6 Mistakes You WillLikely Make BetweenAge 20-30 AS A YoungNigerian (A Must Read)

It is a general belief that experience is
the best teacher. As true as this may
sound, learning via experience has a lot
of disadvantages. It is expensive to
learn from experience. I learn as much
as possible from experience when life
forced it on me, but I rather prefer to
learn via evaluated experience by
studying those who have gone ahead of
me and learn from their successes and
failures.
After taking a deep observation of the
life of an average Nigerian, I discovered
that majority of people are likely going
to make the mistakes highlighted in this
article and most of them have no choice
but to live with the consequences when
they reach age 30. These mistakes
include:

1. Thinking you are too young to achieve
great things:Most Nigerian who are in
their 20s are still pursuing their tertiary
education, some will not even graduate
until they reach their late 20s. In your
20s there is this tendency to think you
are too young to pursue your dream.
You will often feel you don’t have
experience and that people won’t take
your seriously. This mindset will make
you defer some of the things that would
have speed up your success in life to a
time you feel you will be competent to
live your dream. The truth is that
thinking you are too young to live your
dream in your 20s is nothing but a
limiting belief. Once you reach age 18,
you are not too young to pursue any
dream except where a higher age is
required. People who made it big in their
30s started in their 20s. And if you are
just waking up at 30, then you will be
disappointed in yourself. You will regret
wasting those precious years of your
20s by the time you reach age 30.

2. Focusing your life only on academics:
In Nigeria formal education is overrated.
The reason for this is because we have
not been able to differentiate between
education and academics. The object of
education is to help you understand your
environment, and learn how to adapt to
it without constituting nuisance to
others. Education also empowers you
for success in every area of your life.
Academics on the other hand focuses
on certificates or degrees. A person
may have a degree but yet not
educated. However academics can help
to enhance one’s education.
The average Nigerian believe so much in
the power of certificate and all his hope
is bent on securing a good job after
graduation through this certificate. In
order to achieve this end, he tend to put
in all the possible efforts needed to get
good grades. It is important to note that
this formular of getting good grades to
ensure a good job is no more valid in
today’s world as we have graduates
with first class who are not employed.
In a situation where all your efforts was
put into getting good grades without
having a plan B for a situation where
your certificate does not give you your
dream job will only land you in regret,
depression and frustration, which is the
lot of so many Nigerian graduates
today. TRUE EDUCATION PREPARES
YOU TO SURVIVE WITHOUT YOUR
CERTIFICATE.

To avoid this mistake, as you pursue
your academic degrees, also find time to
acquire some or at least one vocational
skill. There are many of them out there
that can fetch you real money the
moment you become an expert. If you
have graduated from the tertiary
institution and you don’t have any
vocational skill yet, it is not too late to
acquire one.

3. Not working to earn an income: There
is this tendency for you to rely solely on
your parents for every dime you spend.
All you are exposed to is how to spend
money. This will put you in a position
where you don’t know how difficult it is
to make money. All you will have in
mind is, as soon as you graduate, you
will hit your dream job and you will be
able to do what your parents or
guardians are doing. This kind of
thinking is not always true. By the time
you graduate and your dream job doesn’t
show up and have no option but to take
care of yourself, then you will wish you
understood earlier how difficult it is to
make money. This period will be the first
time in your life when you will have a
genuine appreciation for all the money
your parents spent on you. If you are
currently relying on your parents for your
up-keep and still in your 20s, then I say
to you that you have not started living.
LIFE BEGINS THE MOMENT YOU
ASSUME TOTAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR
YOUR ACTIONS AND FOR EVERY DIME
YOU SPEND.

You can’t afford to just be
sitting at home eating, watching
television, and hanging out with friends.

Start doing something that can fetch
you money. It may be a paid
employment or personal business. This
will expose you to how difficult it is to
accumulate money. The moment you
know this by experience, you will begin
to appreciate money and become wiser
in the way you use it.

