Reaching 30 is a milestone in more ways than one. For many people, your twenties are seen as a time for fun and exploration. With the energy to burn the candle at both ends, gaining post-graduate experience and building a career are the cornerstones of your development. Conversely, we tend to assume that your thirties are when you should be reaping the rewards of your hard work.
Of course, life rarely turns out how we expect. While some people do follow a fairly linear path and have a clear idea of where they’re going, the vast majority of people have their fair share of doubts, uncertainties, and worries as they approach their 30th birthday.
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Preparing for your thirties
If you’re unsure where the next decade will take you or haven’t yet realized your dreams, there’s no need to panic. As you approach this next chapter in your life, it’s the perfect time to reassess your goals and recalibrate your approach to life.
VP Legacies’ online 8-week Personal Connection Boot Camp is designed to guide you in this life transition so you can master uncertainty in your life. You will receive live group coaching twice a week and be a part of a community going through the same transition you are going through. Sign up for an interview with one of our founders today to learn more.
In addition, we have the following tips for you below:
Take a pause and recognize your achievements
In general, we spend far too much time focusing on what we feel we haven’t achieved, rather than congratulating ourselves for what we have accomplished. If you aren’t quite where you imagined yourself to be at 30, it’s easy to focus on the things you feel you should have done by now. In reality, no two people are the same, and there is no specific checklist of achievements you should have completed.
Instead of allowing your mind to get caught up in the things you’ve yet to undertake, spend time focusing on the milestones you have reached thus far. Whether that’s completing your degree, maintaining friendships, securing a new job role, gaining experience, or broadening your horizons through travel, there is a myriad of ways you have grown and developed in the past decade. Recognize how far you’ve come and what you’ve learned before congratulating yourself and feeling proud of what you’ve achieved on your journey.
Identify and set your personal goals
If you feel like you’re on a well-worn path, heading for the same goals as your friends, colleagues, and peers, it’s time to step off the track and reassess where you’re heading. Many people leave college, establish a career, settle down with a significant other before developing professionally, and starting a family. These are great goals to have if you want them.
Just because other people are aiming for well-established, seemingly common goals, this doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the same for you. Indeed, you might have these goals but want to experience other things before you commit yourself to a full-time career path and relationship.
The most important thing to do as you reach 30 is to identify and understand your own unique goals. Thinking about what you want from life and what type of existence you crave will give you the insight you need to determine your objectives.
The first milestone in our 8-week program is to learn how to set goals that are YOUR goals. The keyword here is YOUR. YOUR goals related to your personal and professional life are the only goals that matter. We kick off Personal Connection Boot Camp with week 1 focused on doing just that with our “8 week year” framework. Sign up for an interview with one of our founders to share your goals with us.
Discover who you are
In addition to setting goals that are yours, we all need to proactively discover who we are. Sometimes to even to set detailed personal goals that are our goals, not influenced by others, we need to put some time into exploration.
In week 4 of 8 we guide you and empower you through a simple, fun, and exhilarating process of self discovery. You will research new information and hobbies, as well as trying new things that you have always wanted to try. Overall you will spend your time focusing on yourself instead of comparing yourself to others.
Build a Personal Connection with Yourself
Once you take some time to discover yourself, it is time for you to use this to build a strong personal connection with yourself. VP Legacies teaches our “The Iceberg of Personal Connection” framework in week 5 of 8 to set you up for success with everything that follows in your 30s and the rest of your life.
Our simple 5 step process which is much more of an internal self talk conversation with youself than anything else, empowers you to get to the root of what you like and dislike in your life. From stage 1 “small talk” to stage 4 “embrace emotion” you will get to stage 5 “personal connection with yourself.”
To start your Personal Connection Boot Camp journey sign up for an interview with one of our founders today.
Focus on the relationships in your life that matter
Once you have a strong personal connection with yourself, you can use the same “Iceberg of Personal Connection” framework to focus on the relationships in your life that serve you the most and are good for you and your future development. If you find that you may need new relationships in your life, that is okay too, we will teach you to apply the easy to use framework there as well.
