The Femme Files

Personal reflections on lessons learned, offering advice for younger women in their early twenties.

Being self-deprecating seems to be a common occurrence for teenage girls. It can be difficult to feel positively about your changing body-at least in my case. While starting your twenties doesn’t stop your body from changing, in-fact sometimes it changes more dramatically, your mind does start to change along with it. Catching up with yourself is difficult, but here are some things I wish I knew to help me process the transition from teens to twenties.

1. Being active really is important

I used to think the health kick was some sick joke made up to belittle those who preferred being a couch potato. It wasn’t. It doesn’t matter if you join a gym or just go for a long walk every day; you will really notice the benefits for both your mental and physical health.

Suddenly exercise felt beneficial, and without any form of exercise you may start to feel so unhealthy, which is insanely overwhelming.

Personally, I’ve always preferred spending time in bed over anything else, but after turning 21, it just causes me more pain than it’s worth. It just makes getting active again really hard.

2. Save your money!

Having a chunk of money in your savings will be the best thing you do, whether you dip into it for summer vacations or to treat yourself to that bag you’ve been eyeing up for years.

Drinking is fun, but it turns out to be a total waste of money. Sure, it’s fun on occasion, but stressing your body out with alcohol to go clubbing with people you probably never see outside of these environments is simply not worth it.

Getting into your twenties you get bored of these nights out and prefer a wine night in or a girl’s holiday- which can get very expensive very quickly.

All sorts of things can happen to you in this phase of your life. Its best to have a fall-back fund than end up calling your mum in a panic.

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3. Cutting people off is necessary sometimes

The best advice I can give you is to avoid getting attached, I know that’s hard, but you need to know when to accept who are bad for you and who are good. Don’t fear removing people from your life who wish upon your downfall or add nothing positive to your life.

Those ‘friends’ you only see when you go out, aren’t really friends are they? That one girl you live with that only appears in the group chat to moan about the bins or one cup on the side, isn’t really a friend, is she? You have got to know when to call time of death on some people.

People constantly come and go, and that’s the biggest thing to get comfortable with. Your uni friends may end up all over the country, your work friends may leave and find something better for themselves. There is no constant in this world.

4. Things will likely always work out in the end

If it’s not going well, it’s probably for a reason. Figure out what that reason is, address it directly and resolve it accordingly. I’ve come to realise what is meant to happen will happen, don’t stress yourself out too much about things. By no means does this suggest that you should just sit back and let bad things happen, but keep in mind that you are the master of your own universe.

If it is right for you, it’ll happen. If something doesn’t work out, you might have dodged a bullet.

5. Always put yourself first!

Honestly, it’s so easy to get into the young adult pipeline of always putting others first, your job first or your family first. Don’t get me wrong-it’s natural instinct to do this, but it’s your life at the end of the day. If you need to put your health before work, that’s completely valid and your job should understand.

This kind of ties into the cutting people off thing, if they’re bad for you, they shouldn’t get that luxury of being in your life. It’s as simple as that.

Always ask yourself, how will this benefit me?

I could honestly go on forever with this, but I won’t bore you. There are no right and wrong ways to get through your twenties, just always remember to stop and think before doing something.

Only do what resonates with you.