12 Lessons from My 20s Building My Dream Life in London
I spent my 20s building my dream life in London. Here are 12 lessons I’ve learned that transformed my life.
1. Stop the self-pity and start the fight
In movies, there’s always that story where a hidden talent is discovered, and people help them shine, but real life isn’t like that. No one’s going to just spot you, save you, and make you rich and famous.
Nowadays, the competition is fierce, and too many people are trying to be a star, to win, to get ahead. The lesson I’ve learned is that if you don’t come prepared, you’ll be overlooked, not to mention all the biases and assumptions people already have of you. Your default state isn’t even the average, it’s down here, like if you put in effort, maybe you’ll get to the same level as others when they’re not trying, so you have to work harder as a minority.
You don’t even have time to self pity. You have to believe in yourself, advocate for your needs, and take control of your story. If you don’t, people will define your story for you, box you into stereotypes, seize opportunities that could have been yours, and walk all over you. Self-pity might feel good for a moment, but it doesn’t get you anywhere. You need to actively stand up for yourself and be yourself loudly to break out of those preconceived notions and earn respect.
2. Push boundaries and create your identity because now you can
When you’re abroad, it’s your chance to push boundaries and create your own identity. Back home, there’s often a set path because you’ve seen others follow it. But here’s the lesson: in a new country, it’s a blank canvas, the boundaries are there to push — in fact you’ve already gone outside it by being abroad — it’s your opportunity to be whoever you want.
Start by exploring different experiences and meeting new people to gather as much information about yourself as possible. Engage in diverse activities and conversations to open your mind to new ideas. Then, narrow down what resonates with you the most and define the main goals you want to achieve based on your new insights. Experiment with new habits, routines, and ways of thinking, testing these changes and gathering feedback from your experiences and the people around you.
Then, as you approach the end of your 20s, you’ll have all this knowledge of yourself, what works, what doesn’t, so you can make more informed decisions and shape your life in a way that feels the truest to you. Remember to make this work, you have to stay in the observer’s position and let yourself be without judging yourself and thinking you should be this or that.
3. Accept your starting point
Moving to London often comes with big dreams and grand ideas of who you could be. However, it can be painful to confront the reality that you might be wrong about most of these expectations. You realise you’re not inherently special, you make mistakes, bad mistakes, you hurt yourself and others, and sometimes when you fail at a goal, it’s simply because you aren’t good enough.
Accepting these truths hurts, but it will free you. You have nothing to hide anymore, you can just be yourself now, and the weight is lifted off. It also means you can stop wasting time asking why in disbelief and instead use that time to set realistic, meaningful goals and work backward from where you are. The sooner you accept where you are, the faster you can start making progress.
It doesn’t mean feeling inferior for not being closer to the finish line; it means grounding your goals in reality, which makes them more achievable. Embracing yourself will only make you stronger.
4. Understand your place in the world
As an Asian woman in London, I’ve learned an invaluable lesson that understanding what the intersectionality of my identity meant for me was essential. Intersectionality refers to how various aspects of a person’s social and political identities (like race, gender, and ethnicity) combine to create different kinds of discrimination and privilege.
Not everything I see or read will apply to me the same way it does to others. Some things that are easy for others might be hard for me, and vice versa. This understanding means recognising the unique opportunities and challenges that come with my identity and finding spaces where someone like me can thrive. It’s also helped me develop compassion for myself when things get tough. Of course, it’s hard, the default is that it’s hard. Anything I’ve done to make my life easier in this White world is the credit I must give myself.
5. Unlearn beliefs that don’t serve you
Growing up, we pick up a lot of ideas about how the world works from the people around us — parents, teachers, friends, and society in general. These beliefs can get really ingrained, shaping our behaviours, relationships, and well-being.
But not all of these ideas are good for us. For example, patriarchal beliefs might suggest that men are inherently more important or smarter than women. Women with internalised misogyny might undermine themselves and other women, putting men on a pedestal and trying to please them at their own expense. Because they’ve carried these beliefs for so long, they might not even question them and end up suffering as a result.
