What I learnt in my 30s

Just turned 30?

Welcome to club 30 LOL Where we are not to old to have fun but old enough to know when to stop.

Here we go guys, your life is waiting to begin.

Okay, I have been thirty for like hmm 3 to 4 years now. Let me officially say I am still a learner, but from what I have seen so far, a lot did change. I must say that I grew up. 

The time I turned 30, my baby sister Dr. Fay , I can't remember why said to me

"auntie you are getting old o" 

Ah! Okay I felt a bit of fear. I had a lot that I hadn't achieved in my 20's, things I thought I'd have achieved before 30.

Example, I had planned to get married at 22 years old and have about 6 beautiful kids before 30. I am super serious right now. 

It didn't happen. Just out of curiosity, how much of what you had high hopes for happened for you? 

My University Education didn't even happen as planned. 

Life did happen for sure. As most people would say.

I was wise in my 20's, I got wiser in my 30s. We all are wiser as we get older. 

Why? 

Your past experiences were necessary for the development of your consciousness and your consciousness is the most important for your existence as a human being. A person can apply knowledge from past experience to understand current issues in their life. Now the outcome can either be successful or a fail, either way you gain more experience for future use or for sharing. 

Welcome to another blog post for the confident woman who has just clocked the big 30. 

As always, I like to write from personal experience and share advice for other young women who like myself is a learner.

Let me share with you five things I have learnt in my 30's.

It's okay if life didn't go as planned

I had the dream to get married at 22 from when I was 18. I know my math, thank you very much. I calculated, i'm done with senior secondary school and I wanted a 4 years course. So by the time I was 22, I would be done with University, hopefully within the period would have found Mr Right ( I was young and I read a lot of romantic novels)🙈.

 

Oh boy, was I disappointed? Yes! At a point i was thinking I was unfortunate and my mother  cautioned me to be patient since ever since. 

She noticed this girl was hungry for so much I guess. 

We all have this huge hunger for greatness. Hunger for a smooth sail (who doesn't?). For some it could have been a smooth sail 

( please email me, your experience and we could learn a thing or two).

If it was a not so smooth sail and you safely weathered every storm some how. Kudos!!! 

Most had a strong support structure in family, good friends, a spouse, faith etc. 

Now, some did not really have any one to lean on and they made every mistake one can think of in their 20's. 

Please let us all clap for ourselves. Making mistakes in life (not deliberate mistakes) are just great, not learning from it is not so great. 

Now, it is okay if your experience in the last decade of your life was not so great ( based on your own judgement). 

The good news is that every new day is a chance to try again or to dream. You did not get a masters degree before you clocked 30 as you wished? Didn't get married before 30 as you wished for? Yet to own a business as you had planned? 

Ask yourself this, who set those timelines? You, right? See in project management when a project manager don't meet a project deadline, they have a recap of how much work had been put in and how much more can be done and make a plan for a new deadline.

Realize that in life you can not get it all and be willing to make trade offs.

In this case, you are your own project manager, for instances where it is in your power to create a new deadline for completion, please do so and do the work. 

Always remember there is a necessary input from you, do the work. 

Q

#I realized in my 30's that, I am in my own timeline and it is not same as every other person's.

It helps to have an income 

When you are 30, mom and dad who were our primary providers expect us to have an income and start picking up the bills.  

Now let us take into consideration unforeseen circumstances like unemployment after graduation, no start-up fund, unfriendly environment for pursuing your dream etc. 

Some of us started picking up some or all the bills from our 20's. At 30 it was a lot easier to pursue at least one or more income streams. 

Remember what I said about the development of your consciousness over the years? If you sit back and recall from past experiences, you will see if you are the type to run a business or the 9 -5 type. Wait! there is also the type that pursues one or more side hustles. 

See, when you are 30, you sort of are more inclined to the pursuit for happiness, that is anything that gives you peace ( to some extent and for some). People start to discover what they truly have passion for at this time of their life. Notice so many in this age group pursuing something different from what they had studied in school. 

Seek and pursue that thing that sets your heart on fire.

You might even need to consider it this way... gain financial independence if you are yet to do so when you clock 30. You want to be able to take up some bills on your own even if you have some financial support from family, spouse or friends.  It helps to even have multiple streams of income.

