be forgotten. Towards the end of the interview, be sure to inquire about opportunities for further growth within the company. Firstly, in this way you will demonstrate to the employer your desire to work for results, and secondly, you will be able to determine your prospects for the future.

Don't be afraid of failure

Walt Disney went through more than 300 banks until he found a lender who agreed to issue a loan for the construction of Disneyland. If you are rejected by one, another, or a third company, this is not a reason to despair. Take every refusal as motivation to analyze the employer's requirements, your resume, and your interview responses. And under no circumstances stop searching - sooner or later there will definitely be a company that will appreciate your skills.
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Question for psychologists

Hello! I need your advice because... I was completely confused in myself. I am 20 years old, I work and study, I have many hobbies, they are related to music, handicrafts, foreign languages. I can’t call myself a uptight girl, but I’m not hyper sociable either. First I'll tell you what worries me. I'm afraid that I'll be alone or that I'll always be alone. I don’t have close friends whom I could trust, count on them at any moment of my life, I don’t have a boyfriend, and perhaps I won’t. I can't understand why I'm having such bad luck. I was very disappointed in life when I was little, I imagined myself different at 20 years old. This makes me constantly irritated, angry, and everything is boiling inside me. In general, I am an emotional and vulnerable person. Mom is angry that I grumble because my ideas, the painted world does not coincide with the real one, I always try to do everything conscientiously, if I take on a task, I will see it through to the end so that everything is perfect, although I understand that nothing will ever happen perfect. My parents are wonderful, understanding, I can have a heart-to-heart talk with my mother, she’s probably my only friend, of course, I have good friends, but this is a fickle “phenomenon”, now we’re friends, in six months we forget each other. They raised me well, it seems to me, at school I was mostly a temporary friend, when 2 girlfriends quarreled, they talked to me. I can’t say that I look bad outwardly, but young people always paid attention to their friends, and not to me, of course, I didn’t want to be liked only on the outside, it was important for me to be liked in my soul, but that didn’t happen. Many times young people rejected me and laughed at my feelings, I was offended, cried, but believed that the next one would not be such a person, but, alas. She compensated for the deprivation of her personal life with study, creativity, and now also work. Perhaps the problem is still older sister. I love her very much, she is only 3 years older, we are on good terms, but we don’t talk about any “special” topics. All my life I chased her, repeated a lot of things, tried to catch up, compared myself with her and all the time came to the conclusion that she was better in everything. She is more successful, more beautiful, luckier, more reasonable, smarter, etc. It’s strange, because our parents never compared us; on the contrary, they said that everyone is individual. As a child, everyone said that I would have many suitors, and my sister would be restrained in her choice, as a result, she marries for love, and I am alone, without a single admirer in life, so to speak. In life, at school, when I was a child, I had one good friend, but now we don’t communicate, I lost them all for some reason... In college I was friends with girls, but then we went our separate ways, I lost... To this day I can’t find a good friend for myself young man. The only one who liked me turned out to be the wrong person, yes, I am dating him, but rather for the experience of communication, there is no feeling. I am afraid that I will completely forget how to feel and believe in happiness, that I will never meet the same thing, that my heart will not beat quickly, that there will be no friends, that I will be left alone, that no one will understand me, my hobbies, my soul , there will be no people with whom it would be easy, fun, reliable. Maybe I just invented a fairy-tale world for myself and am trying to create it, but the reality is different, I don’t know. I am at a loss as to what this reason is, how to change my attitude towards life, how to find hope and enjoy life. I'm tired of crying in the evenings with the thought that no one except my parents needs me. I'm only 20, I don't want to miss this wonderful time. Please help me figure it out! I beg you very much!

Your mom is right. Your imaginary world does not correspond to reality. You are an idealist and strive for more. You must learn to be happy with what you have, and not with illusory fantasies. Develop self-love and acceptance. Stop comparing yourself to others. Deal with envy. (It really interferes with your life) Hence the illusion that others are better than you and the desire for more, not accepting the present.

You need to understand, accept and love yourself and what you have. Learn to believe that you will definitely meet a young man and people) not who will appreciate you, but with whom you will be interested.

I will destroy your myth about young people, about young people. The first thing a man likes you for is your appearance and sexual attractiveness. And only then, over time, a “kinship of souls” appears, in the process of communication and development of relationships.

There is no way you can accept the imperfection of the world and people. He will NEVER meet your expectations and exaggerated requirements. You definitely need to accept reality and believe that although it is different from the reality of your dreams, it is not nearly worse. There is a lot of interesting things in it.

And then, through the development of faith and acceptance of oneself, the world and people. You can shape this reality the way you want. But this is a different level and you have to learn it. Start with yourself. Stop looking for imperfections and find something good in everything.

An exercise to develop positive thinking.

Find three positive aspects in all situations. In the morning, in yourself, in your appearance, then in your studies, in any person you meet.

Praise yourself for any action BY YOURSELF. Do not wait for evaluation from the outside, only you yourself have the right to evaluate your actions, and since you evaluate yourself, then why evaluate yourself poorly and look for shortcomings, praise for everything. Stop demanding the maximum from yourself (and from people too). Decide for yourself that if something is 80% good, it means it is 100% good. With your attitude, it is very difficult to achieve the ideal and get satisfaction from business, relationships and life, and from yourself too.

You need to undergo therapy with a psychologist. Otherwise, unless you change your thinking and learn to accept everything as it is. So you will live in an ideal, imaginary world. But the real world and real relationships will not correspond to your fantasies and will only bring disappointment and, over the years, dissatisfaction with life will increase.

Nothing will be good enough for you.

It’s better to start working on yourself now, before these disappointments have accumulated over the years. Then you will have to work through a much larger quantity.

You have good potential for development, many abilities and you can achieve a lot in life if you allow yourself to see the world as it is, allow yourself to let go of your fantasies and do not allow yourself to be disappointed in life

Sincerely, Irina Sergeeva (Polanskaya)

Good answer 2 Bad answer 1

Alena, despite the fact that your parents raised you to understand and respect your personality, it somehow happened (how remains to be seen) that you turned out to be quite unsure of yourself and became a perfectionist. A perfectionist is someone who tries to do everything perfectly. And therefore, he does not accept himself as imperfect (and who among us is perfect? Unless only God...). Another perfectionist is someone who does not know how to forgive himself for mistakes. And he is in constant tension. And it will be difficult for any men to be around such a person, firstly because it is hard to feel this constant tension (even if you hide it on the external level, you still feel it). It’s also difficult to be around a perfectionist because the same exaggerated demands that you place on yourself are the same ones you place on people.

There may still be many reasons why relationships are not working. The general outline of my work on this topic is something like this:

A person has scripts, programs that prevent him from creating normal relationships.

If you are stubbornly ignored or the relationship fades at the very beginning, then you probably carry one, or maybe several programs inside that give the men/women around you information about you that is not at all what you want to communicate consciously. What are these programs?

Inflated/distorted expectations. For example, when you expect from your partner something that he cannot give, something unrealistic, or vice versa, your expectations are low, and this is also perceived inadequately.

Lack of faith in normal relationships, in their possibility (negative parental and other examples, trauma, possibly “secondary” loneliness after a relationship that ended badly - trauma)

Basic attitude “I’m not good enough” (history of negative attitudes from parents or peers, conviction of one’s total “poor quality” and/or “ugliness”, etc.)