I recently rewatched Carrie Hope Fletchers youtube video called To My 16 Year old Self: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBcO4lyAsLs which I absolutely loved and it inspired me to do something similar- I am so close to finishing university so I thought this would be a good time to reflect on the past 5 years of my life and write down some of my thoughts 🙂
Hi 16 year old me,
At this moment in time you are just about to start your GCSEs and believe yourself to be pretty content with your life and have a pretty good idea as to what you want to do with ur life and how your life will go……. oh how wrong you were. Over the next few years you are going to experience so many different emotions and there will be times when you wish you could just stop for a second and breathe. There will be times when you just cannot stop laughing and feel on top of the world, and there will be times when you wonder if you will ever stop crying….. this is called growing up and although sometimes you want to get off the rollercoaster that is your life, curl up under your covers and never come out again I can tell you that you want to stay on the rollercoaster because although sometimes you will experience some extreme lows you will also experience lots of high points and all the bumps along the way have bought you to me. So who am I? I’m you at 20 and although I wouldn’t change what has happened to me and where I am today I do have a few things I would like to share.
- Say Yes- Some of the things I have done over the last 6 years I would never have imagined in a million years I would have experienced when I was 16. I have been in a helicopter, gone on holidays with friends to Paris, Copenhagen and Barcelona, gone to so many concerts and west end shows I have lost count, have lived in a flat with my friends in central London for a year and so many more things I would never have experienced had I not squashed the fear that bubbled up inside of me and said Ok lets do it 🙂
- Don’t compare yourself to everyone around you because everyone has insecurities and no-one is perfect ❤ You might look at other people and think that they have life all figured out but the truth is everyone is just making it up as they go along its just some people are better at acting like everything is ok even when its not ❤
- Make time for friendships because friendships are so important!! I always thought I would live by my friends for the rest of my life but the truth is that friendship takes work but if ur willing to put in the effort then friendships can be so rewarding 🙂 Regular catch-ups via skype and taking any opportunity to meet up even if just for an afternoon have meant that I have remained good friends with three of my best friends from high school and hopefully they are also glad that I have always pestered them (Anna, Hannah and Birunda if you’re reading this let me know :P)
- Things do happen for a reason, you just have to wait around long enough to find out what it is- I am not at the university or studying the course I thought I would be studying at 16 but I would not change it for the world, I have met some amazing friends including the people I lived with in my first year who I hope have become lifelong friends :), I lived close to home so I could pop home on weekends and see my dog and family, I lived close to my Best Friend so we could meet up for food or just for a chat which would never have happened had I ended up at Liverpool Uni so although things may seem catastrophic at the time they will work themselves out.
Let me know in the comments what advice you would give your 16 year old self ❤
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gracethoroughgoodbeauty 
I am 24 now and a recent college graduate. But there are things I would say to my entire high school self. I don’t think part of my high school self would approve of who I became in college: I know that sounds crazy. I don’t quite remember myself at certain ages, but more of different periods. Like high school, so this is me as a college graduate talking to who I was back in high school.
I graduated with a Sociology major: All throughout high school, sociology and psychology was offered at my high school and I was closed-minded to even taking both classes. I would tell that high school self to not wait till college to take Sociology because you already had the interest all along. I already loved volunteering to help those living in poverty and I already was asking questions relating to Sociology. The girl who was close minded to Sociology in high school graduated college with a Sociology major.
Another close-minded thing again. I discovered the genre of tragedy through Romeo and Juliet. Once again, you shouldn’t have ignored the genre the way you did. You should have just given it a chance. You will learn that tragedies are just about being sad. They have positive things in them. You ignored them and told yourself you will never love them. Then in your first year of college (2012-2013), a tragedy will change your life. You loved musicals in high school, but in college, a tragic musical will enter your life and you will learn that tragedies are not what you though, but you still should have given them a chance. So why did you ignore them the way you did? You just heard the word tragedy and “assumed” they were pure sad and all you did was judge a book by its cover.
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I wrote a blog to my younger self a while back, and it was so reflective! Maybe I’ll do another one after reading yours. Thanks for sharing.😊 I’d love it if you checked out my latest blog:
https://emilyryannblogblog.wordpress.com/2018/06/11/my-first-bachelorette-party/
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