Over my sixteen years on earth I have learnt many pieces of advice; from family, friends, social media and even through my own personal experience. I thought that today I'd be extremely philosophical and pass on my words of wisdom with you all. Some of these you might have heard of before but you can never hear these pieces of advice enough so let's get into the 16 Things I've Learnt In 16 years.
Fail To Prepare. Prepare To Fail.
Something that teachers have told you and I hundreds upon thousands of times but this piece of advice has really stuck with me especially because I've witnessed it first hand. I didn't believe that revision was a thing I needed to do because, not to toot my own horn, I'm quite an intellectual person but boy was I wrong! Preparing for exams and even things such as being ready to go away are really important. Preparation is something we should all not try but most definitely need to do otherwise you're basically throwing in the towel. Revise. Prepare. Do things that make you ready for what's coming up because it'll help.
You Can Do Anything You Set Your Mind To.
I have made endless tasks for myself throughout my life some of them much harder than others but if I've really felt strongly about said task I'll get it done even if it takes forever. I think I've always had that mindset of breaking boundaries and societies rules; I mean I'm a girl who used to freaking play rugby!! I think that my latest task is something that goes along with this piece of advice quite well. I want to be a writer, it's all I've ever wanted to do and for years I've said that I'm going to write a book and never have done but this is Summer will be different. As soon as I've gotten exams and prom out of the way I'm going to write a book - how good it will be is a different story but it's something I've wanted to do for a long time and I'm going to do it.
Don't Be A Home Bird. Explore. Get Lost. Do Something.
This piece of advice is coming from the girl who hates planes but would love to travel just about everywhere. Don't let small spaces confine you, push the boundaries. Buy spur of the moment plane tickets or train tickets or just get in the car and go. Explore somewhere new, get lost doing it - just don't sit round all your life and then one day when you're in your mid-40's realise you haven't done anything. Even if you just go down the road to a town you've never been to before you're an explorer of a different place and even culture. Just get up and go.
A Writer Writes. If You Want To Be A Writer, Write.
Writing has always been a passion of mine since I was little and it's what I want to do with my life; write. I was told this piece of advice by an English teacher who I had a real love for, no not in that way - he was always very supportive of my writing and would mark all my silly pieces of writing I'd give to him and write in the back of my English book after finishing a task. Over the past two years since he's left the school I haven't written as much as I'd like to have done because no one's seemed to have cared about it but I've decided that as soon as my exams have finished I'm going to write a book ; I've had the idea for years and haven't written it. I came back to this piece of advice and realised that I really do want to be a writer so I'm going to put my foot down and do it. If you want to be a writer then just write, write about the silliest of things and trust me it'll get the ball rolling.
Laughter Really Is The Best Medicine.
I can't tell you how many times that I've sat at a table in the back of the music room at my school surrounded by my four best friends and laughed my head of until my stomach hurts. These moments are the moments I've really started to treasure especially since I know in a few months I won't always be able to make more memories like that seeing as we're all parting ways to go to different sixth forms etc. I also love it when on a Friday night me and my mum sit in the living room laughing so much that we're crying. These moments really turn my day around when I'm feeling down proving that laughter really is the best medicine. If you're feeling down surround yourself with good people and just laugh your ass off.
Throw Kindness Around Like Confetti.
Kindness; the quality of being friendly, generous, and considerate.
I feel as if this is a piece of advice that more people need to be living by because I feel as if both on the Internet and in reality lots of people have become extremely negative and it's not a place I sometimes want to be in. I think the Internet has a lot to do with that. I love the Internet but I feel as if that sometime's there is so much negativity on it that it bleeds into reality and affects what we do there. I think that as a community that we should try to at least to one act of kindness every day; give money to a homeless person, let your little sister wear your favourite shirt or even lend someone a pen and don't care if they don't give it back - you've supplied someone with a pen for a good few weeks. I mean it's not that hard so let's all do random acts of kindness and not let the negative vibes stop us from throwing our kindness around like confetti.
Enjoy Today, You Won't Get Another Chance At It.
Make the most of things; bad situations, good situations, mediocre situations - make the most of them because today is a day that is going to be a day that you'll never get back so make the most of it. Make stupid decisions, make amazing decisions just enjoy what you're doing because if you don't you're going to go through your life wishing you'd done things but you'll never do them because you didn't do them the day before.
Regret Nothing.
I've made many decision in my short lived life as many others before me have done. Some of these decisions being to not be friends with particular people, embarrass myself by falling over on a wooden floor and end up being on crutches for near to 9 months and even choose to get laughed at by people in my year because I decided to play Woman 6 in the school musical. But do you know what? I don't regret a single decision I have made in my life. Those stupid and sometimes reckless decisions I've made have made me the person I am today and I'm pretty freaking pleased with the person I am. At the time I made these decisions I regretted some of them but came to realise those decisions made were definitely for the best and I most definitely would never go back. I've made some great memories and friends by doing stupid, reckless things and that I don't regret at all.
Stop Waiting & Just Do.
