10 Things I Would Tell My Younger Self About Life, Healing, And Everything In Between

1. Don’t even attempt to try and get a plan figured out for your life.

I can promise you that nothing will go how you want it to. You will get upset, angry, and disheartened about this truth, but trust me when I say that it is absolutely necessary because it is going to shape you into the person that you want to become. Plans are overrated anyway.

2. It’s okay to change your mind about things, and it’s completely okay to start over.

It really is never too late to be what you could have been. Remember this. Switching careers and moving somewhere new will happen. Likely more than once. You will be apprehensive at first, but you will eventually see just how valuable both of these life moments are. It is something that you will keep at the forefront of your mind for the rest of your life. You will constantly remind yourself that you are not stuck. Our lives are not meant to be lived simply by standing still in one place. Moving onto other things is how we evolve and grow.

3. When it comes to the people in your life, you will be surprised by the ones who aren’t going to be in it for too much longer.

Some of them you’ll be heartbroken over, and some of them you won’t. Either way, you will move on and gain peace from it all. You will reach a point when you realize that some people are only meant to be in our lives for a season. They are only a chapter in our stories that won’t make it to the ending. This is okay. You will take the lessons that they taught you and you will use them to better yourself and your relationships with other people moving forward.

4. You’ll realize that time doesn’t mean a thing, character does.

This becomes especially important when you find some real, genuine friends that are more like soul sisters. You’ll find that it’ll feel like you’ve known them forever, even though you haven’t. You’ll find your silvers, but you’ll also keep your golds. All of these friendships you’ll cherish forever. You’ll realize that as you get older, it is not about the quantity of friends you have in your life, it is simply about the quality of the friends you have in your life.

5. You are going to do things someday that you never would have thought you could do.

You will find that surprising yourself and challenging yourself in new ways will be incredibly liberating. You’ll become more in touch with yourself by discovering new passions. Things you once hated you’ll come to love, and it’ll be hard to picture your life without them. Once you start, you’ll only want it more.

6. You will eventually travel overseas and see parts of the world you’ve always wanted to explore.

Your wanderlust streak will ignite with full force, but you will also remain realistic about which destinations you can make it to. You’re a big dreamer, but also a cautious optimist. You will find new parts of yourself with your travels, and that is what will constantly keep you craving more.

7. You will reach a point where you are truly grateful for all of the emotional traumas of your past.

And you will forgive those who have hurt you. You really will. This is not a lesson that will be learned overnight. To be honest, it’s going to take years to get to this point, but once you do, you will be truly happy that you did. You will realize that harboring all of those negative feelings and emotions is only hindering your ability to live a truly happy and fulfilling life. Once you realize this and fully accept it, a world of possibilities will open itself up to you. Life is simply too short to stay fixated on old emotions and ways of thinking.

8. You will fall in love with yourself and your life for the first time in a long time.

But not before you give so much of yourself to all the wrong people and things first and trust me when I say that it is going to hurt. A lot. But it will only be a temporary pain. There will come a day that you realize your own sense of value, worth, and love was never meant to be found within another person; it was always meant to be found within you. You will finally understand the concept of loving yourself and just how imperative it is to the rest of your well-being. You have to love yourself first because it is the foundation upon which you will build everything else in life.

9. You won’t be afraid to be alone.

In fact, you will truly love your time alone. As you get older, you will realize that you truly enjoy the presence of your own company. You will go on solo trips and explore new places where you don’t know a single soul. You will jump full force out of your comfort zone many times. Some people close to you may not understand this, but they’re not meant to. You will recognize that some people only live within the content of their own complacency, and that is okay. It is just not how you are wired to live your life.

10. You will learn to face your fears head on with full force.

And you will recognize this in small ways: from packing up everything you can fit in your car to move states away from home to finally recognizing the fact that you need to get out of your own way if you want to achieve the dreams you’ve set out for yourself. People will tell you that you are so brave and strong, and you will finally start believing them. You will finally make the decision to live your life fearlessly because you know that by choosing fearlessness, you are putting yourself onto a path in life that will unlock your greatest potentials.