Most people in their 30s will make these fatal errors (including you)

When I was approaching the end of my 20s I was crazy unhealthy, mentally, physically, and spiritually.

Fast forward to now. I’m 38 at the time of writing this, and my life is the opposite of what it once was.

Compared to ten years ago, I’m now much healthier physically, cognitively, and psychologically. Rather than working the traditional 9-5 job which made me feel like my natural curiosities were going untapped, I work for myself. Rather than feeling stuck in my hometown, I live on a totally different continent.

I attribute all of this to a very small few, yet highly impactful, lifestyle adjustments made in my 30s which caused me to luckily avoid falling into common traps that quietly ruin so many people’s lives.

So, if you are approaching your 30s, or even if you are in your 30s now, and you want to live the best life that you possibly can, then read closely because in this essay I’m going to give you what I believe are three fatal errors that people make during this most important decade of their lives.

And if you are aware of these mistakes, then you’ll be in much better position to avoid making them as well, and you’ll set yourself up to enjoy a life that most people will only ever dream of living.

With that said, Your thirties is the decade where life equalizes itself.  Whatever advantages or disadvantages you started your life with become far less relevant, while your habits, your lifestyle, and your mindset become the driving factors behind the trajectory that your life takes. 

“Our lives are fashioned by our choices. First we make our choices. Then our choices make us.” —Anne Frank

Whether you were born into poverty or affluence, in your thirties, it’s your work ethic and your financial habits that will make the difference between a life of financial freedom, or being financial indebted.

Whether you have amazing or terrible genetics, it’s in your thirties where your diet and your lifestyle catch up to you. You’ll either unlock optimal physical, mental, and spiritual health, or you’ll be firmly locked into a trajectory of sickness and decline.

Whether you had the privilege of going to an elite college or you had to claw your way up from the bottom, it’s the degree of intention that you’ve lived with that determines whether you feel genuine fulfillment in life or you feel like something deep down inside is missing.

The average person in their 40s is about 20 lbs heavier than they wish and they’re facing the early onset of preventable chronic diseases. They’re embedded in a system of financial debt and modern-day indentured servitude to pay off those debts. And they’re typically heading towards a mental health crisis due to the accumulation of unexamined life choices that finally come to roost.  

Usually by this time in life, it gets infinitely harder to make major life changes or course corrections.

The 1-Degree Mindset (creating the separation)

I believe in a philosophy that I call “the one-degree mindset” which means that when you show up for yourself every day, and you put in just one degree of extra effort, over time you  dramatically separate yourself from the average. 

“Small disciplines repeated with consistency every day lead to great achievement gained slowly over time.” — John C. Maxwell

Throughout your 30s, that 1-degree of separation creates a massive difference between you and the average person who, by the time they make it to 40, is on a virtually irreversible course towards a life a quiet desperation.

Knowing this, I asked Cerebrum-X to provide me with the three most fatal errors that people make in their 30s, and I want to share the results with you.  If you don’t know, Cerebrum-X is the customized Chat GPT that I created specifically for people like you who want to leverage the power of A.I. in your quest to start living life on your terms.

With that said, if you simply put in the extra 1-degree of effort in the three domains of life identified by Cerebrum-X, you will not only avoid making the three fatal errors that most people make, but you will create a massive separation between you and the average person of similar age.

Rather than becoming sick and overweight, you’ll be in the best shape of your life. Rather than living with the regret of dreams deferred, you’ll enjoy the satisfaction of knowing that you at least tried to live life to the fullest.  And rather than succumbing to the growing epidemic of superficial social connections, you’ll have bullet proof relationships with people who genuinely uplift you and encourage you to be a better person.

So let’s jump into the first fatal error that people make in their thirties which is…

Treating health like an optional side project instead of a full-time obligation

This one is the most tragic of them all.  Apart from rare circumstances, there is no reason why your health should be anywhere near the bottom of your priority list.

“To keep the body in good health is a duty" — Buddha

I don’t think I need to make a convincing argument that if you lose your health, then  you have nothing. The more health problems arise in life, the more they cause chaos and disruptions that make it increasingly difficult to enjoy anything else in life.

Just think about a time when you were very ill. Think about how debilitating it was, and how you probably had to put everything in your life on hold.  You probably wished for literally nothing else but to feel better again.

As people age, they lose muscle mass, their cognitive function declines, and their motor skills deteriorate, and with this deterioration comes the onset of a litany of health problems that you’d rather avoid to the greatest extent possible. So it is imperative that everyone does everything possible while they still can to fortify their minds and their bodies for the inevitable decline lurking around the corner.

In your thirties, your lifestyle catches up to you.  It becomes evident who is going the extra degree, and who is making the fatal error of putting their health on the backburner. And if you make the same mistake that so many other people make, then you automatically disqualify yourself from enjoying the optimal life experience.

Despite this being THE most optimal time to get this area of life in order, most people go the opposite direction.  They get consumed by the societal narrative that says they’re supposed to prioritize driving corporate profits and live a consumerist lifestyle at the expense of their health.

