There is an unbelievable amount of life advice on the internet. Things you should know in your 20s. Things people wish they knew sooner. Rules that will supposedly change your life. Advice about dating, relationships, work, confidence, friendships, and basically every other part of becoming an adult.

I love this stuff. I love hearing advice, giving advice, and figuring out how it applies to whatever I'm going through at that exact moment.

But advice is weird because you can hear something one day and barely think twice about it, then hear the exact same thing six months later and suddenly it feels like it was written specifically for you. So much of whether advice actually helps depends on where you are when you hear it.

That's why I wanted to look at some of the life advice I keep seeing shared online and figure out what is actually useful. Some of it I completely agree with. Some of it sounds great until you try to apply it to your actual life. And some of it just needs a little more context.

The Only Person You Should Be in Competition With Is Yourself

This is one of those pieces of advice that sounds amazing until you actually try to live by it. Of course you shouldn't compare yourself to everybody around you. Of course you should focus on your own progress and your own timeline.

But your 20s might be one of the hardest periods of your life to actually do that.

You have friends getting promoted, moving to new cities, making more money, getting engaged, traveling, and seemingly figuring out exactly what they want to do. Then you open Instagram and see everyone else's lives, or LinkedIn and see a feed basically built around career accomplishments.

Even if you're happy with your own life, it's incredibly easy to look at somebody else's and wonder why you're not there yet. That's a feeling I explored more in Is It Normal to Feel Behind in Your 20s?, because feeling behind and actually being behind are two very different things.

Psychology Today explains that social comparison is one of the ways people evaluate themselves and their own progress, but frequent comparison can also contribute to dissatisfaction, guilt, and other negative feelings.

“You really don't know anybody else's story. You don't know what anybody else is going through or what they're feeling or what they're dealing with or how they feel about themselves or their situation.”

That's why I don't think the goal should be to never compare yourself to another person again. That's probably impossible. Instead, remember this when you catch yourself doing it.

You're seeing one part of somebody else's life and comparing it to everything you know about your own. You can notice what everyone else is doing without turning it into evidence that you're doing something wrong.

Celebrate Your Friends' Wins

Another piece of advice I found was to take other people's wins as if they were your own. I like the idea behind it, but I'd change the wording slightly: celebrate your friends' wins as big as you possibly can.

Your friend's promotion isn't your promotion. Their engagement isn't your engagement. Their raise isn't going to show up in your bank account. It's completely normal for somebody else's accomplishment to occasionally remind you of something you want for yourself.

But you can feel that and still be genuinely excited for them.

Congratulate them. Hype them up. Go out and celebrate. Make their accomplishment feel important. Being able to celebrate the people around you without immediately turning their success into a referendum on your own life is something worth getting better at.

Learn How to Spend Time on Your Own

I think this is one of the most important things to learn in your 20s because adulthood suddenly gives you a lot more time alone than you probably had before.

Growing up, you were constantly around people. You lived with family, went to school every day, and maybe went to college where your friends were always nearby. Then you graduate and suddenly there are random Tuesday nights where nobody has plans and weekends where there's nothing on the calendar.

At first, that can feel weird. You tell yourself you're going to clean your apartment, make dinner, watch that show, go to the gym, or finally get something productive done. Then suddenly it's 11:45 p.m. and you've spent five hours scrolling through TikTok.

But learning how to spend time alone isn't really about becoming more productive. It's about getting comfortable enough with yourself to figure out what you actually like and what you actually want.

“I think that's kind of one of like the gifts that the 20s grants us is that we get so much time on our own, and we can either look at it as like, my God, I have so much time, I don't know what to do at that time. I feel like lonely, I feel like a loser. Or we can take that time to like get to know ourselves and familiarize ourselves with what we actually like, what we actually want to do, what we want to see for ourselves, what we want to build in this life.”

That's really what this time is for.

What do you like when nobody else is picking? What do you want to spend your time doing? What kind of life are you trying to build?

Those questions are also at the center of How To Figure Out What You Want to Do With Your Life. There isn't a guidebook for any of this, and most people don't suddenly discover the answer all at once. You learn what you want by actually living, trying things, and paying attention to yourself.

Don't Stay Because You Don't Want to Hurt Someone

This advice was originally about relationships, but I think it applies to almost every stage of dating. Don't stay in something just because you're afraid of disappointing the other person.

One of the hardest things about dating is accepting that sometimes you're going to be the person doing the rejecting. You're going to go on a few dates with somebody who really likes you and realize you don't feel the same way.

If you've been rejected before, you know exactly how shitty that can feel. That should make you more thoughtful about how you handle it, not prevent you from doing it.

You don't have to ghost someone or be careless with their feelings. You can be honest, clear, and respectful. But continuing to date somebody because you don't want to disappoint them isn't actually doing them a favor.

The same is true in a relationship you know isn't right anymore. Staying might feel like the kinder decision right now, but delaying an ending you already know needs to happen usually just postpones the hurt.

