20 Things Every Twentysomething Should Have

Your twenties have been called the “defining decade." It’s the time in your life when you not only make big decisions about your career, relationships and finances, it’s also when you figure out what being an adult is all about.

Obviously, there’s nothing magical that happens when you turn 30 (or even 40 or 50 for that matter), but being well equipped when your starting out as a real-life grown up can help set the course for decades to come.

Here’s our look at the 20 things every twentysomething should have.

A Constantly Growing Library

Maintaining a growing library of books that you’ve read (whether it’s on your Kindle or iPad or, you know, one of those actual “shelves” that old mansions in the movies have), is a good habit to get into at any age. But, if you can make the time to constantly read quality books during the busyness of your 20s, you can do it at any age.

Someone to Hold You Accountable

The difference between a temptation and a mistake often just comes down to accountability. Having people in our lives who’ll let us know when we’re making poor decisions can end up saving us a lot of heartache. This also goes for fashion accountability. A true friend is one who can tell you that you’re just not pulling off that Heisenberg hat.

Something You Can Wear to a Job Interview

If you already have a job you like, go ahead and substitute “job interview” for “wedding,” “corporate event” or “Lower Eastside masquerade ball” (hey, you never know). Owning a good suit/dress is part of being an adult, but that doesn’t mean it still can’t be fun. Buy something you’ll actually enjoy wearing and be willing to invest in quality, even if you’re not the type to dress up often. (ProTip: Guys, your job interview outfit should not include a Heisenberg hat.)

Someone Who Looks Up to You

Finding someone you can be an example to and speak into doesn’t just benefit the other person—it can help you grow as an adult and actually make you want to become a better person yourself.

A Journal

Your twenties are arguably the most formative decade of your life. It might be a good idea to have some written record of it that doesn't just exist on Twitter.

A Pastor Who Knows You By Name

Even if you’re a member of a church, getting to know a pastor personally can encourage you to do more than just get involved—it builds a relationship with someone you’d be comfortable talking to and praying with in times of need.

A Bike

It’s impossible to not have fun when you’re riding a bike. Don’t believe us? Go for a bike ride, and thank us later.

A Passport

Passports aren’t exactly cheap (for a first-time traveler, they’ll set you back about $135), but obviously, if you ever want to travel abroad, you’re going to need one. You may not already have a trip to Bali booked, but it’s a good idea to go ahead and get one anyways: They take a few weeks to process, so if some sort of international opportunity/vacation/mission trip arises, you’ll be ready.

A Friend You’ve Had for More than 10 Years

Maintaining friendships isn’t always easy. But with the rise of Facebook, there’s no excuse for not staying connected to people from your past. Keeping old friends not only reminds us of where we came from; it can also help to show us the people we’ve become.

A Friend You’ve Had for Less Than a Year

You’re probably out of school now, but that doesn’t mean you can’t still meet new people and make new friends. Get plugged in at your church, join a sports league or actually attempt the ancient and forgotten practice of meeting your neighbors. Making new friends is just as important as keeping your old ones.

A Good Pair of Running/Athletic Shoes

Ask someone in their thirties or forties, and they’ll tell you: Eventually, your metabolism slows down, your joints start to ache and all those late night nacho sessions start to catch up with you. Start a lifestyle of fitness when you’re in the twenties, and you can prevent a lot of health problems before they get a chance to start.

A Hard Copy of a Bible

Don’t get us wrong, YouVersion and digital Bible tools are great and put tons of valuable research resources right at your fingertips. But nothing can replace a good old fashioned, ink on paper, bound copy of the Bible. Write in it. Highlight it. Bookmark it. But whatever you do, make it your own and make it personal.

A 5-Year Plan

The best way to try to get to where you want to be in five years is mapping out a plan to get there. Figure out what career, ministry, education or travel opportunities you want to take, write out a doable plan and start making it happen.

A Willingness to Throw Your 5-Year Plan Out the Window

Plans are great. A lot of successful people got to where they are today by sticking to a masterfully-crafted 5-year roadmap. But sometimes, life changes and new opportunities arise. Don’t be so married to your own plan for your life that you become unwilling to see what else God puts on your path.

A Savings/Retirement Account

It’s never too late (or too early) to get started saving. And once you get an emergency savings account established, the money you put away for retirement starts to add up fast.

A Big Dream

Want to start an innovative company? Find a way to help people in need? Publish a book, sell a script or release an album? In your twenties it’s easy to let old dreams fade as the daily realities of adulthood set in. But there’s really only one way for your life dream to die—and that’s if you let it.

A Back-up Alarm Clock

Preferably one that is placed out of arm’s reach from your bed. Because that snooze button on the iPhone is one thing that Apple made a little too intuitive.

A Social Cause You Believe In

Find an organization, cause or social need that moves you, and get involved. Twentysomethings have a massive cultural influence—use it for something good. Get educated on an international need, social justice mission or ministry opportunity, and become an advocate for a cause that is important to you.

