15 Things to Start Doing By the Time You’re 30

First off, nothing magical happens when you turn 30.
That sounds dumb, but it's worth mentioning. The word thirties hangs over most of us like a solemn marker of adulthood, as if you'll wake up on your 30th birthday with wizened eyes and a headful of sage wisdom.
The truth is, everything on this list is worth doing in your twenties (or your teens, if you're so inclined) but we talk about it like this because though nothing magical happens on your thirtieth birthday, 30 years is enough time to work out some of life's kinks and pick up on some good habits.
All that's to say, there's no reason you should have all this mastered by the time you're 30. But, then again, there's no reason not to try.

Waking Up Earlier Than You Have To

What do Twitter/Square founder Jack Dorsey, Richard Branson, Apple’s Tim Cook, legendary Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, Condoleezza Rice and dozens of other successful leaders all have in common? They get out of bed before 6 a.m. every morning. Even Aristotle advocated waking up early, famously quipping, "It is well to be up before daybreak, for such habits contribute to health, wealth, and wisdom."
Through college and in our twenties, hitting the snooze button is a staple of Saturday mornings and workweek rushing around, but there’s a reason so many influential people get started early. Waking up before you have to lets you find time to pray, exercise or just spend a few minutes alone before the craziness of the day begins.

Saving Money

Starting to save money not only sets you up for a more secure future, it can also help instill financial discipline as you enter into your prime earning years. And, if you start at a young enough age, it can also add up fast: According to CNN Money, if you put aside $3,000 a year from ages 25-35 in a tax-deferred retirement account, by the time you hit 65, you’ll have $472,000 in the bank.

Actually Caring About What You Eat

Most people in their late twenties have come to the harsh realization that for reasons that are totally unfair, your metabolism has a tendency to slow down with age. Basically, we all will hit a certain age when we can no longer eat an entire pizza and drink four Dr. Peppers without feeling like garbage shortly afterwards. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying life—and some junk food every now and then—but your thirties are a time to create, and sustain, healthy patterns you’ll carry throughout adulthood.

Making Margin in Your Life

By the time you hit 30, there’s a good chance the routine of family, job, bills and adulthood limits the free time that was once a part of twentysomething life. Creating margin—to read, volunteer, pray, travel or just do the things you want to do—is easy to neglect with the stresses that come along with being a thirtysomething. Do yourself a favor: Make margin in your day-to-day life, and don’t try to fill every waking moment with more busyness.

Creating a Pattern of Giving in Your Finances

Life is expensive. Even if you’re settled into a good-paying career by the time you’re 30, paying down student loans, owning a home, buying a car, paying the bills and balancing a checkbook may not leave much left over. But along with your tithes, establishing a pattern of giving (to charities, ministries or even to friends and families in need), can serve as a constant reminder of who your money actually belongs to.

Becoming Friends With People Much Older Than You

For most people, up to your late twenties, most relationships with people much older than yourself are predicated on some sort of authority structure—your parents, your teachers, your bosses, your pastors. But by the time you’re 30, actually becoming friends with people you look up to not only adds new dynamics to mentorship, it also broadens your social circles.

Letting Go of Baggage from Bad Relationships

Don’t let baggage from bad breakups, arguments with old friends or hurtful comments from the past haunt you into your adult life. Even if reconciliation isn’t possible, forgiveness always is.

Being Content With the Life You Have (While Still Trying to Accomplish Your Dreams)

It’s never too late to try to write that novel, start that business, travel the world or launch that social activism campaign you’ve always dreamed about. But even if your life goals haven’t happened by the time you’ve hit 30, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be content with the life you have. Finding the balance between ambition and contentment isn’t easy, but it’s part of living with big dreams.

Reading the News Every Day

Before you can change the world, you have to be informed about the problems facing it. Reading headlines online, listening to NPR or just tuning into the evening news can be a gateway to knowing how to make a difference and instituting real change.

Learning to Unplug

It’s easy to get stuck in a pattern of working long hours, being tied to the phone or just binge watching shows on Netflix during every minute of free time. None of those things are necessarily bad in doses, but if you’re spending your whole life plugged into a device, you may be missing out on some pretty great experiences.

Finding Organizations or Causes to Support Long-Term

Partnering with organizations like WorldReach (who allows you to sponsor children) and Charity: Water (who lets you tell your friends to donate instead of getting you a birthday present every year) or finding a cause like ending human trafficking, supporting education or assisting the homeless can represent more than just one-time gifts or temporary passions. Your 30s are a great time to find causes, organizations and campaigns to be dedicated to throughout your life.

Making Exercise a Lifestyle

You don’t have to join an expensive gym or jump on the next fitness trend bandwagon to make exercise a part of your life. Ride your bike to work. Take the stairs instead of the elevator. Join a community sports league with friends. Making exercise a regular part of your schedule helps it to become a lifestyle, not an afterthought or another chore you have to make time for.

Actively Combating Spiritual Complacency

At some point, most Christians will deal with spiritual complacency. We get into a routine, and it’s easy to allow actively trying to grow in your faith to become a side note to the day-to-day realities of adult life. Make it a point to stay challenged spiritually—read good books, stay involved in your church, seek ministry opportunities, get a mentor and a mentee. As other parts of your life grow, make sure your faith does too.

Being Intentional With Relationships

The older you get, the more time becomes a precious commodity. Unlike the college days, when you’d see your buddies between every class, once you get plugged into a job and family life, it can be hard to make time to see your friends. In your twenties and thirties, be intentional about getting together with friends and relatives (who are also probably pretty busy), and invest in relationships over obligations.

