Young, wild and free. If you’re a woman who is in your twenties today, that pretty much sums up what you’ve done to your life so far. More time, fewer worries, dumb choices, carefree chatter, broken hearts, endless spending, it doesn’t matter. Time is on your side, or so they say.
Let’s see what you have when you’re a woman in your twenties:
Energy – Your body doesn’t last long. It withers away as all living things do. So feel free to grab every opportunity that comes by. Earn as much as you can and reach as many goals as possible. You won’t have as many by the time you’re 30.
Mistakes – Mistakes are what make us wiser. When you’re in your twenties, you can fail as many times as you want, but take it as a stepping stone towards success. By the time you’re 50, second chances are almost non-existent.
Time – You have plenty of time to do whatever it is that you want to do in your twenties. The problem is that you also have a plethora of choices. Think about the things that you want to achieve by the time you’re 60. Prioritize your activities based on them. You don’t have to sacrifice your youth doing those things. You just have to make way for them. Having fun while you’re still young is good, but being broke in the process is not an option.
These are just some of the most important things that you have as a woman in your twenties. If you want to learn more, below are the best self help books for women that you can find. Most of them are more than a decade old, but young women still read them today.
#5: Motherless Daughters: The Legacy of Loss, 20th Anniversary Edition
Author: Hope Edelman
Pages: 400
Publisher: Da Capo Lifelong Books; Third Edition, 20th Anniversary Edition edition (April 8, 2014)
Description:
Ask any woman whose mother has died, and she will tell you that she is irrevocably altered, as deeply changed by her mother’s death as she was by her mother’s life. Although a mother’s mortality is inevitable, no book had discussed the profound, lasting, and far-reaching effects of this loss–until Motherless Daughters, which became an instant classic. Twenty years later, it is still the book that women of all ages look to for comfort and understanding when their mothers die, and the book that they continue to press into each other’s hands.
#4: Inventing the Rest of Our Lives: Women in Second Adulthood
Author: Suzanne Braun Levine
Pages: 272
Publisher: Plume; Reprint edition (December 27, 2005)
Description:
New brain research is proving it: Women at midlife really do start to see the world differently. Some 37 million women now entering their fifties and sixties-a unique generation-are refashioning their lives, with dramatic results. They have fulfilled all the prescribed roles-daughter, wife, mother, employee, but they’re not ready to retire. They want to experience more. Suzanne Braun Levine gives us a fun, smart, and tremendously informative road map through the challenging and uncharted territory that lies ahead.
#3: 20-Something, 20-Everything: A Quarter-life Woman’s Guide to Balance and Direction
Author: Christine Hassler
Pages: 256
Publisher: New World Library; First Edition edition (April 10, 2005)
Description:
The mid-20s through the mid-30s can be a time of difficult transition: the security blanket of college and parents is gone, and it’s suddenly time to make far-reaching decisions about career, investments, even adult identity. When author Christine Hassler experienced such a quarter-life crisis, she found that she was not alone. In fact, an entire generation of young women is questioning their choices, unsure if what they’ve been striving for is what they really want. They’re eager to set a new course for their lives, even if that means giving up what they have.
Hassler herself left a fast-moving career that wasn’t right for her and instead took the risk of starting her own business. Now, based on her own experience and interviews with hundreds of women, she shares heartfelt stories on issues from career to parents to boyfriends to babies. Yet she provides practical exercises, too, to enable the woman of today to chart a new direction for her own life.
#2: Ten Stupid Things Women Do to Mess Up Their Lives
Author: Laura C. Schlessinger
Pages: 256
Publisher: Harper Perennial (December 3, 2002)
Description:
10 Stupid Things Women Do to Mess Up Their Lives uses real-world examples from Schlessinger’s radio show and private practice to drive the message home. And the message is that our reticence to be bold and brave often makes us act like stupid, submissive victims. Once we muster the courage to take responsibility for our own problems and to tolerate the discomforts of risk, the possibilities for personal growth and joy are limitless.
#1: The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter–And How to Make the Most of Them Now
Author: Meg Jay
Pages: 272
Publisher: Twelve; Reprint edition (April 2, 2013)
Description:
Our “thirty-is-the-new-twenty” culture tells us the twentysomething years don’t matter. Some say they are a second adolescence. Others call them an emerging adulthood. Dr. Meg Jay, a clinical psychologist, argues that twentysomethings have been caught in a swirl of hype and misinformation, much of which has trivialized what is actually the most defining decade of adulthood.
Drawing from a decade of work with hundreds of twentysomething clients and students, THE DEFINING DECADE weaves the latest science of the twentysomething years with behind-closed-doors stories from twentysomethings themselves. The result is a provocative read that provides the tools necessary to make the most of your twenties, and shows us how work, relationships, personality, social networks, identity, and even the brain can change more during this decade than at any other time in adulthood-if we use the time wisely.
