Advice to my younger self
ADVICE TO MY YOUNGER SELF
Sometimes I wonder, if i were my own big sister, and I could offer one morsel of advice to my younger self (assuming my younger self would listen to her big-sister-self), what would I want to tell myself?
To my very shy and self-conscious little kid self, I would say, “Don’t worry so much about what other people think about you. What they think about you doesn’t really matter. Just have fun being you.”
I would tell my kid and teen self, “It’s okay to make mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes. No one is going to think you’re stupid if you make a mistake or if you give the wrong answer. And if they do, then so what, you can be still proud of yourself that you tried.”
Apparently my young-adult self needed a lot of advice, because I couldn’t settle on just one thing I should have known. So here are three things I would want to tell my young-adult self:
“Do what you know you need to do. Be proactive. Don’t keep waiting for things to change on their own. You know what I’m talking about!”
“Take advantage of unique opportunities while you have the chance. Make the most of them.”
And perhaps most importantly: “Hey, look at this graph of how compound interest works. You may think it’s too early to think about saving for retirement, but LOOK AT THIS, if you start saving now, all those savings REALLY add up! You’ll thank yourself later. Trust me on this.”
As I pondered all the advice I would tell myself, I wondered what advice other people would offer their younger selves, so I asked many people this same question. “What bit of advice would you offer to your younger self?”
It’s not a question that necessarily reflects your past regrets. I have done many things that I wish I hadn’t done, but they were still good learning opportunities, and I don’t regret them. The question is also not intended as general advice to me, or for anyone else; it is uniquely applicable to each individual and your own personal life experience.
I am thrilled at the responses I received thus far, and grateful that so many people have taken the time to answer my question. I will share an anonymous compilation of replies another day, in another post.
What advice would you want to offer to your younger self?
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Hey, Lizzie, this is a GREAT question, and I' m delighted you
ReplyDeletere getting responses. I'll also ask Sabrina and Lena to make sure your post gets posted on the LPNOW social media sites, as we hope you'll get a LOT of responses.
My own advice to my younger self would definitely include the advice you have noted for yourself -- stop worrying so much!! I'm much more concerned about what people think of me than anyone else is. And when I ask what people thought of a mistake I made, most of the time they heven't even noticed it, while I've bent myself into a pretzel worrying what they think. I've wasted a LOT of energy in my life worrying about things that would never even come close to happening! I would also tell my younger self to do what feels good inside. Life is supposed to be fun, exciting, enjoyable, and rewarding, and what feels really good inside is like a GPS that always reflects things that are really good, and tells me -- through an uneasy feeling inside -- when I need to search some more for what I'm REALLY supposed to be doing or thinking. In general, I can't go wrong whenever I am able to help out to help someone else feel happy and successful.
And another very important advice I would offer to my younger self is that we are all One -- humans, animals, plants, the earth and all its components, and the planets and cosmos. I can always choose to worry about myself all by myself, but whatever I'm thinking and perceiving in that context, although I appear PHYSICALLY to be alone, is a distortion. In truth, whatever I do to others, I am also doing to myself. Consequently, when I'm aware of others and I try to address their needs, I'm in reality. In that reality, I can always ask for help, and I will receive it when I ask, just as I want to help others when they ask. I am never alone with what seem like my problems.
Those are probably the two most important truths I've learned that my younger self had no idea of.
I too will look forward to what other older selves want to teach their younger selves.
:-))))