Do you think Martin Luther King managed to make such an impact on racism by sitting on his sofa? Do you think that Malala Yousafzai thought that she'd give up on all the girls fighting for an education? No I didn't think so. So what's stopping you from getting off the sofa and fighting for women's rights? To try and stop climate change? For your school to let you wear more than one stud earring? Yourself. That's the answer. No one is stopping you from trying to change the world but yourself and you need to stop doing that. People didn't die for us so we could give up and say what's the point, they died so we had a voice to speak out with. We all need to join together and tackle world issues for our children and our children's children. So let's stop sitting and fight for the right to be free. Let's do something that will change the world. Together.
Guys Aren't Worth It.
Now I'm not saying that I've had a long list of boyfriends - I've had two, almost three but that's a complicated story however, it is the story in which I got this advice from mainly. I went through a two year period where a lot of crap happened in my personal life and I managed to find someone who I could confine in. However, over those two years my friends and family also realised a massive change in me and not in a positive way - I always seemed upset. Soon I started to realise this and I knew why I seemed this way - the guy I'd been talking to. I felt like I'd tried to mature earlier than I had to all to keep up with a guy. It affected my grades, my friendships, everything. Don't think I'm blaming the guy because I'm not - I'm blaming myself. Girls, don't let yourself or think you have you have to changed for a guy because you don't - they seriously aren't worth it. Focus on your education, hanging out with your friends and making amazing memories. If a guy happens to fall in place somewhere along the road that's great but you seriously don't need a guy in order to make your life complete.
Stop Worrying About What Others Will Think.
How many times have I heard this? About a billion times and every time I hear it I agree with it more and more. I used to be so worried about what other people would think if I did something a bit crazy but I went past the point of caring when I first turned 15. My blog plays a very big part in this advice, I was so worried that people at my school would laugh at me because I wrote a blog but when I started sharing my posts on Twitter and a lot of people found out they were all really supportive - I've had full blown conversations with people about my blog in general or particular blog posts that I've written. So if you want to share blog posts on Twitter, wear a yellow dress or even stand up for someone's new hair colour then do it and don't have a single worry in the world.
DON'T Take Family, Friends Or Time For Granted.
This piece of advice is something that I realised just before I turned 14 and has come to mind a lot over the past two years. Over my short life I've lost people that I shouldn't have lost at the age they were and it made me realise that you should never ever take things for granted especially family, friends or time. This is actually probably one of the most important things I've ever learnt and will forever be. Something that I've taken from this piece of advice is hang out with your friends and family as much as possible because making memories is so important and you'll be pleased you made them if something ever happens.
Life Isn't Fair, But It's Good.
No one gets what they want in life, there's always going to be something better and most of the time that better is unreachable. I was told as a little girl that when I couldn't have something and I asked why that life wasn't fair so I couldn't have everything I wanted and it's true - life really isn't fair. However, if you let go of the better thing you want you'll actually come to realise that what you have is really freaking good and makes that unfair life that you think you wanted seem insignificant.
It's Okay If You Don't Know What You Want To Do With Your Life.
I wrote a blog post kind of related to this topic a few weeks back called 'Do I Really Need To Know Right Now?' and I just want you all to know that you don't need to know what you want to do with your life. I'm sixteen and am still trying to figure my life out, I think my mum still is to be honest. Don't think that your life is going to end because you don't know what you want to do and teachers are telling you that you have to know because in reality you really don't - I can assure you that said teachers didn't know what they wanted to be at our age. Don't panic, just live a little and if you find out what you want to do that's great but it's not going to define you if you've got no clue.
Just Say…YES!
Scared of doing something out of your comfort zone? Well girl it's time to break down the walls of said comfort zone and look at the world in a completely different perspective. I learnt this piece of advice from the YouTuber, Zoella or Zoe Sugg whichever way you want to put it. I'd always been scared to do things like perform in front of other people but after watching a video of Zoe's, here's the link. I went through a stage of my life where - I don't want to say I was depressed because I don't think I was - I was in this mood where I didn't want to go anywhere or do anything, I just wanted to lie in bed all the time. I stumbled across this video and realised that I had to do things that I wanted to do because otherwise I would've carried on the way I was and I didn't want to. I started hanging out with more people, I auditioned for school musicals and made friends through that all because I said to myself 'YES, you can do this!' I think that if you kind of feel like I feel you need to push yourself to do things you wouldn't normally do because sometimes they can be the thing that makes you realise why you're on this planet.
BE BRAVE. BE BADASS. BE BEAUTIFUL.
This is the most recent advice that I have both learnt from others and from my own personal experience. Since I started high school, even though I'm almost ending now - scary, I became much more aware of the way I looked especially when standing next to girls I believed to be 10x better than me because they were slim and had perfect skin blah, blah, blah. However, I've come to realise especially over the past half a year that I'm beautiful in my own way because of my curves. Everyone is beautiful and everyone should be brave enough to stand against societies stupid idea of the "perfect" woman. We're all badass in our own way as well as brave and beautiful - don't let anyone tell you any different.
A very long, wordy blog post finished at last. I hope you enjoyed this blog post - it was interesting for me to write, it kind of felt like I was shedding another one of those layers between myself and you, the readers. I feel like this has kind of helped you learn more about me. Anyway, have you got any pieces of advice worth sharing? Do you follow some of the advice that I do? Let me know in the comments!
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