Clinical psychologist Dr. Meg Jay doesn't subscribe to the theory that your 20s are a throwaway time to just have fun and decide what you want to be when you grow up.
While popular media often depicts 20-somethings as aimless wanderers lounging in extended adolescence, the truth, according to Jay, is that your 20s are your defining decade.
In fact, that's the title of her new book,"The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter—and How to Make the Most of Them Now" and the inspiration for her TED talk, which proclaim that 30 is not the new 20, stressing the importance of that crucial time period post-college, especially when it comes to your career.
We got Jay on the phone to get her advice on nine of the most common myths about your 20s, and what you should do instead. If you've ever considered bailing on your job or your "temporary" barista job has stretched to three years, you're going to want to hear this.
Myth 1: Your twenties don't count.
Despite their best efforts, 20-somethings have been hindered by the recession and difficult economic climate. From saving money to borrowing money, Gen Y lags behind their parents and grandparents. But that doesn't mean they get to take a time out.
“Your 20s are the time to make some moves,” Jay says. “It's a unique, potentially transformative time. It ends up being more important than it feels.”
If you're putting off starting your life ... don't. It's time to start making deliberate choices in your job, your city and even your love life to set yourself up for the life you want in your thirties. As Jay said to one young woman in her book who said that her choices before age 30 were just practice: "Consider what part you're rehearsing to play."
Myth 2: You need to know exactly what you want to do.
Too many 20-somethings think they need to figure out what they want to be when they grow up before landing an actual job. Instead, says Jay, your 20s are the ideal decade to build what she calls "identity capital"—little bits of experience you collect that coalesce into a solid identity over time.
For example, rather than holding out for your absolute dream job, it's O.K. to take a job that isn’t ideal, as long as there's something about the position that could lead to another, better opportunity down the road. It's also fine if it's something a little unconventional. “I always tell my clients to take the job that's going to make people lean forward and say, ‘Tell me about that!’” she says.
Long before becoming a successful psychologist, Jay was an Outward Bound instructor, which her future interviewers found cool. “I was actually the only person in my graduate school class at Berkeley who didn't go to an Ivy for undergrad, but with Outward Bound in my pocket, I didn't need the Ivy distinction," she says.
She too, went through a 20-something period of being "underemployed," but made a point of upping her identity capital by choosing such an interesting part-time gig. If you need to make ends meet as a nanny or barista for a time, fine, but also try to find a way to get more high-profile experiences on your résumé. As she writes in her book, no one will start off an interview with, "So tell me about being a nanny."
Myth 3: You can do anything you want.
Before you get stars in your eyes, you should be realistic about your skills and goals. “Sometimes people get in their 20s and hear, ‘Oh my God, you can do anything you want in the whole wide world!’” Jay says. “That's overwhelming, and it's not true."
In her book, she discusses psychoanalyst Christopher Bollas' idea of "unthought knowns"—things we know about ourselves but forget or suppress, like a childhood dream of working with animals or an aptitude for physics that was abandoned post–high school. To keep from being overwhelmed by "endless" possibilities, put together a handful of concrete plans you could pursue, based on your unthought knowns.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider