Advice to my 15 year old self

Hello, again.

Sometimes (quite often) I think about my teenage years and what kind of person I was and what kind of person I am now and have become.

I have thought and thought A LOT about my top five pieces of advice I would give my fifteen year old self
and here they are –

1)     Who cares what other people think??

In my teenage years, and to some degree still now, I was OBSESSED by what people thought of me. Not in a kind of egotistical way but just as a completely self-conscious individual. I think it’s probably because, like so many others, I was bullied in my late childhood / early teens and most probably still a little when I was fifteen. In fact, I had been really badly bullied between the ages of thirteen – fifteen and I lost a lot of my friends because, probably quite rightly, they were scared of what my bullies may do to them. I think the bullying was about me in particular, not so much the clothes I was wearing or the bag I was holding, it was about me and basically how much the bullies really, really didn’t like me. At this point I just really want to say that I feel proud to say that I was never a bully to anyone else. The worst thing you can be is a bully. You can quite literally destroy someone’s life; I know someone very nearly destroyed mine. Even now if I see someone bullying someone whether it’s on the street, on TV or in the workplace, I feel a complete sense of distress and want to help. Anyway, because of this bullying and the loss of friends I began to be very self-aware. My advice to myself is; who cares? Obviously don’t turn up at school one day completely naked singing Busted’s ‘Air Hostess’, but those people judging you right now, you know, the ones who really look down their noses at you, they will amount to very, very little life and you will end up being the much greater person. So stuff them!! If you are happy and content with yourself, it doesn’t matter one ounce what they think, concentrate on those that really matter around you.

2)     Lighten up, you’re really doing ok!!

At fifteen, I was taking myself quite seriously. I felt quite a lot of pressures from different areas of my life and I wanted to be perfect at everything.  I wanted to be the perfect student, friend, daughter, granddaughter, girlfriend, well, everything really. In that attempt I think I put quite a lot of pressure on myself to do everything right. I think my second piece of advice would be; yeh, try your best at everything but it’s ok, you’re doing really great. Those small little things that happen that aren’t so great, it’s ok, it’s not going to ruin the rest of your life. Just concentrate on getting the big things right, and everything else will fall in place.

3)     That boy you’re with? It’s not that important

At the age of about thirteen, I started to become really interested in boys. Naughty me. In fact, since the age of thirteen, I haven’t been single for more than about three months. It is my nature that I throw myself into things whole heartedly and that includes my relationships. I remember going to a parents’ evening and my teacher telling my Mum “She can be anything she wants but recently she has become a little – distracted.” Ground. Swallow. Me. Up. But on reflection, my teacher could see it and probably boys caused me to perhaps not be the most perfect student anymore. I think that can be good sometimes for teenagers to get a bit of a life when they are growing up and exploring new things and having life experiences but it shouldn’t really be at the detriment of anything else like friendships or hard work. Heartbreak is the hardest thing in the entire world to go through and especially for a teenage girl with all those new hormones. I remember feeling like my entire world had ended when I split from my first boyfriend. So perhaps my advice would be; have fun with your relationships and really grab life by the horns but I PROMISE life will be ok if you and that guy doesn’t work out, something greater is coming for you.

4)     Start making good habits now

In my teenage years I really, really wasn’t interested in working out or eating healthily (if you have read my post here, you can kind of work out why), but staying fit and eating right wasn’t really high on my agenda. As neither was getting up at a good time or going to sleep before midnight. I get that eating junk food and watching TV is the main past time of teenagers but I kind of wish that I had started making some really good habits back then like getting in a good routine and taking care of my body. As time goes on, it’s really hard to break those bad habits of all those years previously, and now I wish it was just a natural thing to me to get up at 7am for work every morning and hit the gym hard on the way home. So my fourth piece of advice would be; I know it’s probably not that cool to get up a bit earlier and have a really good breakfast and watch a bit of the news or go for a run after school to get the energy levels up a bit, but just do it will ya? Just to help yourself later in life. Because all those crisps and popcorn you are eating right now, although they aren’t doing anything to your waist line right now, soon, very soon, they are going to really, really stick to your body and you won’t know how to get rid of them.

5)     Just be happy and let go of the past!

Finally, there were a few times in my teenage years that I was quite unhappy (as I think every teenager experiences with hormones) and I dwelled quite a lot on the past and things that had happened, I would sometimes find myself crying and I had absolutely no idea why. Although I don’t just start randomly crying anymore, I think that I still do think about things that have happened that I haven’t quite resolved with myself and perhaps if I’d taken the time to sort them out earlier they might not be quite so hard now. So fifthly and finally; Smile! You have a fantastic life and things are great right now. Focus on what is happening right in front of you and if any nastiness does creep up, don’t be scared to tackle it head on there and then. Life is precious so go out and really live it to the full. Soon you will have serious studies and job and you will long for freedom and pure joy again so grab it whilst you can.

Speak soon,

L xx