While traveling back to the town where I spend the first 18 years of my life, and where I only have been a couple of times the last 8 year, I got some flashbacks to my younger years. Of course, I can truly say I had a great childhood thanks to my super sweet mom, but life hasn’t always been easy. That’s why I came up with a few things I would love to tell and give advice to my younger self (from around 10 years ago).
This post was partly inspired by the Youtube campagne #DearMe for the International Womensday where several young ladies share personal stories about their life to inspire girls to feel unique. I’m also quite curious to hear from you what you’d tell or give advice to your younger self. Share it all in the comments…
1. Be different. Stay weird – I’ve never been part of the cool kids club and was quite an outsider during my highschool days. Instead of trying to be as the rest of the people I would advice my younger self to have more confidence and stay different and embraces your weirdness.
2. Don’t try to please make everyone like you – Because I wanted to be part of the popular group often I wanted people to like me in every way. In my head I wanted to please everyone and make them like me. Now I would advice my younger me to stay more true to yourself.
3. Don’t compare yourself with others – I always compared myself with other during my younger years and I always felt I wasn’t pretty, smart, rich and cool enough compared with the people around me. Now I would advice myself not compare myself with others and look at the positive parts of my own life.
4. Working out can be fun – During my high school days I truly hated to work out and I was always picked as the last one during soccer, football and all those sports. Looking back, I would advice myself to make more time and afford to work out because in the end it can be so much fun!
5. Be independent – During my childhood I was quite independent at an early age and I think I would tell my younger self to stick with this attitude because it will be very helpful for the rest of your life.
6. Don’t by shy – Oh, what was I a shy girl during my younger years. I think it quite hold by back of showing my talents and my creativity to the world around me. I was way to self-concious back then and I really would tell myself to be more open and show you personality to others.
7. Invest more time in the things you love – Back in the days I was the master of procrastinating. I had so many plans but in the end I rather watched tv, played outside or slept a bit more. I really would advice my younger self to get my *ss of that couch and pursue the dreams I got.
8. Never grow up, it’s a trap – I love thinking about those days as a kid and feeling care free without the struggles of growing up. I really didn’t like puberty and didn’t liek growing up to a woman. Nowadays I want to hold on that care-free attudtude of a child in my daily life to bring back that freedom and creativity.
9. In the end, everything is going to be OK – Sometimes life can be a struggle and it can feel it’s not going get better soon. I would tell my younger self to have faith in the future and bright days are ahead.
10. Stay dreaming – Nowadays, and in my younger days, I’m a (day)dreamer and like to be in an other dimension with my thoughts. A lot of times people found this not quite a good quality and mentioned this a lot. I would tell my younger self to ignore these people and stay day dreaming everyday and dreaming about the things I want to do in the future.
