How to stop your 20s & 30s from sabotaging your 40s & 50s with Jemma Sbeg | Future Self Series Ep.2

Hello, everybody.

I'm Jemma Sbeg.

Thank you so much, Grace, for passing over the mic.

I'm thrilled to be one of your cover teachers for this Future Self series.

If you are a longtime follower of Working Hard, you might recognize me from previous episodes I've done with Grace or my own podcast, The Psychology of Your 20s, now on Netflix.

I'm also the author of Person in Progress: A Psychological Guide to Your 20s, and I run the Study of the Week series on Substack, where we break down academia into simple terms.

I've spent the past five years diving into basically every single piece of research there really is to know about our 20s, how to make decisions, how to avoid regret, and whether there is a right way to live out this decade, and I wanna share it with you.

I've also made some rather big life choices in the past five years, like quitting my corporate job, moving countries.

So today, I wanna give you all of that information to help you identify what you want, when to act, and how to trust you are making the right, but crucially, the most brave decision for your future self.

As we move through module one, we are getting much clearer on that future roadmap we are building for ourselves, that concept which Grace introduced at the very start of the series.

This will give us the tools to reverse engineer our dreams into reality and hopefully make our 30s and our 20s that little bit easier.

So grab a pen, grab a piece of paper or your notes up, whatever you need to follow along, and let's get into it.

So this is how this episode is gonna go.

I'm gonna give you three reasons why we struggle to make decisions.

I'm gonna break down some research on the best risks to take in your 20s, and we are gonna finish with three exercises you can do today to give you more clarity.

And hopefully, you will finish this episode and know what leap you need to take.

Secretly, I think you already know.

I think that's why you've tuned into this episode.

But hopefully, what we talk about will just solidify it all for you.

Let's begin with the three biggest psychological barriers we face when making or contemplating a big life decision.

The first is equal part psychological, equal part physical.

It is the tension between practicality and passion.

Sometimes we have the calling part, and we have the inspiration to act or the desire, but we are held back by concerns around money, around disappointing others.

We are held back by time, by location, by obligations.

Finances in particular are a big one.