Luckily, moving to a new country and being exposed to different people, cultures, and backgrounds can create distance from the pressures and toxic norms of your birth culture and loosen their grip on you. Your job now is to open your mind to new ideas, perspectives, and ways of life, and not take the things you bring with you from your birth country as the default or set truths. Question why you have these beliefs, whether they serve you. If not, you gotta change them. Adopt new beliefs that do serve you and build your world in a way that aligns with those new beliefs.
6. Be compassionate and patient with yourself
In your early 20s, you might have self-awareness, but your brain hasn’t fully developed. You know what you should do, but you don’t always do it. This is why you need a lot of compassion and patience with yourself. You’ll gain more clarity with age and experience.
In the meantime, set some hard rules to avoid actions that can permanently impact your future and take calculated risks with an exit strategy. Plan for different scenarios.
7. Make it easier for what you want to happen
There’s this fantasy where people who aren’t looking for a relationship and put zero effort into being a healthy partner somehow meet the love of their life out of nowhere and have a happy ending. But in real life, if you do nothing, you won’t find anyone.
If you want a relationship, first, you have to admit to yourself that you want it, and then you need to work on yourself and create opportunities for it to happen, for luck to find you. The same goes for other areas of life, like your career. You need to put in the work to build a network, prepare for interviews, and strengthen your skillset.
You can’t expect people to choose you without putting in any effort to offer value back to them, and if they don’t choose you, it doesn’t mean they’re evil.
8. Your POV matters
As a minority in a new environment, I felt inferior and full of self-doubt. This led me to enter relationships and make decisions on other people’s terms, feeling like a fish trying to climb a tree as I measured myself against their standards. I had poor boundaries and struggled to make judgments for myself.
The most important aspect of maturing is to center your perspective, to see the world from your own eyes, not looking at yourself and judging yourself through the eyes of others. If you’re unsure if you’re right, don’t let others make decisions for you, as it will likely serve their interests, not yours.
So you must have independent opinions and critical thinking instead of blindly listening to others, assuming their perspectives. Go with something. Form independent opinions, make educated guesses. Establish a hypothesis based on what you know and then find evidence to prove or disprove it. That’s how you gain respect for yourself and build confidence in yourself.
9. Focus on You, Don’t Compare Yourself to Others
Everyone’s backgrounds and starting points are different, so there’s no fair ground for comparison. It’s not about whether you’ve achieved certain things by a certain age, but about how you can do the best for yourself being who you are.
You can take advice from others, but this is your life and your first time living it, so you’ll have to find the answers by going through it yourself. Your path and timeline will be unique because you’ll develop preferences and make choices that suit you.
10. Do first and make sense of it later
When you don’t know what to do, just do something. Don’t wait for inspiration. Inspiration will come. Don’t wait for meaning. You can create meaning later.
Life is meant to be lived forward and dots can only be connected backward. Keep going. Make those dots. Live your life.
11. Get good at relationships because there’s no way around it
I used to call myself anti-social and I always thought that it was me against the world. It was bad! There was no way around this. My life literally changed the moment I felt like I could embrace relationships and lean on other people around me. No one survives or succeeds entirely on their own. You must rely on others and develop strong relationship skills. And don’t get so hung up on the relationships that hurt you. They have taught you your lessons and now they’re gone. You can focus on the ones that advance you and add meaning and joy to your life.
12. Admit what you truly want and follow your own path
If you don’t achieve the dreams you set out for yourself in your 20s, you’re not failing; you’re just becoming who you really are. You don’t fail just because you don’t meet society’s expectations. Those expectations aren’t tailored to you or your unique circumstances.
Your job during this process is to challenge everything you thought you wanted at the beginning of your 20s and replace it with what you truly want as you evolve. Focus on what actually serves you and aligns with who you are becoming.
Have the courage to admit what you truly want and follow your own path.
