I thought my twenties would be about running full-speed the race I’d been preparing to win.

Instead I tripped at the starting line, looked up and saw a race filled with potholes, rings of fire, and dream-eating-alligators covering the path I thought would be smooth and straight.

The obstacles facing twentysomethings today are great. What are they and more importantly, how do we leap over them?

1. Informationized

Twentysomethings are being informationized, a barrage of “need to knows” being shot at us with every step.

With twentysomethings being exposed to 1 trillion messages a day – give or take a billion, information is no longer gold, it’s a trap.

When the shiny, new headline pops in front of our face we chase it around like an overly excited puppy.

But you can’t move forward with anything if you’re consistently reading about nothing. 

Reading the right information is becoming less important than blocking all the wrong.

How we overcome:

We need to start asking questions about our information intake. Do you need to turn off the Wifi at certain points during the day so you can focus on one task?

Do you need to stop watching the news about everything that’s going wrong in the world and just focus on what you can do right?

Know when enough info is enough. Death by information is a terrible way to die.

2. Social media

Social media can be like a bad high school party or something more meaningful – depending on how we use it.

Either social media is a black hole, sucking all your time, energy, and creativity into a vortex of zero returns.

Or social media can create a galaxy of opportunities, relationships, job opportunities, and platforms like never seen before.

Social media is the great amplifier, shouting the good and bad of YOU at record octaves. It takes your success, failures, fears, and puts them on stage for the world to judge. And how you’re presenting yourself on the social media stage can make all the difference.

How we overcome:

Is social media something you do intentionally or without any thought?

Is your social media presence proactive or reactive?

Are you strategically creating your online brand or are you letting others create the brand for you?

Social media is like a chainsaw. How you wield it is the difference between actually building something or just cutting everything down.

3. Stereotypes

As I wrote last week in “Enough with the Twentysomething Stereotypes!“, the same old buzzwords are being thrown around and adopted about everything twentysomethings “are doing wrong.”

We dare not stereotype based on gender, religion, race, sexual orientation, but if you stereotype based on age you’ll have a front cover story.

And if you’re twentysomething, your managers might have their own stereotypes about you based on your age before you even tackle a project.

The stereotypes might be subtle or incredibly pronounced, but you must be aware of how you are being perceived. Then do your best to take those stereotypes to the shredder and into the outgoing trash.

How we overcome:

As I wrote in my book 101 Secrets for your Twenties,

4. Lackluster Economy  + Debt = Holy Horse-Apple

You don’t need me to tell you that the economy has been a tad dumpsterish lately, with many twentysomethings taking out thousands of dollars in college loans for the grand opportunity to step up to the garbage bin to find that job in the rough. The Great Recession became a very depressing twentysomething reality.

How we overcome:

Instead of complaining about a lack of opportunity, we need to focus on creating them instead. Again as I wrote in 101 Secrets for your Twenties –

A college diploma is no longer your golden ticket into DreamJobLand. Your diploma is merely your Pinky Toe in the Door. It’s the small sliver of light and the “Okay, you’ve got one minute.”

We can’t sit around and wait for an open door, we have to keep pounding on them until one busts open.

We can’t be reactive to the economy’s woes, we have to be proactive in finding needs and meeting them.

Opportunities for twentysomethings didn’t disappear, it just takes a little more hutzpah to uncover them.

5. Wasted Time

Now that I’m married with two daughters, I become a tad sick when I think about all the hours I wasted in my early twenties.

Time is your greatest asset. And for most twentysomethings, time is still on your side.

Just remember that time is a depleting supply.

As you possibly look to get married, buy a house, have kids, the time you’re going to have to pursue your dreams is going to be fleeting. For me, that meant working a full-time job, putting kids to bed, and then chasing my dream of becoming a full-time writer and speaker at 5:00 am or 10:00 pm, trying to ring productivity out of every free second.

How we overcome:

Wasting free time is very expensive. 

Make a schedule. Choose your time. Don’t let it choose you.

Wasting time becomes a never-ending carousel, anxiety multiplying with every turn.

Time is a gift. Unwrap it and use it wisely.

Your life might not be turning out nothing like you planned mainly because you never had a plan to begin with. Take time to make one.

I’d love to hear from you in the comments section below on this article:

What obstacles are you trying to overcome?