Sometimes doing the right thing for yourself is going to disappoint somebody else. That doesn't automatically mean you're doing the wrong thing.

Why Be a People Pleaser If People Are Never Pleased?

This might be my favorite piece of advice from the entire list.

You can spend an unbelievable amount of time trying to make sure everyone likes you. You can say yes when you want to say no, avoid difficult conversations, change your plans to accommodate everyone else, and constantly worry about whether somebody is upset with you.

And after doing all of that, somebody can still be disappointed.

That's what makes people pleasing such an impossible task. You're trying to control something you don't actually have control over.

You can control how you treat people. You can be respectful, thoughtful, considerate, and kind. You can apologize when you mess up and try to make things right.

What you can't do is guarantee that everybody is always going to approve of you.

Your Happiness Is More Important Than Other People's Disappointment

This goes directly with people pleasing because at some point in your life, you're going to disappoint somebody.

You're going to turn something down. You're going to cancel a plan. You're going to leave a job somebody hoped you'd stay at. You're going to end a relationship. You're going to make a decision someone in your life doesn't completely understand.

That doesn't mean you should stop caring about how your decisions affect other people. Your happiness isn't an excuse to treat people badly. But there's a difference between considering somebody else's feelings and building your entire life around avoiding their disappointment.

“At the end of the day, we're gonna make mistakes. At the end of the day, we're gonna do something wrong or something that wasn't exactly what somebody hoped you were gonna do. And that is going to be in service of doing something that you think is better for you.”

Sometimes the thing that is right for you isn't the thing somebody else hoped you would do.

Both of those things can be true at the same time.

Good Manners Never Go Out of Style

Not every piece of life advice has to completely change the way you think about your future. Some of the best advice is incredibly simple.

Say please and thank you. Hold the door. Look up from your phone when somebody is talking to you. Make eye contact. Say hi. Be nice to the waiter, the person checking you out, the person working at your gym, and everybody else you interact with throughout the day.

I think we sometimes overlook advice like this because it isn't as exciting as something about finding your purpose or completely changing your mindset.

But the way you interact with people matters. How you speak to people is a reflection of who you are, especially when there's absolutely nothing you need from them.

We spend so much time trying to figure out how to become more confident, successful, interesting, or attractive that sometimes the obvious stuff gets lost.

Being somebody who treats people well will never go out of style.

Do the Thing You Think About Every Day

You probably have something in your head right now that you've been meaning to do.

Make the appointment. Send the email. Return the package. Make the phone call. Finish the application. Whatever it is, it's been sitting in the back of your mind for days or weeks.

Then you finally do it and it takes 10 minutes.

Those unfinished tasks are like having tabs open in your brain. Individually they might be small, but when enough of them accumulate, everything starts to feel cluttered. Sometimes getting one thing done makes you feel significantly better simply because you don't have to think about it anymore.

This is also where How Do I Stop Overthinking Before Something Big? becomes relevant. There comes a point when continuing to think about something stops giving you useful information and starts preventing you from moving forward.

But there's another version of this advice I like even more: do the thing you keep thinking about because you're excited about it.

Start writing. Make the video. Sign up for the class. Try the hobby. Start working on the idea you keep thinking about.

You don't have to turn every interest into your life's purpose. But if there's something you wake up thinking about, find yourself returning to throughout the day, and go to sleep wishing you'd made time for, it's probably worth paying attention to.

And Here's The Thing

The best life advice isn't necessarily something that completely changes your life the first time you hear it. Sometimes it's just something useful to have available when you eventually need it.

You're probably not going to stop comparing yourself to other people forever. You're not going to suddenly become immune to people pleasing. You're going to procrastinate again. There will be nights when spending time alone feels great and others when you wish you had somewhere to be.

That's part of it.

Maybe today the thing you need to remember is that somebody else's timeline has nothing to do with yours. Maybe you need to finally do the thing you've been putting off. Maybe you need permission to disappoint somebody. Or maybe you just need to look up from your phone and be a little more present with the people around you.

Advice hits differently depending on where you are when you hear it. You don't need every piece of it right now.

You just need the one that meets you where you are.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best life advice for your 20s?

Some of the most useful advice is to focus on your own timeline, learn how to enjoy time alone, stop making every decision around other people's approval, treat people well, and take action on the things you keep thinking about.

How do you stop comparing yourself to other people in your 20s?

You probably won't eliminate comparison completely. Instead, notice when you're doing it and remind yourself that you're comparing your full life to a limited view of somebody else's.

How do you figure out what you want in your 20s?

You don't need to have your entire future figured out. Try things, pay attention to what excites you, spend time on your own, and allow your interests and priorities to become clearer through experience.

How do you stop caring so much about what other people think?

Focus on what you can control: how you treat people, the decisions you make, and whether you're acting in a way you're proud of. You can't guarantee that everyone will approve of you.

What should you do when you keep thinking about doing something?

Take one concrete step toward it. Whether it's an annoying task you've been avoiding or something you're genuinely excited to pursue, action usually gives you more clarity than continuing to think about it.