Just look at how many people work to the point of burnout or end up with depression and anxiety as a direct result of their work.  Look at how many people adopt terrible eating and sleeping habits and live sedentary lifestyles because they “don’t have time” to take care of themselves.

For people who are working just to make ends meet, that’s one thing.

But in my social circles most people are relatively high earners, making way more money than is necessary to survive, and they find time for happy hours, sporting events and entertainment, vacations, etc., but somehow they don’t have time for health and fitness.

So if this is you, at some point you’ve got to factor in the deleterious effects of neglected health for every extra hour of work and for every extra dollar earned beyond what is necessary for survival.

For me it was around the age of 28 when I made a conscious decision to do the opposite of what so many others were doing. Health did not just become a thing that I fit into my life. It became my priority, much more so than climbing the corporate ladder or accumulating material possessions. By being very clear about where my priorities lie, I was able to easily skip out on several very high paying job opportunities that would have required me to cross a non-negotiable boundary of sacrificing my health.

And I don’t regret it one bit.

In this age where obesity, high blood pressure, anxiety, ADHD, and many other issues, are running rampant in the western world, I thoroughly enjoy being almost 40 years old and not being on any medication.  At this age, I take pride in knowing that my body is in the best condition that it has ever been, that I am mentally and emotionally healthy, and most of all that I have very sharp mental faculties.

I honestly do not believe that everyone in my age group, late thirties, can say this for themselves.  And so if you are in your late 20s or early 30s, now is the time to make sure that your physical fitness, your cognitive functioning, and your mental health is near the top of your priority list so that you can also enjoy life to the greatest extent possible at an age when the people around you are starting to deteriorate.

When you do this you’ll have way more drive, mental clarity, and energy to focus on the aspects of life that bring you joy and fulfillment.

This is a good segue to the second fatal error that people make in their thirties, which is…

Becoming sedated by success

At this point in life, you begin to enjoy the comforts that you worked so hard to attain in your younger years.  While it is great, and necessary to enjoy the fruits of your labor, it is also a double-edged sword.

“Do not be complacent about your achievements… As soon as you let success go to your head, you sink into following familiar patterns and play it safe. In other words, you risk losing your edge.” — Roy T. Bennett

When you get comfortable, you start taking fewer risks, and you get complacent.  You get less hungry, and so you start to settle for suboptimal circumstances because they’re comfortable. In the process you give up on pursuing the things in life that actually give your life meaning and purpose.

This is what it means to be sedated by success, and this is a fatal error.

Your thirties is THE optimal time to do something significant in your life because at this stage you have the perfect blend of life experience, hard skills from 10 or so years of being in the work force (or higher education), and some degree of financial stability.  But most importantly, you still have time on your side, so you can royally f*ck things up and still bounce back stronger than ever.

This is the time to throw caution to the wind, and go after the lifestyle that you really want. Because if you don’t try in this time of your life, it will become infinitely more difficult to do so as the realities of aging catch up to you.

This is your opportunity to create a life where you can enjoy your Sundays without dreading Monday morning, or you can carry on through the week without waiting in anticipation for the weekend to finally arrive.

Despite it being the ideal time to grab life by the horns and create the separation, most people do the opposite. They conform to the median. Their lives converge to the average.  After years of schooling and working, most people become risk averse, and they take the predictable path. They start living not to lose, rather than living to experience the fullness of life and to give it 100%.  

During this period when opportunity to take control is glowing red hot, this is when most people double down on their status quo lives, thus cementing their future of mediocrity.

Rather than seizing the opportunity to chart a more fulfilling path in life that resonates, people tend to double down on lifestyles that are safe and predictable, but leave them constantly needing to escape.

Rather than pursuing ambitious business ideas, people take the safe route by staying shackled by the golden handcuffs for their entire professional career.

Rather than exploring life in different geographies where one may thrive, people tend to accumulate material possessions that weigh them down and prevent them from having geographic autonomy.

So by being super intentional about aligning your daily actions with your wildest dreams and ambitions, you set yourself up not only for a fulfilling life of which you will leave nothing on the table, but you also will create countless interesting moments in the process which will make your life anything but mediocre.

So, your thirties is the time to go the extra degree, to experiment with different ideas, and to leverage your skills, experience, and your YOUTH to build a life for yourself that exists outside the confines of the status quo.

It is the decade of life during which you must work to create the separation.

While career and life ambitions are important, I would be remiss to also mention the importance of relationships in one’s life. This leads me to the third fatal error that people make in their thirties which is…

Failing to ruthlessly curate your social circle

I think most people understand the notion that your relationships influence a significant part of your life. They play a huge role in shaping your perception of reality.  Who you spend time with determines how you see the world and how you see yourself.

But from my observation, people fail to fully take advantage of this concept. I’ve had many conversations with so many who have come to the realization that they have evolved, yet the people they’ve spent most of their time with in the past have not evolved along side them.  Despite this, they feel obligated to maintain connections with people simply because they’ve known them for a long time.

This is a terrible reason to keep people around in your life.