The most important thing is that you are building strong personal connections with people that truly care about you and you them. This is really where Personal Connection Boot Camp thrives because of your ability to apply this to every aspect of your life. From getting a job to finding a significant other.
Share your relationship goals with us in an interview to seet if you are a fit for enrollment today.
Create a financial plan
Now that you have built a strong personal connection with yourself and others, it is time to take action. If you spent your twenties living paycheck to paycheck or splurging on luxury items, now’s the time to recalculate your budget. Going from being a broke student, to securing internships and entry-level positions to finally progressing up the career ladder should (hopefully!) correlate to a sharp rise in your income.
When this happens, it’s easy to get carried away and treat yourself to something nice. Of course, the increase in living expenses that also occurs in your twenties may mean that you don’t have quite as much disposable income as you’d like. Once you have a strong personal connection with yourself, you will know exactly what you should and shouldn’t be spending your money on.
No matter what your financial situation is, hitting 30 means, it’s time to get a handle on it. Whether you’re struggling to get through each month or your spending instead of saving, financial mismanagement in your thirties could lead to unnecessary stress and heartache further down the line.
With a clear financial plan, you’ll feel more confident in what you’re going and where you’re heading. In addition to this, having a workable budget and clear financial objectives will boost your confidence and help you to achieve any goals you’ve set yourself, such as buying a property, renting a home, or traveling the world.
In Personal Connection Boot Camp we spend the last 2 weeks focusing on your personal goals and share with you what we have done to achieve clarity in all aspects of life. For personal finances we dig into Ramit Sethi’s book “I Will Teach You to Be Rich” and if you pay in full for the course, you will get a bonus live coaching session from on of VP Legacies’ founders who shows you step by step how he went from $20K+ in debt to $10K+ in wealth in less than 12 months without a change in income.
BONUS: Prioritize your health
While this is the bonus, prioritizing your health may actually be the most important thing that you do. Even if you’ve been relatively healthy so far, you might be surprised to find you’re a little less resilient the older you get. If late nights start to take their toll, you feel more run down than usual, or you begin experiencing niggling health problems, you’re not alone!
Student and post-grad life can be filled with late nights, early starts, fast food, and a little too much alcohol, so your health may not have been your top priority thus far. Although you might work out and engage in a decent amount of exercise, this doesn’t necessarily mean you’re putting your wellbeing first.
Before you do anything else, check whether you’re overdue for any medical checkups or visits. Although it can be challenging to fit appointments into your schedule, it’s always worth staying on top of your health. Fortunately, a hectic lifestyle shouldn’t cause too much long-term damage, providing it doesn’t go on forever.
Then, coming back to discovering who you are phase and building a personal connection with yourself, you should find something you enjoy doing to work out consistently throughout th week. If this is a new thing for you, start simple with doing 1-3 workouts a week. Maybe its yoga, running, hiking, biking, weight lifting, or something else altogether.
By prioritizing your health now and making subtle changes to your lifestyle, you can make 30 your marker for a new beginning. You may want to run a marathon, climb a mountain, or simply get through the day without needing a nap, but you’ll need to prioritize your health if you want to make the most of the available opportunities!
Related: How Exercise and Physical Health Help Build Personal Connections
We are here to help you every step of the way
Turning 30 can be scary, especially if you aren’t sure what you want to do with your life, or if you’re worried you haven’t yet done enough, which is why, at VP Legacies, we work with highly driven young professionals to help them gain a deeper understanding of themselves and those around them. By providing you with the tools and insights you need, we assist you in discovering, setting, and achieving personalized goals in just 8 short weeks. Whether you want to improve your financial future, find greater success in your career, or come to understand yourself better, we can help you meet your goals. Sign up for a Personal Connection Boot Camp interview with one of our founders today.