10 career lessons for your twenties.

You will have work friends. And work enemies. Hold them both close; the friends for laughs and enemies for motivation. 

You will have one big memorable fuck up. Whether it’s a typo on packaging (me, eep), costing the business a load of money or getting hate from the internet. There will be a mistake you never forget. Best course of action? Message all your friends and get them to share theirs, too. You won’t feel alone and will even laugh about it (eventually).

Get comfy with speaking your ambitions out loud. Even the big, hairy, scary ones. The more you say them, the more they start to sound like promises to yourself and eventually, you'll fulfil them. Having a great manager helps too, and I’ve been lucky to have a perfect streak. Seek out women in leadership.

You don’t have huge responsibilities. Sometimes this feels like a frustrating lack of trust or belief in your skills. But lower stakes = more creativity. Try shit, make mistakes, brush it off, be better the next day. Once you have more seniority, you won’t feel as free to screw around. And screwing around is where the magic happens.

Enjoy being easily frugal. Lifestyle creep is real. Seek out happy hours and pub specials. Stop buying lunch. Don’t feel the need to go full bougie yet. If you go to all the best restaurants in your twenties, where the hell will you go to celebrate the huge exciting milestones coming your way?

You will function totally fine after midweek drinking or a festival weekend. Cherish this. You will also learn to take an extra day of leave post-holiday to settle back in. Calling in sick is noticed. 

You will freak out at age 25 and again at 28. These are good ages to shake it all up. Travel, move house, change roles, start a new hobby. Life will feel unstable anyway, you might as well embrace the chaos and take the wheel.

You will have the urge to pretend you’re older than you are. Don’t. You’ll never be this age again and there’s value in your voice. People will ask you to speak for all young people. Be ready with a nuanced answer. 

You will have at least one big fork in the road moment. A decision that will change the trajectory of your career. Don’t follow the dollars or the expectation of the norm. Follow your gut. End up somewhere you never expected. It’s more fun that way. 

You will question whether you’ve made any of the right decisions. You’ll reckon with the reality of working 5 days a week for the next 50 years. You will doubt yourself, you will overestimate yourself, and you will uncover what you’re capable of. You’ll understand better who you want to be. And then you get to be them.