A Parental Figure You Can Trust

There’s a high likelihood that you’ll encounter some major milestones between the ages of 20 and 30: Accepting your first “real” job, deciding between buying and renting a home, getting married and even becoming a parent are very real possibilities. Being able to talk with someone who’s been there before—whether it’s your own parents or someone older who you trust—can make some life’s hardest decisions a little bit easier and your twenty’s biggest moments less stressful.

source:http://www.relevantmagazine.com/life/20-things-every-twentysomething-should-have

8 Ways to Not Procrastinate

In college I had a friend, George, who would wait until the night before his paper was due to begin writing it. Most of the time he would even begin reading the required books the same night. He would stay up all night, write the paper and turn it in around 9 a.m. the next morning. If you happened to come upon George during that particular 12-hour period, you would have witnessed an intensely focused college student furiously typing away on his laptop. Brandishing headphones, amidst a sea of abandoned coffee cups, open books and paper, George somehow always pulled it off. His ability to procrastinate and still meet the deadline was truly amazing. 

Apparently, George was not alone in his procrastination—but probably fairly alone in succeeding at it. Depending on the study, researchers have found that somewhere between 80 to 95 percent of college students (and to some extent, we can be sure, the entire population) procrastinate on their work. So whether it’s college assignments, work deliverables or home projects the odds are most of us have procrastinated on something in our lives.

Other studies have shown that those who report procrastinating on a chronic basis have more health problems, higher stress levels and more relationship problems than those who do not procrastinate on a regular basis. So chronic procrastination can be a real problem. But you don’t have to let procrastination win when it comes to getting things done in your life. Here are eight ways you can beat procrastination:

1. Admit Delaying

If you read any material about changing your behavior, the first part always involves admitting the problem. In this case your problem happens to be procrastination. How do you know when you’re not admitting your procrastination? Well, all of a sudden, your bedroom needs to be cleaned. No, actually, disinfected. Or better yet, perhaps a roach bomb is what the doctor ordered. You get the picture. When all of a sudden you find yourself easily distracted and typically avoidable tasks become your obsessive priority, you know you’re procrastinating. As soon as you take the plunge and acknowledge your procrastination, you are now in control. You are in control of whether or not you choose to toothbrush-scrub your kitchen floor, start that school application or outline your work presentation.

2. Schedule a Meeting … With Yourself

If you find you are continually procrastinating and not making any progress on your task at hand, you need to schedule a meeting with yourself. Put it on your calendar and don’t be late. If you have a deliverable at work that is due in two weeks, the first step is to guess how long it’s going to take you to complete it. Then schedule meetings on your calendar that will give you the appropriate amount of time to focus on that deliverable. An added bonus is when your co-workers interrupt you during the day and ask if you “have a second,” you can tell them you’re not available. You’re in a meeting. You don’t have to tell them who it’s with. By setting a date and time to work on your deliverable, you will be more likely to actually do it. Who knows, you might even complete it ahead of schedule.  

3. Work at Your Best Time

We all have certain times of the day when we feel at our best. When do you feel like you are firing on all cylinders? That is the time you want to work on your task. (This is also a great time to schedule that meeting with yourself, if you are able.) If 8 a.m. is your best time, it’s probably not a good idea to start working on your taxes at 9 p.m. If you’re a night owl and 10 p.m. is your best time of the day, feel free to bust out your W-2 after the kids go to sleep. Whether your best time is 8 a.m. or 10 p.m., be sure to work on the thing you’ve been procrastinating on during that time.

4. Break It Down

Take what you need to do and break it down into smaller more digestible parts. If you need to clean out your garage, don’t feel like you have to do it all at once. Pick a Saturday and just focus on removing things you haven’t used in a year. Then pick another day to sweep it out. Then choose a different day to organize what you want to keep. The key is to do only one part of the task or project at a time. If you get started on something small, you’ll find it’s much easier to keep working on it. You’ll feel like you’ve made some good progress so you might as well finish the job.

5. Delegate

Is there someone else who can do the work for you? Perhaps you can ask a friend or co-worker to take on that task you’ve been dreading. Or is it something you can pay to have done? You always want to evaluate if someone else can appropriately take care of it for you (as long as it’s not something that truly falls within your responsibility as a spouse, parent, student or employee.) If you’ve been procrastinating on getting something done, it may be because you simply don’t enjoy what you have to do. Maybe you volunteered to organize the “holiday” party at work this year to get in good with the boss, and it turns out you hate event planning. Find the people in your office who love event planning. (Trust me, they are there.) Get them involved and give them specific action items to be responsible for.  Fortunately, there are always others who will enjoy something you don’t like doing. Think of it this way: by delegating it, you have given them an opportunity to enjoy themselves.

6. Reward Yourself

We’re designed to respond to rewards and punishments. It’s no different when it comes to motivating yourself. Go ahead and give yourself a reward for working through your procrastination. You can give yourself small rewards for milestones on the way to your final goal. Or perhaps you wait and really reward yourself when all is said and done. Have you been holding off on buying that new phone? Maybe that’s your reward for losing 10 pounds. Do you want a new outfit? Reward yourself with a shopping trip after you send in that grad school application. The key is finding something that will truly motivate you to do the thing you don’t want to do.

