1. Build Your Professional Network. The average person would have met more than 4000* people through childhood and family, to education and work even socials and social media. The first thing you learn to do is socialise and communicate as a baby, you 'network' with play-mates and discover things you had in common.
By the time you hit your 20th birthday, turn your focus to building your professional network, comprised of people who are currently (or preparation to be) in the working world. Add just 3 people per week, and by age 25 you’ll have a professional network of nearly 800 people.
2. Serve for the Benefit of Others. I'm sure you've noticed that over the past decade or more society has evolved into a me-centric persona. We've become masters of the personal pronoun, haven’t we? Here's the real get-honest question: Does anyone who is me-centric ever truly feel fulfilled?
Fulfilment actually comes from serving (helping) others. You cannot deny the sense of purposefulness when you shift the focus of your life from all things self, to investing part of your life meddling with others. Ask any nurse, firefighter, teacher, parent or grandparent. The world out there is full of needs, so you won’t find the lack of opportunity to serve. Pick something you care about and serve with no expectations of anything in return. When you do that, you’ll become less selfish, more grateful for what you do have, and find the inner peace that comes from making a difference in someone else’s life.
3. Purpose to Be a Lifelong Learner. So I've always been told that nothing makes your day more than learning something new. You can ask literally anyone that is older and I'm sure they will tell you so. From a highly respected business and community leader, he believed 'every person in the world could teach him something'. Truth be told, most of us could learn something from everyone we meet. One of Granddad's favourite sayings: In life, just like a summer garden, you’re either green and growing, or ripe and rotting, and the choice is pretty much yours. Lifelong learning keeps you green and growing! (Obviously he said that in Chinese.)
4. Discover What You’re Really Good At, Then Do It. I reckon by the time you’re 25 you’ve accumulated anywhere between 500 and 1,000 skills, plus a few dozen God-given talents (hopefully). Your early jobs while in school, and perhaps the one(s) immediately following it, will have helped you to identify the ways that your skills and talents can be put to work. You’ve lived long enough to realise that when you do something for a living that you really don’t like, neither you nor your employer enjoy the results. Life is too short to be miserable. However, when you love what you do it really isn’t work at all…it’s an expression of your passion. It is only then that you’re at your most creative, and you never watch the clock. So let's all go find that dream job!
5. Know and Live Your Unshakable Values. We all do crazy things when we were young, in fact I still do. That is just a part of growing up. As we get older and more mature, we began to recognise the value and wisdom of limits, of respect and reputation, of trust and trustworthiness, and of doing the right thing even when it’s hard. We learned that saying it and doing it were two different things. Rudyard Kipling offers this incredible gem: Sooner or later each of us will sit down to a banquet of consequences, most of our own making. So by 25, having a well-defined set of unshakeable values, and living by them, can and will bring about a more pleasant life banquet.
This is actually only a small set of milestones; and I'm sure theres many more to add to the list. I guess we're all out there trying to make something off ourselves but lets start will the foreseeable future!
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