10 things that got me through my 20s (Part Two)

As I am turning 30 this month, I decided to look back at the key experiences and learnings that got me through the last decade. Part one of this reflection focused on the importance of living abroad, moving out, finding my passions, learning to cook and walking. But these five experiences, as profound and meaningful as they were, would not alone have gotten me through my 20s. I still had to go through another five groundbreaking moments:

#6. Self-acceptance

In my late twenties, I had the opportunity to take the Myers Briggs Type Indicator® instrument and it was like meeting myself for the very first time. I learned that I am an Introvert, and this was not an easy concept to grasp, not only because socially it has a negative connotation, but also because it seemed to represent a weakness at work. It took me a year to completely understand (and accept) myself. Learning from Susan Cain and Brian Littlehelped a lot. Eventually I realized that my preferences (namely preferring to do things alone or with one or two people I feel comfortable with) were as valid as any other. More, each of the four dimensions that composed my personality had its strengths. I just needed to learn how to make them work for me. Being an Introvert, I wasn’t fated to avoid people — I just needed to create the right conditions to be comfortable around them (for example, inviting a couple of friends over instead of meeting them at a 50-person dinner party). Looking back, I guess I learned how to be comfortable in my own skin by learning how to be comfortable around people.

#7. Reaching out to people

One of my major internal struggles during that year of learning to be an Introvert was to understand how I would be able to reach out to people while still respecting my individuality and not acting out of character. If you’ve read part one of this reflection, you know that I had already started connecting with people based on common passions and interests, like cooking. But I knew it was time to meet new people. So I seeked the advice of a senior Mentor who is also an Introvert. With her I learned that I could use something that was really natural to me (sharing my learnings and discoveries with people) to foster new relationships. It was just a matter of thinking outside of my circle of closest ties and proactively addressing people within my larger network to whom those learnings might matter. It was a small step but felt really good because I felt that I was adding value to their personal or professional endeavours just by sharing things that I happened to come across naturally, out of curiosity. Then, when I was comfortable doing this (and feeling the results through people’s feedback), I decided to take a step further. I elaborated on Susan Cain’s idea of socialization quota and determined that once a week I would actively seek for opportunities to meet or have lunch with people I felt some connection with but didn’t know that well yet. In the beginning it felt odd — I had never, up to that point, invited anyone that I didn’t know extremely well out for lunch. But what I came to understand was that the connection I intuitively felt was, in most cases, reciprocated, and conversations just happened to flow easily. So here I was, feeling good about getting to know new people instead of feeling like a social failure for sucking at small talk. And you know what? A 2010 study showed that well-being is related to having less small talk and more substantive conversations.

#8. Rethinking some relationships

The next step in building closer connections with people paradoxically involved rethinking some of my already existing relationships. As I grew into deeper levels of self-awareness, I started to feel out of context in some situations and around some people. If you’ve ever felt this way, you know it’s hard as hell. But it’s also pretty normal. It’s part of becoming an adult. You outgrow people. People outgrow you. And that’s true either if you’re meeting new people or not, so it’s not your fault, or theirs, or anyone’s really. People grow at different paces and eventually some will diverge into different paths. Also, the twenties introduced me to a brand new notion of time. I didn’t have afternoons to spare anymore. My free time was precious and I started to feel that I had to make choices as how to use it. To invest more on one specific interest, plan, goal, or person, I would have to reduce the time I was spending on other activities or with other people. Tim Urban portrays the kind of decision-making involved in this process in his “Does this friendship make sense graph”. He represents 4 types of friendship based on how healthy the relationship is and how much you enjoy it. Obviously, only the healthy and enjoyable type does what friendships are supposed to do, which is to make the lives of both parties better. As he puts it, “investing serious time and energy into those is a no-brainer long term life strategy”. Feelings don’t care much about strategies, though. So, again, this was hard as hell. But as I started reducing the time I was investing on unhealthy relationships, I immediately felt lighter. And, more importantly, I felt that the healthy relationships I more intentionally invested on evolved into deeper and deeper levels of intimacy and connection.

#9. Trying out new things

At some point during this self-discovery process I realized that life was starting to feel really good. I was pursuing my interests, I was more comfortable with myself, and I was surrounded by my people. My roots were finally strong and stable. So I felt it was time to step out of my comfort zone and try out new things. 2015 was a year of experimentation. I did a lot of different things — yoga, surf, drawing, creative writing… you name it. By doing that, I was testing my limits and getting to know myself better. I was also meeting new people without putting myself in uncomfortable situations — I was doing it just by exploring my interests a little further. But then came one of the most challenging experiences I had during that period: being on stage. At the time I was working in graduate recruitment and my Manager asked me to conduct a few job search workshops at some universities. I was terrified to do it. Again, the wisdom of Introverted Masters saved me. I learned and integrated Susan Cain’s lessons from her “year of speaking dangerously” and I reflected on Brian Little’s example to help me focus on my purpose. I was used to interviewing young graduates that didn’t succeed in recruitment processes because they were lost in the application black holes, as Liz Ryan calls the systems companies use to filter candidates. It was really frustrating to watch them fail due to rules that they simply weren’t aware of. But with these workshops I would be able to make it clear for them. I would go to their Universities and tell them all I knew about recruitment. It was not just a performance, I was delivering a message. And I’ve learned that, when I’m driven by purpose, I am able to transcend my fears.

#10. Writing

Ever since I was a child, writing has been my safe place. In my notebook, emotions run wild and thoughts seem to organize themselves. But, as most safe places, it was private. I had always been afraid of exposing what I thought was my most vulnerable side. During my year of experimentation, I decided to start publishing some of my writings. I did it because, after running the job search workshops, I felt that informing graduate students about the nuts and bolts of the recruitment processes was not enough to help them succeed. Most of them were simply not able to clearly understand who they were, let alone decide what to do professionally and take the necessary steps to do it. They were just not trained and used to do so. I started addressing the issue by sharing simple, instrumental advice (how to speak about your weaknesses in an interview, how to write about your hobbies in your resumé…). Since then I have been progressively moving closer to the roots of the problem by writing more about introspection and self-knowledge. What this last experience has taught me is that by allowing myself to feel vulnerable, I have also allowed myself to connect with people in more meaningful and profound ways than I ever imagined.

. . .

The 20s are, for most of us, a decade of uncertainty. We are not teenagers anymore but we don’t feel as adults yet. The world seems to expect us to have all the answers but we aren’t even sure what the questions are. We start to feel that we don’t belong in some places but we don’t know other places to run to.

For me, the 20s were a decade of experimentation. I tried as much as I could to just get comfortable under my own skin. I still have doubts, I still have fear, but I am much more self-aware and that gives me enough confidence to say that I still don’t know how, but I am sure these 10 experiences have paved the way for what is yet to come.