10 Things You Should Definitely Do Before Turning 30

1. Realize that you are too old to keep waiting. You are not too old to start… You are too old not to. How much more of your life will you keep hoping that a better time to start will come or that you get a break in life? How much longer do you want to waste your life away?
2. Fully indulge in a fear and then beat it. Allow yourself to be absolutely terrified for once in your life. Really go deep into this fear, make the situation as bad as you can in your head and go down as far as you can into the rabbit hole. Once you reach the bottom, look up and climb!
3. Know what really matters to you. When you are on your death bed in 50, 60 or 70 years, what will be the one thing that really mattered? Assume you have achieved everything you set out to do, that you achieved everything you could imagine… What is the one thing that mattered most?
4. Spend 2 hours with yourself. Turn off every device, lock up all books and do not have anything on you to distract yourself. And then sit quietly in a room for 2 hours with yourself. For spending so much time with yourself you hardly know yourself. Spend some time listening to what it is your heart is saying and to the thoughts that keep coming up.
5. Do something completely out of line for someone you do not even know. Something so huge and dramatic that they cannot even stammer a “thank you” because they are at a loss for words. And then, walk away without demanding anything in return.
6. Master something for a year. Set aside 1–2 hours a day for a year and practice a skill or work on a habit. Do this every day for a year, not because you can make money with it at the end, not because you want to have a good skill to back you up, but only to prove to yourself that you can.
7. Train with a Master. This can be in sports or in any other skill, but invest the money to train with a real master sometime. The highest person you can find in that field, and then, no matter the cost, spend some time with them. You will learn more in one sitting with them than in dozens of sittings with average people.
8. Drop your friends and find better ones. One of the hardest thing to do is to drop the people we have grown to love and like. But when you decide that you deserve better in life, that you can really have more, your life will change. It starts by surrounding yourself with better people, and ends in your entire life shifting one step upward.
9. Work for over 24 hours straight. Write a book, study for a test, or practice a skill for over 24 hours straight, only stopping to eat and use the bathroom. Anyone can do this but when you really push yourself to working through the night and throughout the day you will come out stronger and more confident than ever before.
10. Commit to your dream. No matter how long it might take, and it will take a while, commit to what truly matters in your life. Do not half-ass it, do not wish for it, actually do something about it and start working as hard as you can for it. Even if you fail, even if you do not make it, you still gave it your best shot.

Originally published at Quora.com