Making the Most of Your 20s: Expectations vs. Reality
The Traditional Expectations For Your 20s
The plan for a successful life seemed simple: get an undergrad degree, land a good job, get married, buy a house, and off you go into a thriving adulthood.
That’s the picture of “success” that gets painted for many teenagers and young adults, both directly and indirectly.
While it can be good to have a general road map for your future, this particular plan does not guarantee success for everyone, whether that means financial security, personal fulfillment, or even basic stability.
In addition to that, the reality is that in most cases, this roadmap doesn’t fit into the world we live in, and it hasn’t for a while. It is outdated, and since is hasn’t been updated, many people end up feeling behind or lost in their 20s.
Reality Check: The Pressures We Feel In Our 20s
This outdated plan fails to acknowledge the current economical, mental, emotional, and developmental pressures that can be present in your 20s.
Economic and Global Pressures
Firstly, this plan may have been more attainable during our parents’ or grandparents’ early adulthood, when the economy, job market, and social norms were vastly different. Today, buying a house on a single income can feel nearly impossible. Securing a job that leads to a lifelong career is increasingly rare. Securing a job at all can be a challenge, given the common requirements of 3-5 years of relevant experience, leaving so many people asking “How can I gain experience if I can’t get hired in the first place?!”
Now add another layer: COVID-19. Lockdowns and global uncertainty interrupted what many people in their teens or 20s (at the time) felt were formative years. For some, it meant missing out on in-person education, early career opportunities, social milestones, dating, and friendship-building experiences that once felt like rites of passage. Despite how drastically the world changed in those years, many people who are now in their late 20s and early 30s are measuring themselves against the outdated timelines that were never adjusted for a global shutdown. This deeply impacts self-esteem, self-worth, and hopefulness.
Mental and Emotional Pressures
We’ve heard it so many times before: Your 20s are supposed to be the “best years of your life.” In movies, books, tv shows, and across social media, you’re encouraged to do things “for the plot”: to travel endlessly, date freely, self-discover relentlessly, and find a cafe where your 5 best friends will always show up at any time of day.
This implies you should be constantly evolving, healing, succeeding, and enjoying yourself, all at once - and it leaves very little room for nuance. It rarely shows the uncertainty, loneliness, financial stress, social media comparisons, or emotional growing pains that are actually common during this decade.
This sentiment alone reinforces a belief system in many people: if I’m not doing those things, then I’m doing it wrong, I’m behind, or I’m failing.
When expectations are that high, and social media provides many opportunities to compare yourself to others, it becomes difficult to trust your pace or honour your needs. As a result, you may find yourself pushing through burnout, staying in situations that don’t feel aligned, or questioning your worth simply because your life doesn’t look the way you thought it should by now. That pressure can be emotionally exhausting and deeply disorienting, especially for those who are already navigating anxiety, grief, or uncertainty behind the scenes.
I certainly felt this way when I was in my 20s. I forced myself to stick with jobs, relationships, and friendships that were clearly not sustainable for me. It took many years of struggling before I finally sought therapeutic support and learned that I can make my own customized road map.
What I Wish I Knew About Reality In My 20s
1. You Can Create Your Reality
If this is resonating with you, it may be time to reassess these expectations and update your internal roadmap.
This starts by recognizing that we all have different needs, values, and dreams. Finding fulfillment means taking the time to discover what those are for you, at this point in time. Once you have clarity on your values, you can start making small choices that bring you closer to them. Some people might find the linear pathway fulfilling, and they are entitled to follow it. Others may not, and they are entitled to create a fulfilling reality for themselves.
In your 20s, your values may not yet be fully formed or might change over time, and that’s okay. This is a time of discovery. Your priorities will change. Relationships will come and go. You might let go of a friendship, change your specialty in school, switch up your career path, move to a new city, or move back home with your family. None of these are signs that you’re lost or doing something wrong. In fact, these are very normal part of your developmental process - and if I’m being honest, every single one of those things were a part of my own process as I moved through my 20s. It was messy, it was confusing, and it was absolutely necessary!
In addition to messy and confusing, it can be very empowering to make decisions from a place of intention. This is when it starts to become clear that there isn’t one “correct” roadmap to follow. Instead, you realize that your authentic path unfolds as a result of your aligned decisions, and you have the power to choose differently for yourself at any point along the way.
2. There’s No Rush To Figure It All Out In Your 20s
As you move through this path of change and take more leaps of faith, it might feel like you have a limited amount of time to get it “right”. However, there isn’t a finite number of opportunities available to you. Fulfillment is not something you either “figure out” by a certain age or miss entirely. These opportunities don’t disappear when the clock strikes midnight on your 30th birthday…or your 40th, or any birthday for that matter.
You are allowed to live your life at the pace that feels right for you.
You are allowed to change your mind, try something new, go back to school, start a new hobby, or make new friends at any point in your life.
Recognizing this as true can release the pressure to do it all, figure it all out, or get it “right” within the decade of your 20s, and create more trust in yourself to navigate your life with ease.
3. Let Go Of Comparison
In this digital age, it can be a challenge to let go of comparisons since we’re constantly exposed to people’s milestones on social media. We often compare our behind-the-scenes to other people’s carefully curated moments, without access to their full context, struggles, or timing. It doesn’t make sense to measure yourself against someone else’s circumstances, yet it is so easy to fall into that trap. More often than not, it only leads to feeling lower self-worth, more regret, and can even lead to depression. So this will be an ongoing practice: letting go again and again.
In addition to letting go, relating to social media spaces with mindfulness and self-compassion can be helpful. Curating your feed to be filled with good news and empowering messaging can soften the urge to measure your life against someone else’s.
Remember: Comparison is a thief of joy.
4. It’s Okay To Get Help
I struggled for far too long in my 20s. Even though I studied psychology and took all of the “abnormal psych” classes, where I learned about different ailments and challenges one can experience, it still felt very stigmatized and inaccessible to me. Despite happily providing others with support, I thought I needed to tough things out on my own, and I waited until I hit my version of rock bottom to seek professional help. I wish I learned earlier that it is okay to let people in and to seek guidance. This is what makes me so passionate about offering that guidance now.
A Takeaway: Reflective Questions
As you consider redesigning your internal roadmap, you might reflect on the following:
Exploring Identity and Values
If no one else’s timeline mattered, what would I want my life to look like right now?
Which expectations do I have that feel inherited rather than chosen?
Reducing Comparisons
Who do I compare myself to most often, and what do I assume their life means about mine?
Going At Your Own Pace
Where in my life am I forcing clarity or progress, when curiosity might be more appropriate?
Taking Aligned Action
What is one small way I could live more authentically this month, even if it doesn’t fit the traditional roadmap?
Considering Therapy in Your 20s
Navigating your 20s can feel confusing and nonlinear. If you find yourself feeling stuck, behind, or unsure how to separate expectations from your own values, therapy can be a supportive space to explore that. Working with a therapist can help you process comparison, build self-trust, and create a version of adulthood that feels authentic rather than performative.
You don’t need to be in crisis to seek support. You just need a desire to understand yourself more deeply and live in a way that feels aligned. If this resonates, I invite you to explore therapy through a free 15 minute consultation with me as one possible next step on your roadmap.
Wishing you well,
Alessia Manzoli
Registered Psychotherapist