20 High Agency Moves to Make in Your Twenties
This article includes:
20 high agency moves
Experts to follow for each
Book recommendations
The most important move
“…twenty small actions and big moves that can dramatically improve your future resilience, freedom, and quality of life.”
Your twenties are often portrayed as a decade for finding yourself.
I disagree.
Your twenties are a decade for building yourself.
Not perfectly. Not all at once. But deliberately.
Most people spend their twenties chasing experiences, titles, possessions, and approval. Some of those things matter. Many don't. The challenge is that while you're busy building a life, you're also building habits, beliefs, and systems that will either support you or sabotage you for decades to come.
Small actions compound.
Big moves ripple.
The following are twenty small actions and big moves that can dramatically improve your future resilience, freedom, and quality of life.
1. Build an Emergency Fund Early
Life is expensive enough without surprises becoming crises.
A flat tire, job loss, unexpected move, veterinary bill, or medical expense becomes dramatically less stressful when you have cash available. An emergency fund buys time, options, and peace of mind.
Learn from the experts:
Steven Chen offers helpful tips and check out his free Guide and Money Cheat Sheet
Anne Lester her book Your Best Financial Life
Robert Croak and Austin Hankwitz team up to host The Rich Habits Podcast
Other experts include @clobaremoneycoach, @financiallyintentional, @mattthemoneyguy @delyannethemoneycoach, and @georgekamel
2. Learn How to Cook Simple Healthy Meals
Nutrition influences almost everything.
Your energy.
Your mood.
Your health.
Your finances.
You don't need to become a chef. Learn ten healthy meals you enjoy and can prepare consistently. Future you will be grateful.
3. Strength Train Consistently
Muscle is one of the greatest long-term investments you can make.
Strength improves confidence, mobility, independence, metabolic health, and resilience. Building it becomes harder with age, so start now.
Learn from the experts:
Strength and conditioning coach Kev Toonen
4. Protect Your Sleep Like It Matters
Because it does.
Sleep affects memory, learning, emotional regulation, recovery, performance, decision-making, and long-term health. Few habits offer a better return on investment.
5. Travel With Discomfort Sometimes
Not every trip needs to be all-inclusive.
Navigate unfamiliar cities. Take public transit. Travel solo. Figure things out as you go.
Discomfort develops confidence. Confidence develops agency.
6. Learn How Money Actually Works
Most people spend years earning money without understanding it.
Learn about budgeting, investing, compound interest, taxes, insurance, and retirement planning.
Financial literacy creates options, and options reduce stress.
Types of budgets:
7. Learn How to Be Alone
Because your relationship with yourself sets the ceiling for every other relationship in your life.
Spend time without constant entertainment, validation, or distraction. Take yourself for coffee. Go for a hike alone. Travel solo. Sit with your own thoughts.
People who are comfortable being alone tend to make better decisions about who they let into their lives, what opportunities they pursue, and what values they live by.
Solitude builds self-awareness, and self-awareness builds agency.
8. Choose Your Inner Circle Carefully
Your friends influence more than you realize.
They affect your standards, habits, mindset, ambitions, and behaviour.
Choose people who encourage growth, responsibility, and accountability.
Take it a step further, and curate your social media accounts with the same deliberate intention.
9. Practice Doing Hard Things Voluntarily
The world will provide plenty of involuntary adversity.
Purposefully choosing challenge helps prepare you for it.
Hike the mountain.
Run the race.
Take the course.
Start the business.
Voluntary discomfort builds resilience.
Learn from the experts:
Micheal Easter and his book, The Comfort Crisis
10. Reduce Consumer Debt Aggressively
Debt quietly steals freedom.
It limits options, creates stress, and reduces flexibility.
The sooner you eliminate unnecessary debt, the sooner you can direct resources toward building your future.
Debt reduction strategies:
11. Stop Waiting to Feel Ready
Most people believe confidence comes before action.
Usually, confidence comes after action.
Take the trip.
Apply for the job.
Start the project.
Action creates evidence, and evidence creates confidence.
12. Create Systems Instead of Relying on Motivation
Motivation is unreliable.
Systems are not.
Create routines for exercise, finances, work, and health. Successful people often appear disciplined when they're really just consistent.
13. Learn Basic Emergency Preparedness
Preparedness is a means of taking responsibility for self, and a way to contribute to others.
Know what to do if the power goes out for days. Create a home emergency kit. Understand first aid. Develop a communication plan.
Practice using the tools and skills that would get you through an emergency.
Learn from the experts:
14. Spend More Time Outdoors
Nature is one of the most overlooked tools for well-being.
Walk.
Hike.
Paddle.
Camp.
Ruck.
Time outdoors improves mental health, reduces stress, and helps restore perspective.
Learn from the experts:
Join me at GirlGoneGood Wellness and Wilderness (Hiking resources for Ontario)
15. Document Your Life Less and Experience It More
Not every moment needs to become content.
The constant pressure to perform life online can distract from actually living it.
Some of the best moments deserve your full attention, not your camera.
16. Learn to Regulate Stress Before Life Forces You To
Stress compounds. Like investments, but to our detriment instead of to our benefit.
Learn techniques that help you recover and remain effective under pressure.
Exercise.
Breathing techniques.
Time in nature.
Therapy.
Social connection.
Don't wait until you're overwhelmed to develop these skills.
17. Build a Community Before You Need One
Because resilience is rarely a solo achievement.
One of the biggest misconceptions about strength is that it means handling everything yourself. In reality, resilient people tend to have strong networks of friends, mentors, colleagues, neighbours, and family members they can turn to when life gets difficult.
Attend community events.
Volunteer.
Join clubs.
Stay in touch with people you respect.
Community isn't something you create during a crisis. It's something you build long before one arrives.
18. Learn the Art of Having Hard Conversations
Avoiding difficult conversations rarely makes life easier.
Try to resolve hard conversations at the lowest level (meaning between you and the other person in question) first when possible.
Learning how to communicate honestly, respectfully, and directly improves relationships, careers, and leadership capacity.
Hard conversations are often gateways to better outcomes.
20. Learn the Basics of Brain and Behaviour
Understanding how humans think and behave is a superpower.
Learn about neuroplasticity, habits, stress responses, cognitive biases, behaviour change, and motivation.
The better you understand yourself, the better you can influence your own outcomes.
Learn from the experts:
19. Get Comfortable Being Misunderstood
Growth often requires making choices that others don't understand.
You may save money while friends spend it.
Train while others relax.
Leave jobs others admire.
That's okay.
Not everyone needs to understand your path.
The Most Important Move
If there is one lesson I wish more people understood in their twenties, it's this:
Build a life that allows you to expand within it and beyond what you dreamed possible.
Not every day will be enjoyable.
Not every season will be easy.
But the goal isn't temporary relief.
The goal is long-term alignment.
A life where your habits support your goals.
Your finances support your freedom.
Your relationships support your growth.
And your actions support the future you want.
That's what being a High Agency Human is all about.
Not controlling everything.
Participating in your own outcomes.
One decision at a time.
➡️ If you’re drawn to resilience, preparedness, growth, and living bigger through adversity, grab a copy of ‘High Agency Human: Navigate Advesity and Live Big’ wherever books are sold. Available through Indigo, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org, Walmart, and Amazon.