4. Thinking there is still time: Thinking
you still have all the time in the world is
one of the illusions of the 20s. You tend
to live your life carelessly and spend
your time on frivolities. However by the
time you hit 29, and moving towards
your 30th birthday, you will begin to
realize that you are no more a baby. You
will realize you have been sleeping all
this years if your achievement does not
measure up with your age. It would be
done on you for the first time that you
no longer have time on your side. At this
period you will wish you have done so
many things in your 20s which you felt
you were too young to accomplish.

5. Not equipping yourself with skills to
survive in the real world: If you are not
the discipline type, you will likely spend
your 20s engaging in frivolous activities,
which will prevent you from having a
grasp of basic skills needed to survive in
the real world. Some of them include,
ability to save money for a project,
empathy, understanding, ability to delay
gratification, and so on.
Also Young Nigerians who are
academics oriented may end up
spending their 20s pursuing only degree
without any practical vocational skill
that can guaranteed them job after
graduation. When the dream job doesn’t
show up, these youths tend to end up
being underemployed, doing job they
hate out of no choice.

TRUE EDUCATION PREPARES YOU TO
SURVIVE WITHOUT YOUR CERTIFICATE.

To avoid this mistake, as you pursue
your academic degrees, also find time to
acquire some or at least one vocational
skill. There are many of them out there
that can fetch you real money the
moment you become an expert. If you
have graduated from the tertiary
institution and you don’t have any
vocational skill yet, it is not too late to
acquire one. If you look around you, you
will notice that most of the people who
are making real money are not
necessary those who are working with
their certificates, but those who have
answers to the problems of people
around them. Beside your certificate
what problem can you solve for people
and get paid for? If you don’t have an
answer, it is high time you identify major
problems of the people around you, and
proceed to acquire vocational skill that
can empower you to provide answer to
such problem. The more problem you
can solve, the more your capacity to
make money. In zig ziglar’s word ‘’you
will have all that you want if only you
can help enough other people to get
what they want
.’’ ONLY PEOPLE WHO
DON’T HAVE SOLUTION TO OTHER
PEOPLE’S PROBLEMS DIE IN POVERTY.

6. Not reading enough books: It has
been said that if you want to hide
something from an African, hide it inside
a book. This tells about how poor our
reading culture as Africans is. One of
the major problems the average Nigerian
will make in his 20s is not reading
enough books. We are all born into this
world without a manual, all that we
know and that we will know are all
products of learning. The 20s is a time
of preparation for the future ahead and
reading good books will definitely assist
you in your preparation. Reading good
books will expose you to the life time
investigation of those who have gone
ahead of you. Learning from their
experience is the best way to learn.
Reading good books will enable you to
begin from where previous generation
left off. It is important to note that
every form of success has its own
governing principles. Books will expose
you to the principles that govern the
kind of success you desire. As an
African most of the things you were
indoctrinated to believe while growing
are myths, only reading and critical
thinking can help you flush those
erroneous beliefs out of your mind. If
you don’t read enough books in your
20s, then you are an accident waiting to
happen. Every youths in his 20s is
expected to have a full grasps of the
principles that govern money ,
relationship and success generally.

This can only be achieved by reading books
that teach the principles governing
them. There are millions of them out
there. I want to suggest here that as a Nigerian in your 20s that if you have not
read the books I am going to list below
or the ones related to them, then you
are probably not ready for life. The
books include the following: Think and
grow rich by Napoleon Hill, 7 strategies
for wealth and Happiness by Jim Rohn,
The richest man in Babylon by, Rich dad,
Poor dad by Robert Kiyosaki, Why you
act the way yo do by Tim Lahaye, 7
habit of highly successful people by
Stephen covey, The science of getting
rich by Wallace wattle, From poverty to
power by James Allen, As a man
thinketh by James Allen, Acres of
diamond by Russell Conwell and many
more. These suggested books contains
timeless truth of how things work in this life and reading and acting on the
content will help save you from so many
mistakes you would have made in life if
you have not read them.