An additional tip here would be to learn to live on a budget. Live within your means, it helps to maintain your sanity. This era of social media, you do not want to be called out for failing to give credit for borrowed item or for not paying up your debt.

# Financial freedom the best kind of freedom at 30

Save! Save!! Save!!!

Save toward starting a family if you already haven't started a family. Staring a business, going for vacation, buying a house etc. Life is full of rainy days, so save for the rainy days.

Someone once said if you are in debt of more than 10% of your gross income, that's a really bad situation. 

Earlier this year, I started considering health insurance contributions (lol). In 2018, I had a serious health challenge that gulped a lot of money from diagnostics tests, drugs, management of the situation to other logistics. My little savings came through then, Last year my savings came through for me when I had to pay for an extra year in my postgraduate course and that same year for my wedding. 

You do not want to run from pillar to post for when you have an unforeseen situation, at least have something no matter how little to fall back on. At 30, you want to be thinking about mutual funds, bonds, real estates, business investments etc. as ways of preparing for the future. You see at 30, the future is nigh. 

It can never be too late to start saving. Some were lucky enough to be really smart and begin saving in their 20's. I am writing to those of us that weren't so lucky to take these things serious early enough.

I will share a link to some great resource for saving on this post real soon, please bookmark this post.

# My advice would be to make a genuine effort to save at least 10% of your daily, weekly or monthly income one way or the other.

Your health is priority now

Have you ever heard older people say they wished they had exercised or eaten better when they were younger? I have!

At this point of your life, you are very very active and the clock will start ticking fast ( I don't know why though). 

At this point exercising should be part of the daily, weekly or monthly agenda. In my 30's, I have exercised more than I would have ever in my entire life ( ahahhahah).

When I was in my 20's as a programming student, I would stay up through the night to write code for coursework or practice with just few hours of sleep and still have to work or attend lectures. 

Now, I just cannot. Anytime I try to stay up at night, I can not get over the feeling of fatigue until after many days of rest. It just does not feel the same, I am till in the process of working up a more balanced sleep and late night study schedule.

Having tensed up muscles here and there and I am like seriously...

What I am trying to say here is that since I turned 30, I have come to see that it helps to maintain a healthy lifestyle. 

# See, make eating healthy, sleeping better, exercising and reading your body's language top priority. Healthy living should definitely be top priority for all ages, but when you are 30 you begin consciously want to live longer ahahahhaha

Know when to give people a good distance

Learn to avoid people who give you negative vibes. I can give you a good distance when I sense the slightest negative vibe. No matter who you are to me, family, friend or acquaintance. I can avoid you for making a sly remark. 

Some of us can easily be torn apart by words. People do not understand that they must be careful  not to hurt others by the words they speak. 

As I grow older, I have learnt to smile and even apologize  when I have been offended. I have learnt to speak up when I feel slighted, I do not want to have to carry the burden of resentment inside of me. 

That is not healthy. It helps also to know where to draw the line in the way you react to people with bad vibes or bad words. I used to easily give in to being put in a rage trying to fight back a negative vibe. People then safely misjudge you to be an angry person. 

I have learnt that it really is not worth the energy. I just slowly implement the safe distancing measure and interact from a safe distance or not at all. 

But you will notice a detachment as time goes on. No one should be in an environment where there is a really bad vibe.

the thing with bad vibes, is that it can mess up your peace and your journey to your destination. 

Learn to safely set healthy boundaries and dedicate your time to better people. I am still in this process of maintaining a safe reaction to bad vibes. Just walk away.

# Do not keep people who treat you badly for any reason what so ever. A spouse, relative, friend, colleague etc. Know what to react to, know how to ward off negative energy and know when  give a safe distance. 

Nothing, I mean absolutely nothing beats your mental wellness at 30.

You can never outgrow learning

Ever heard the phrase " Never stop learning"?

 

Life is a continuous learning process. Every stage of person's life you learn something valuable for the next phase of life. 

Be open to learn new things, new ways of doing things, new technologies, new ways to become wealthier, healthier and productive. 

Learning must not be done within a walled environment, it can happen in a conversation, on the digital space, within a religious space etc. Always be ready to know something new.

It helps if you have to do a top up course as it relates to your career, business, faith and family. 

It would be abnormal not to talk about the new normal at some point in this post. We all know that the workplace and the world in general is experiencing a transitional period, how prepared are you for it? 

Like me, do you still believe you are the leaders of tomorrow? I still believe in that shit.