Buying Things That Last

For many people in their twenties, paying extra to purchase high-quality items—from clothes and accessories, to furniture and appliances—just isn’t practical as they are settling into new careers and finding their financial footing. But as you save more and become more established in your job, purchasing quality items (and fewer of them because they last so long) puts the emphasis on sustainability and craftsmanship instead of fast fashion disposability.

Read more at http://www.relevantmagazine.com/life/15-things-start-doing-time-youre-30#4Px8UqEcUIMMwfyq.99

10 Ways to Do Adulthood Well

It’s hard to say when a person reaches adulthood. Leaving mom and dad’s house, finishing college or getting a job don’t seem to automatically make a person an “adult” these days.
If anything, adulthood is a daily and gradual process of choosing maturity over immaturity. It doesn’t happen in one big moment, but over years of wise decisions. Adulthood is a sculpture carved over time. It’s a process of a person casting away their childishness and taking the shape of Godly maturity in their thoughts, words and actions.
So, as you go through this complex, sometimes-painful journey of mature adulthood, here are some tips to help you do it well.

1. Realize You’re Not the Center of World

We think as if the world revolves around us, even if we would never say it out loud. We develop unrealistic expectations of ourselves, careers, marriages, church and so on (and then we get depressed when our too-high expectations go unmet). The truth is, we don’t deserve anything, really. We’re not “above” any job or career, “above” a certain potential spouse or “above” a certain income level or lifestyle.
When you start thinking with a measure of humility, you begin having realistic expectations of yourself and others. You begin to have a healthy vision of the type of life you should live. It’s been said that maturity is when your world opens up and you realize that you’re not the center of it. This is one of the most important aspects of adulthood.

2. Cultivate Emotional Maturity

We hold on to bitterness against others as if we’ve never hurt anyone. We get moody. We’re quick to be bothered. We treat people according to how they make us feel, not according to who they are. We’re slow to forgive other’s flaws while expecting them to forget about ours. We almost like being offended sometimes. We react to life instead of responding to it. Ultimately, we don’t control our emotions; we let our emotions control us. Doing adulthood well requires that we get a handle on our emotions. Think before you react, speak or tweet.

3. Learn the Difference Between Time Management and Energy Management

This is one of the best lessons I have learned in my adult life. Some things take a lot of time but not a lot of energy, and some things take a little amount of time but a lot of energy. You can manage your time well but still stress yourself out because you spread your energy too thin across too many well-timed activities. Just because everything fits into your schedule doesn’t mean you’ll have the energy to handle it all.
One of the secrets to time and energy management is learning how to say “yes” and “no” to things. Saying “yes” to one thing means saying “no” to something else, and vice versa. Learn how much time and energy you’re realistically able to devote to life, and prioritize the things that deserve the most time and energy.

4. Don't Live With Unhealthy Assumptions


Some of us live in an imaginary world. In this imaginary world, a person spends hours thinking about hypothetical questions (“What if they think ______ about me?”) which quickly turn into to assumptions (“He/she probably thinks ________ about me”). Sometimes we make decisions and develop emotions and even damage relationships based on assumptions that may not be true. I know from experience this will drive you crazy. If you don’t know something to be true, don’t live as if it’s true. Reality’s complicated enough. Why add an imaginary layer on top of it?

5. Invest in People Younger than You

One of the quickest roads to maturity is to build relationships with people less mature than you as well as people more mature than you. We all need people further along the road of life to give us advice, and we all need peers. But a key ingredient for maturity is investing in people who aren’t as far along in life as you are. When you invest in people younger than you, it helps them grow and it pushes you to be mature.

6. Embrace Deep Relationships

Sometimes we don’t invest in relationships because we’re afraid of getting hurt. Or we think we don’t know how to go deep with somebody. So, we say things like “I suck at relationships” instead of actually trying.
It’s easy to keep it lighthearted and fun with everybody all the time, but we also need deep, significant relationships in order to have a healthy adulthood. Risk and awkwardness and vulnerability and pain are all parts of a healthy relationship, not reasons to avoid one. Whether it’s with your parents or with friends or with a potential marriage partner, embrace the beautiful messiness and joys of deep relationships.

7. Manage Your Money

This goes almost without saying. If you want to be a healthy adult, learn how to use money to live a stable life, not to serve your whims. Live within your means. Figure out what you’re making, then figure out how much of it can go to debts, housing, food, shopping and so forth. Establish credit (but don’t go crazy). Spend in such a way that you make money your servant, not your slavemaster. I highly recommend using a budgeting app such as mint.com.

8. Make a Plan

There are too many twentysomethings coasting through life because they don’t have a vision for what they should be doing. Set for yourself a six month, one year, two year, etc. plan so you have a goal to work toward. Even if it doesn’t work out, at least you’re living purposefully and not just drifting.

9. Learn How to Rest Well

You can’t work well if you don’t rest well. Some of us work too hard, have nothing left to give and get stressed out. It’s important to prioritize your schedule (and cut things out if you can) to allow yourself some rest. Your phone needs to be constantly recharged, and you do too.

10. Love the Lord

This truth is so obvious you might miss it. Regardless how well you’re doing with your career, relationships, parenting and so on, if your life doesn’t revolve around glorifying God, your adulthood won’t be what it should be. Before getting a job, leaving your parents, building a career or starting a family, your deepest need no matter your age is to turn from sin, trust in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, and build your lifestyle around His honor.
So, go deep with a community of other Christians. Soak yourself in God’s Word. Make the greatest hope of your life that others will love Jesus because of you. This is the foundation of truly healthy adulthood, and without it you’ll be at an epic disadvantage.

Read more at http://www.relevantmagazine.com/life/whole-life/10-ways-do-adulthood-well#GowGZ5zR8PTZr4Xb.99