What You Should Do With Your Life Between Age 16 – 33
https://www.etonline.com/sites/default/files/images/2015-03/1280_et_flashback_celinedion_033015.jpg )
What you’re seeing was the 22-year-old, energetic, beautiful Celine Dion
And just three decades later, here is the queen of music (https://hypelifemagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Celine-Dion-anorexic-cause-revealed.jpg )
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjWFnnC7edI
This was February 20, 1976.
Muhammad Ali and Jean-Pierre Coopman fought a boxing match in which Ali knocked Coopman out in the 5th round.
Ali was the King of boxing at this time. He was the greatest.
But just 20 years later, here’s Muhammad Ali (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80wMMFAcweQ ), fighting so hard just to raise his hands.
How come the greatest boxer in the world who has beaten the strongest of the strong ended up not being able to kill a fly?
It’s called life.
It goes so fast.
We lose our physical strength within a few decades.
We lose the strength of our minds and senses too.
So in this article, let’s look at;
The Advantages of Being Young
How Most Young People Waste Their Youthfulness and
What You Should Do With Your Life Between the Ages of 16 & 33
The Advantages of Being Young
There’s a popular tale about some Eagles.
It happens that when these Eagles are 40 years old, their long and flexible talons can no longer grab prey which serves as food and since talons and beak are critical to eagles’ ability to catch and consume food, the eagle would fly to a mountain top and sit on its nest to get rid of its weak talons.
When the eagle grows new talons about 150 days later, the eagle starts a new life with new, strong talons.
While the above story is not scientifically proven, you get the point.
Every animal and human does their best works when they’re young.
On Monday, 27th of January, 2020 Express.co.uk published this study (https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/life/1234225/age-ambition-life-peak )
It’s a study of 2,000 adults led by Dr. Naveen Puri as commissioned by Bupa Health Clinics to mark the launch of “I Quit”.
In this study, Dr. Naveen and his team found that age 33 is the time most humans reach the peak of their life’s motivation and drive.
Starting from age 34, most humans start giving up on life.
This might have something to do with the concept of Neuroplasticity (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroplasticity ) which essentially means that our brain becomes more rigid as we age.
Jay Giedd of the National Institute of Mental Health and his team discovered a similar thing with this study of 4,000 people which started in the year 1991 (https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/brainwaves/the-neuroscience-of-twenty-somethings/ )
According to this Scientific American article (https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/brainwaves/the-neuroscience-of-twenty-somethings/ ) even though your brain would continue changing all your life, the most developmental changes would happen when you’re still young
As we grow old, we start to be less curious.
We become more risk-averse.
We start accepting more and more of the world, instead of kicking against the status quos.
And, that’s the problem, which is the reason why you should get serious with your life as early as possible.
How Most Young People Waste Their Youthfulness
According to this study (https://www.wvea.org/content/teens-spend-astounding-nine-hours-day-front-screens-researchers ) which was published by the West Virginia Education Association, most teenagers spend between 6-9hrs each day with one form of screen or another; video games, social media, TV, and movies.
In April of 2016, independent.co.uk published this article (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/young-people-are-bunch-time-wasters-who-spend-hour-daydreaming-every-day-says-research-a6983676.html?amp )
It’s a study of 2,021 people between the ages of 18-35 and it was conducted by the British Army Reserves.
What this study found is what you already know;
An average young person spends more than two hours on the sofa each day, maybe in front of the TV or Netflix.
He spends nearly one and half hours gaming and more than an hour daydreaming.
This study also found that social media was a huge time waster for the younger generation, the average member of which checks their various pages around seven times every day.
Despite this absolute disregard for time, many of the same young people say they have big ambitions they want to achieve.
BUT HOW?
How can anyone achieve a worthwhile goal if they don’t invest their time wisely?
What You Should Do With Your Life Between the Ages of 16 & 33
Ok, what then are you supposed to do with your life when you’re young?
In a simple two-letter sentence; GET SERIOUS.
Let me repeat that.
Get serious with your life when you’re young because the older you get, the fewer mental and physical strengths you’ll have to pursue your goals.
Let me explain with a personal story.
When I was age 17, I started reading books about life, money, and success.
At that early age, I discovered that people who succeed in life almost always go through years of difficulties before they have their breakthroughs.
Knowing this as a fact which I couldn’t run away from if I wanted to succeed, I decided to pay my price as early as possible.
My dream was to become a successful entrepreneur, so I looked for and read every single book I could find about people who have built successful businesses.
I stopped watching movies, soccer, or sit around arguing with friends.
I prepared myself as though I was going to war.
And when I was 21 in the year 2008, I went fully into the business world.
As I had predicted before I stepped out, it was a painful journey.
I made tens of mistakes and failed for 8 years.
But then, in February of 2016, I discovered a business idea that would end up changing my life.
I built my first successful company and every other thing after then is the life I had ever dreamed of.
Now, this is where I’m going with this story;
Today when I meet people who are my age mate and I tell them that they need to pay some difficult price before they could achieve financial freedom or anything they want, these people usually don’t have any zeal to do it.
They’re 35 and 40.
They’re less curious.
They are risk-averse and most importantly, they have many financial responsibilities and bills to pay, so they can’t afford to try anything silly.
This 2008 study by the Journal of Managerial Psychology confirms just that (https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/02683940810861392/full/html )
Now you see the problem?
The older you get, the more difficult the road to success becomes because of the less zeal, strength, or willpower you have.
Just as 27-year-old men have a better chance at succeeding in running marathons than 47-year-old men (https://www.podiumrunner.com/training/best-age-running-marathon/ ), the earlier you get serious with your life, the easier it is to succeed.
Now let me make something clear
This video is not to discourage people who are in their 50s or to make older people think it’s too late for them.
Instead, I intend to get young people serious about life as early as they can.
Now that you’re 16 is the time to step out and try something.
Make mistakes and learn how to do things better.
Now that you’re 18 is time to stop expecting your parents to build your life for you.
Step out.
Try something.
Make mistakes and fail.
You’ll learn and grow.
If you’re 21 or 25 watching this video, don’t push your dream to the future.
Go and get biographies of the people who have achieved what you want to achieve.
Learn from them the kind of prices they paid to be who they are, then, step out.
Stop being too careful.
Face your fear.
Step out!
Dare life!
Make mistakes and fail now that you’re young because a time is coming when you’ll lose all your youthful strengths
Remember where I started this article;
This is Muhammad Ali in February of 1976
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjWFnnC7edI editor should show the first fight alone and show the knockout without voice).
And Muhammad Ali 20 years later, 1996; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80wMMFAcweQ
Your physical strength and mental power, zeal, and energy are all like drugs.
Your youthfulness has an expiring date.
If you don’t use that drug now, it would expire very soon.