7. Make Yourself Accountable

Make your goal public. Tell other people what you intend to do and when you want to do it. It’s not for the faint of heart, but the possibility of public embarrassment is always a surefire way to guarantee you’ll get it done. Perhaps you have a goal to write a book by a certain date. Go ahead and post it on your Facebook page. If you’re really brave, you can even ask your friends to check in on your progress. The upside is that you’ll most likely reach your goal. The downside is your ego is on the line, and if you drop the ball, the humiliation factor is high. However, this is a great way to make sure you accomplish something really important. 

8. Just Do It

There’s a reason why this tag line works so well. (If you don’t know whose tag line this is, you may be one of the 3.5 million people who still subscribe to dial-up Internet.) Sometimes in life you have to just do it. Just do it when you don’t feel like doing it. Just do it when every fiber of your being wants to do something else. Sometimes you just have to get it over with and move on. So if none of the other tips work for you, go ahead; just do it and get it over with. You’ll feel so much better.

You don’t have to be like my friend George, waiting until the last minute and risking the chance of success. You can beat procrastination. So unless you really do enjoy a good toothbrush-scrubbing of your kitchen floor, go ahead and try one of these tips. Besides a few large boxes on your to-do list, what have you got to lose?

source: http://www.relevantmagazine.com/life/career-money/features/27338-8-tips-for-beating-procrastination

5 Things Your Habits Say About You

Behavioral therapists and others who study human behavior will tell you there’s only one difference between those who succeed and those who don't. “It’s all about their habits,” they say.

Our habits are patterns of repeated behavior—whether yoga every morning before the sun rises, lying, going to sleep at ten every night or smoking a pack a day. Specialists say that it takes around thirty days to form a habit—whether it’s a fitness routine or a tendency to lie.

Habitual behavior can make or break someone in today’s fast-paced, WiFi-loving, Starbucks-drinking culture. Because although not all habits are bad, they can shape a lot of who you are.

Here are five things your habits may be saying about you.

What do you hold as important and unimportant in this life? Just take a look at your habits.

1. They reveal what you value least—and most.

A habit as simple as arriving late or constantly procrastinating can show what you rank at the bottom of your scale of priorities—and also what you rank at the top. What do you hold as important and unimportant in this life? Just take a look at your habits. They will speak for themselves—and most likely, they will speak to others as well.

If you have a habit of working hard, helping others or always being on time to work, it shows that you see a great deal of value in your future, your character and your work ethic. Likewise, if you are perpetually late, interrupt times with friends because you always answer your phone or commit initially only to back out late, it will be clear to the people around you what comes first in your life—and what doesn’t.

2. They reveal where you spend your time.

Habits don’t just happen overnight. If a habit takes 30 days to form, then those 30 days will tell you a lot about your commitments. Are you cutting down on your Starbucks habit so that you can read Scripture in the morning before work? Or are you routinely hitting snooze and falling off your exercise program 10 days in? We all have the same 24 hours in a day, and have to make choices about we’re using our time. We make trade-offs based on what we deem most important at the time—for better or for worse.

3. They reveal the state of your mental health.

Our habits are shaped by either a self-disciplined will, or a powerful felt need—and the latter can often pull us into habitual sin.

Some habits are internal, more than external. They live in our thought processes, our attitudes and our outlook. And if these mental habits go unchecked, it can cause us to live in a state of mental compression because our habits are living our lives for us. But the truth is, mental health is the beginning of all habitual health problems. If a habit, such as envy, lust, comparison, discontent, takes root in your mind, that mental habit is eventually going to be given the reins to the rest of your health if not taken care of.

4. They reveal the state of your spiritual health.

Your habits play a massive role in your sinful nature. Our habits are shaped by either a self-disciplined will, or a powerful felt need—and the latter can often pull us into habitual sin. If you really think about it, most sin is derived from a habit that has been formed over an extensive period of time, and then exposes itself when that habit yearns to be activated. On the other hand, forming habits of prayer and worship can also create virtuous habits that can counteract the destructive pull toward sin.

5. They reveal the state of your physical health.

We’re a society of busy people—and there’s a multitude of fast food, drive-thru options just for our convenience.

Look at your food and exercise habits: do you make late-night taco runs, put off your gym membership renewal, lounge around playing video games all weekend? Or do you make it a point to work out three times a week, floss your teeth daily, fill your cart with produce? Your habits will tell you a thing or two about your physical health.

It’s easy to go about our days as usual—with our habits and routines fixed in place without a thought. But if we do evaluate our default patterns, we might learn what we’re doing well and where we have room for improvement. And in 30 days, we might even be able to turn ourselves around.

source: http://www.relevantmagazine.com/life/whole-life/5-things-your-habits-say-about-you