You have to prepare yourself well enough to be better positioned for the new era. It came upon us like a thief in the night. It helps to set your priorities right. A lot of us spend over 5k for our internet subscriptions monthly. How much of it is dedicated to learning? 

Let me be straight, you really got a lot of growing up to do if all you use the internet for is entertainment with no consideration for learning. 

Big up and learn to prioritize your time and agenda.

Do you know how much free resource is available on the internet for different subject areas? 

In class, I used to be ashamed to raise a hand and ask my question. I used to think it was just another stupid question. On the internet, there are no stupid questions, just ask google. As long as you know the right keywords to use.

By constantly learning, you are developing your consciousness. 

# By learning, you are growing and expanding your possibilities in life. At 30, you need to feed on the right information for your journey through life.

Be kind to others and your family

Being kind is a reflection of your well-being. Okay, I have learnt in my 30's that people who are not kind or are mean are only emitting their own realities. This I learnt from a friend in her late 20's. I felt hurt at a time by someone and this friend of mine on knowing how I felt said to me " try to ignore this feeling because it might just be as a result of other people's realities (insecure in this case)" . It took me some few months to process this and understand the deeper meaning. I have learnt to apply this in reacting to meanness. 

In the world today, there is a lot of depression and suicides. You do not want to be the reason why someone is feeling the need to quit trying. As you grow old, you want to create worthy memories with people. You want to start impacting others the best way possible.

Always understand that people are fighting battles you might never be able to understand (we all are, you included). Have you ever shown kindness? Can you describe the after feeling? Can you say it is a feeling that can make one feel fulfilled?

Spend time with family and loved ones, in especially good company. You can never underestimate the value of good company. It is time to start considering relationships with your aging parents, siblings, other relations, spouse, children, friends etc. consider investing in the right people, for the sake of the future. Think about it this way, you can only keep fetching from a drinking jug where you once poured water inside. 

Make family time a necessary part of your life, you do not want to say you wished you did and didn't.

# Whilst trying to be kind to others, remember to be kind to your self also.

Find God

Whether you are Christian, Muslim or any of the other faith this is the time you want to seek for God yourself if you already hadn't. The problem we have in religion today is that we have not taken time to understand God personally. If we did, a lot of lies will be avoided and the world could be a better place.

At this time of your life, you might need to start walking in line with your life's purpose or are on the path to finding it. You can know your life's purpose when you are in a better relationship with your maker. He alone knows the purpose for which he has created you right? Yeah!

In God you can understand the principles that guides so many of life's occurrences. You would learn patience, love better, show kindness and others virtues necessary for life.

I learnt in my 30's the importance of seeking to know your purpose before making major life's decision such as marriage, friendships, business and financial commitments. If you are yet to make these major decisions in life, now would be the right time to be in pursuit for knowledge of your life's purpose. 

Do not worry that you are losing time, there is no set timeline for you to get married, own a successful business or have kids. If you think about these things carefully, you'd find that every individual have been set on their own course in life. And it is under the influence of a higher power. 

# Develop a relationship with God, it is necessary for a balanced journey though life.

Take care of you

Now, no one will do it better for you.

I learnt that in my 30's. I have always loved to celebrate any of my wins when I was younger. I still do but will better understanding (Hallelujah). I could buy an outfit, go out for a well-deserved meal or go clubbing. Now, I can easily celebrate a win on a budget and still have the satisfaction. This does not mean you cannot go all out if you have the means.

Take care of your skin, hair (I am not very good at this), wardrobe, car, house etc. Eat healthy, exercise, meditate, sleep, hang out sometimes, go to the spa and get pampered.  Go shopping. 

# Remember your mental health is priority. You cannot take care of others if you cannot take care of your self.

Being 30 is still fun, just start to prioritize the important things now. 

You are a big girl

It's okay to feel like you are not getting right, I feel that way almost every time, the truth is no one really is all the time. If you have some one who tells you they get it right all the time, then run as fast as you can. 

they are lying and it can mess you up real bad, it's still okay to make mistakes in your business, relationship, finance etc. although very costly but learn to avoid it.

Be more intentional and at the best of your conscious state as you are 30.

I am still 30, still learning on the go, making memories along the way.

I am still yours sincerely,

Enjoy 30 baby girl, the best is yet to come ( whips hair and walks away)