Hindsight is a great thing. I love how we gain perspective on where we’ve been and where we are now when we reflect on our lives.
I can see a theme and an unconscious roadmap that has led me to where I am now but I had no sense of it at the time. Quite incredible really.
At this time in my life I feel like I’ve found what I’m meant to be doing, I feel happy, relaxed and able to take risks without feeling that they are risks. They just feel like natural progressions. I realise that the gifts that life experiences can bring us are fantastic.
I look back now and realise that I worried a lot, I struggled with feeling good enough, feeling like I fit in and always being the weird one. I know where it stemmed from. I was born is Scotland in a secure and safe family. Everything was fantastic. I felt like I belonged, was accepted and fitted in without having to try.
That all changed when I was uprooted and moved to England when I was 11. The differences in accents and ways of being started my insecurities and struggle to feel that sense of belonging that I so missed.
After some difficult times and not fitting in, I now know how amazing it is to be me and to embrace who I am and what I stand for. My life experiences have shown me that trying to be the same as everyone else for fear of doing something wrong and worrying about what people think just doesn’t work.
The top 5 things I would tell my younger self are:
Don’t be afraid to be who you are – embrace you uniqueness and be yourself. Others will judge you for being different because they are afraid to stand up and be who they are.
Don’t let others dictate how you should live your life – we are all here for our
own experience. We’re not here to live our lives in ways to make other people happy when we are miserable. We are here to make ourselves happy and pursue our journey and reason for being here. This is not selfish it is self supportive.
Don’t worry about failing – see failure as learning and discovering more about yourself. There is no such thing as failure if you learn from it, it just becomes win win.
Don’t be afraid to tell others how you feel – when you own your feelings and share them with others then you are always free from being afraid to put yourself out there. Sharing your feelings and saying what you need to say can feel vulnerable but it’s also a strength which allows you to be able to explore and express yourself more easily.
Do things that take you out of your comfort zone sometimes – its so easy to stay where you feel safe but usually growth doesn’t come from there. When you do things that challenge you and take you to places you might not have considered before, take time before just saying no and instead give it a go because you never know what could come out of it. Remember to always have fun when you can.
I’m sure there are many other things I would tell my younger self, but I feel that the overall theme is similar. It all boils down to don’t be afraid to be yourself. It feels fantastic to live from there now.