Curating your circle has three main components, which are:

1. Including the right people in your life

2. Removing the wrong people from your life

3. Nurturing deep connections with aligned people

The first part is the most straight-forward so I’ll go over it briefly, but it is imperative that you surround yourself with people who bring positive energy into your life.  Having the right people around you will inspire you to be better, generally.

"Associate with [people] of good quality if you esteem your own reputation; for it is better to be alone than in bad company." — George Washington

I’ve mentioned before that I had a lot of bad habits in life. But around the age of 30, around the same time I decided to take my health and fitness seriously, I started dating a woman who had very healthy habits.

She woke up at 5 am every day and worked out first thing in the morning, she cooked very healthy foods with fresh ingredients, and overall stayed pretty low key.  That relationship eventually ended, but it left me with a lot of healthy habits that fundamentally transformed my life.

So the point here is that the people that you decide to befriend, the people you choose to date or marry, and the people you enter into professional relationships with can be the catalyst behind rapid growth on your part.

But they also can lead to your downfall if you’re not careful, which leads me to the second part about removing the wrong people from your life.

I’ve talked before on this channel about the power of elimination.  More can be accomplished through subtraction and simplification than through adding more complexity to a situation.

So this principle also applies to relationships of any sort, be it friendships, romantic partners, and even family members in some cases.

In early adulthood you have friends that you maybe grew up with, and then you also have connections that you’ve amassed over the years in college, in professional settings, in dating, etc. 

This might be a bit controversial, but one of the biggest mistakes that people make, and this is one that I definitely made, is holding onto past connections beyond their expiration date.  Learning when to let go of people that are incongruent with the direction you want to take your life is vital to your own self-growth.

I say this because, if you are reading this essay, then you are likely a very introspective person who is trying to be more intentional about life.  So you’re already probably operating on a higher frequency than the average person.

But most people that you’ve met in the past are not on the same growth journey as you are, and that’s okay, because they’re not necessarily supposed to be. However, when people become grossly misaligned with your future self, then it becomes detrimental to yourself to hold onto that relationship.

"The most expensive thing you will ever do is spend time with the wrong people."  — Germany Ken

When you hold onto connections that have run their course, you’re subconsciously preserving an outdated version of yourself. You’re unknowingly preventing yourself from growing.

And lastly, clinging to old connections, particularly those that have a net negative effect on your inner peace, saps up valuable life energy that could otherwise go towards more constructive things in your life.

I’m harping on this specifically because we live in an age of social media where it’s easy to collect (so called) friends, and hoard people in our followers list. So you get this weird dynamic where people who are better off not in your life at all, still remain on the periphery checking into what you’re doing, and maybe you’re doing the same.

And what this does is subtly drain energy that could be going into nurturing the connections, friendships, relationships that are better aligned with the vision that you have set for yourself.

This leads me to the last piece of curating your social circle, which is to really, REALLY focus on nurturing connections you have with people who encourage and challenge you to become the best possible person that you can be.

Typically, as people reach middle age, they move into a stage in life where social isolation becomes a real problem.  And with isolation comes a host of other problems ranging from cognitive decline to mental health. One of the biggest regrets among older people who are nearing the end of life is not putting more effort into their friendships and relationships when they were younger.

I learned (the hard way unfortunately) that life will be far kinder to you, and the universe will conspire in your favor far more frequently, when you focus your energy on building unbreakable connections with a small handful of people who align with your vision, who challenge you, and who genuinely want you succeed.

Going back to the problem with social media, it’s easy to fall into the trap of communicating with the most important people in your life in a very superficial manner.  Instead of picking up the phone and having a conversation, or writing a letter, or meeting up in person, a lot of the interactions with these people have been reduced to sharing memes and IG reels and TikTok videos with each other.

So, go the extra degree by being intentional, and putting in the time and effort to nurture deep and meaningful connections with the people who’re on the same wavelength as you are.

This will not only help you set the stage for a enjoying social abundance during your middle years, which is a time that most begin to feel the harsh realities of the loneliness crisis, but it will also protect you from spreading your energy thin across numerous superficial connections that dissipate over time.

The formula is simple

If you avoid these three mistakes in your thirties, then you will position yourself to live a much healthier, a more fulfilling, and a more connected life.  You’ll steer yourself clear of the most common problems that people experience midway through their lives.  

All you need to do is put in the one extra degree of effort, and over the course of this most important decade of your life, you’ll create massive separation between yourself and the average person who, by the time they’re approaching 40, is overweight, stressed out, and around a bunch of people who hold them down instead of lifting them up.

On a slightly different note, I wrote this essay with the help of Cerebrum-X, and if you’d also like to use an A.I. tool specially designed to provide structured feedback and detailed life-coaching advice then you can download it here. With it, you’ll also get complimentary access to the database of prompts and workflows that’ll help you work through some of life’s most common problems.

While you’re at it, also check out the “Self-Reinvention Cheat Code” which is a field manual that I created to help people like you start your life transformation process, and have you on a new path in just 60 days.  So pick that up when you’re ready to get started.