After avidly reading answers to a couple of questions on Quora, we decided to make a post on a topic that most of the students out there are on the hunt for.
What should you know by the time you reach the age of 25 ?
I’m talking about this particular age group because I know how confusing it can get; about the various career options, responsibilities, failures and some minor achievements. But keeping all that apart, let’s talk convention.
I’m not a big believer in convention; but in this case, I know it’s good to be proficient in the points that I have mentioned below.
1. Managing Your Expenses –
This doesn’t just include optimizing your finances; this includes cutting down on a lot of things you don’t really need, finding out the least prices for whatever you need, and also how to save your money. At the age of 20, it might not seem like a big deal because your parents handle everything; but once you reach that 21 year mark, you’ll come back and read this.
2. Survival Skills –
I don’t mean learn jiu jitsu and karate; rather, I am talking about surviving in this modern, cut-throat world where everyone is competing with you in one way or another.
I’ve written an entire article about what you need to do to survive. Click here to read it.
Learn which relationships are toxic and cut yourself loose from them. Networking will take you places, in two, or maybe three years from now. I can’t really give you a gist of that entire article, so just click on this link to read a whole lot more.
3. Know How To Build Your Resume –
This is a series of tips from an interviewer. Taken from reddit, he explains what he suggests you should do on your resume.
“Don’t make me scroll to the third page to find your previous experience. If your hobbies, education and “strengths” are listed before your work experience, I’ll assume you don’t have any. That’s fine for entry level jobs, but when the position requires 3 or more years of relevant experience, if I assume you don’t have that by the end of the first page of your resume, I’m closing the file and moving on.”
“Resumes should be as short as possible, but as long as they need to be to convey what’s important. One extra page for a cover letter is fine, but never give me a two page cover letter, because I’m in a hurry. For entry level and junior positions,anything more than 2 just seems long winded, and makes me think you can’t prioritize; anything less than two pages just seems wrong for some reason.”
4. A Secondary Marketable Skill.
You might be a software developer and suddenly recession hits your country, and you’re let go. Now what ?
An IIM-A graduate Deepak Mehta says that a secondary marketable skill is not just safe, but also lets you explore the world out there. Be it writing, designing, trading, or anything else. You needn’t be serious about it; just spare a reasonable amount of time for it as well.
5. Breaking The Ice and Maintaining A Conversation –
Breaking that minor tension that’s hanging between you and your friend; maintaining that conversation when you have no idea what to say next; All these are skills you must know, says IIM-A graduate Deepak Mehta.
You learn this best when you strike a conversation with strangers. I know most of you will pass on the opportunity to talk to strangers; you cannot be missing more opportunities. Ofcourse, it’s going to be hard to go to a random person on the street and strike up a conversation. And just for that, there are startup travel companies that organize low budget trips and treks so you get to meet new people. I recently went on such a trip and ended up meeting amazing people, who I’m still in touch with. Basically, this is an easy way to learn the skill of maintaining a conversation; also to even start one.
6. Public Speaking –
Public speaking might seem really hard to a lot of people; and it might also seem like an empty skill to some. But it’s that one skill that will define your entire personality. Imagine thousands of people keenly listening to what you have to say; you are the God during that period of time on stage (or even infront of a small gathering). You have the power to move the crowd how you want to.
You might start out with a really bad attempt, but that’s an experiment. Do that a couple of times again and figure out what your best strategy is to move the crowd and earn your reputation as a good communicator.
I’ve written an article based entirely around this topic. Take a look – How to become a great speaker ?
7. Relating To The Opposite Sex Without Objectifying Them –
Let’s face it. This is the age when a lot of them try to explore their sexuality. What happens with a couple of people is that this becomes a habit and they objectify every single person of the opposite sex they meet. Sure, they can also be friends, but that’s not the first thing they think of.
Learning this takes time and effort. Not talking to the people of opposite sex at all doesn’t help. In fact, that is what will help you. Get out there and make some friends and build a healthy professional / personal network.
8. Breaking Addictions –
I’m talking about facebook, TV shows, junk food and similar stuff. I used to watch a lot of TV shows, eat large amounts of junk food without thinking about what the consequences would be, until a few months ago when I found out my health was screwed up. This wasn’t a direct result of junk food, but definitely linked.
I needn’t tell you why you need to break these addictions; you’re probably grown enough to judge for yourself. When I reduced these addictions, not only did I save a tonne of money, I got to spend a lot of time with my family, met my abandoned friends and discovered that they were my real friends all along. It practically rejuvenates you. Humans were not biologically built to stay put and grow fat and stare at a computer for such long hours, nor were they built to eat ALL that junk.
I’m not saying I don’t eat junk food , or switch on the TV at all !! I do all that, but I’ve restricted it just enough to function what relies on these things, and it feels good 🙂
9. Know The Real Meaning of Friends and Filter Them –
If you’re 20+, you would’ve met a lot of people, and you probably value a lot of these people and assign the status of “friends” to them. But think about it. All the grown ups usually tend to have very few friends. They have those few friends who end up in their lives and stay there forever, while the rest becomes just a contact on your phone book, or meet for an occasional drink.
Quorans’ answers to the question of “How do I judge if someone is a true friend ?” say that people usually spend lots of time and assign lots of value to a lot of people hoping to get some in return. But in reality, the proper way must be to assign the value to those few who our gut tells are the right ones. That way, even if your gut was wrong, the other people you chose, will end up respecting you and bring you in their lives, just because you were able to focus all that energy on a few people. I’ve personally seen this happen with the most unlikeliest of people.
That doesn’t mean you shun the rest of the people out. You keep them where they should be. Not completely in to the point that they know every single thought that goes through your head; but just enough.
10. Learn At-least One Sport –
Sporting can not only be good for your health, but for your mind too. You needn’t play regularly, but just enough to take a break from your routine life and chill by playing that sport. It’s a lot better than chilling while smoking, or drinking. It cuts your time at the gym too.
Here’s a picture that outlines all that you need to be, regardless of whether you’re 25 or not –
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