Each new day brings an opportunity for us to start fresh and be the best ‘us’ we can be. Each New Year gives us the opportunity to reflect on the past year and wish for a good or better one. And unless you’re one of the many who have given up on the whole idea, it is also the time we make those bold New Year’s resolutions. For the coming year we resolve to lose weight, gain courage; quit smoking, take up yoga; start a book, finish what we started; fill our souls, empty our thoughts; find our soulmate, lose our baggage; remember what’s important, forgive what’s not; give laughter, take time with loved ones.
As we all know, resolutions usually end up resolving right into oblivion! Right?! (Statistics say that only 8% of people are successful in achieving their resolutions.) Losing weight is always at the top of the list, but we begin diets January 2nd because the 1st is still part of the holiday season! We have to have a big fatty high cholesterol breakfast while watching the Rose Parade; or chips and dip, hot wings, hot dogs and hamburgers with the football games. It’s the last hurrah of gluttony before we go to Jenny Craig for our food or Weight Watchers for a meeting.
The whole concept of making these proclamations is usually to change some pattern of behavior. What if, instead of using empty resolutions to improve our quality of life, we use our own life experience? I’m wondering if by digging up some jewels from our own treasure chest of untapped wisdom, it might give our resolutions a chance to thrive. We have all learned certain lessons along the way that are the key to opening the portal to change.
Giving advice to others is always easier than helping ourselves. How about offering it to someone that is closest to you. Not you, but your younger self?! If you could talk to him or her, and share your valuable nuggets from living life, what would you say? If you could write a letter to your younger self, what would you say?
I gave it some thought, so here goes…
Dear Nancy,
Do not let fear control your decisions
Listen to your instincts. They are always right, but often the quietest voice
Negativity is like a magnet that will pull you down off your rock. Stay away from it.
Love, and allow yourself to be loved. You deserve it.
Enjoy ice cream without guilt!
Share your smile
Learn to love your body regardless
Remember all that you are grateful for at least once a day
Remember that how you react to something is your choice
Learn from your mistakes and move on
Forgive yourself for the bad choices you make
Don’t hold a grudge. It is you who suffers, not them
Anyone who doesn’t treat you with respect—dump their ass
It’s ok to say ‘no,’ ‘why?’ and ‘I don’t understand.’
Watch out for limiting beliefs, they will prevent you from living to your potential
Do not expect yourself or anyone to be perfect; you will be forever disappointed
Make time for fun
Savor every moment being with the people you love
Love,
Your Older Self
Perhaps what we write from our heart to our younger selves will have more of an impact than a template of resolutions. And perhaps by talking to the child in us, we can see more clearly what we need to do to succeed in our quest for change.
Ok your turn! It’s fun and enlightening! Try writing a letter to the young you, and see what flows from your fingertips. You may be surprised….
And please, so that we can all benefit, share your comments and/or parts of your letters below!
Instinct is the voice you hear first and fear distorts the voice. The first take for me is usually what I end up thinking that’s what I should have done.
And… There is nothing that good dish of ice cream won’t cure.
Anyone else have comments?
Great advice – My favorite is love and allow yourself to be loved – you deserve it! We all can do a better job of that.
I look forward to your future posts!
You were such a little cutie, Miss Nancy! Great words of wisdom….very right on!
Hey all! I love the comments, keep ’em coming!
In my day job I have the opportunity to meet and talk with people of all ages from all over the U.S. I asked a few select people for their input and I wanted to share them with you here. They are wonderful. I expect that I will have one or two more. In fact, a good friend of mine once suggested that I have a wealth of knowledge at my fingertips everyday to create a special book. Stay tuned…!
From Jim: Keep yearly notes/records of what you do, places you go, special events, yearly highlights and bottoms, changes, etc. Then you’ll never have to ask, “When did we do our first vacation to Newport?”
From Ellen: 1- Be very proud of being a woman. Be confident but humble of the gifts that women give to the world. 2-Read classic books, plan fun things as a family. Family meetings would open the door to unspoken troubles. 3-Lastly, know that you can do anything you want to do! It may be difficult, but you learn from the experience. This means waking up each morning knowing that today is exciting and that adventure and knowledge awaits!
For such a young, beautiful woman (body and soul), you have much wisdom, and even I, an 88 year old friend, have learned from you. Keep up the good work. You give us much to think about and they are clues to help in this journey through life. I only have one comment: We only travel this way once. Make the most of it while having fun and staying optimistic. Love Polly
Thank you Polly! That was beautiful!! You are an inspiration!
Never EVER waste your time trying to explain yourself to people who are committed to misunderstanding you.
Rachel, I love your comment and at the ripe age of 72 I think that I’m beginning to be able to follow your advice. Nancy your blog gives me much to think about and I have one comment to add. I would tell young myself to try not to seek the right or wrong in difficult relationships but focus more on what it takes to make it go forward in a positive way. Keep the blogs coming!!
those were great words of wisdom. please remember them and all of us should use them each and every day ,especially live each with as much fun as you can.
While I like a lot of the above comments and advice, and given the opportunity, should have given my younger self loads of sage advice, I believe that many younger selves would not be open to listening or accepting it. I believe, that the younger me would have stepped head first into some of the less ideal circumstances I experienced, in spite of the small voice, deep inside. Part of being young is a sense of ” I can, or I gotta do this, regardless, and it might be Ok, so here goes…..” That is why I believe that verbal advice to the young may be of limited value. I believe that witnessing the unfolding of bad results of a specific poor decision, as it happens to someone in your circle, would be the most concrete way to cause the young to actually learn.
I do disagree, however, with the comment to trust our instincts, since they are always right. Our instincts may be occasionally right, but, are just as occasionally wrong. I’m not sure that stringing pretty words together into attractive positive statements is always of the greatest value. Being real in recognizing positives as well as negatives as part of what every oath us made if is important. Embracing both in honest, open recognition, being encouraged to keep building and growing, creating and blossoming even from the dark places, that is the real victory. Advice from the outside is probably the smallest component of this. Living intelligently, bravely and courageously (but never recklessly, I add hastily) is the key. But, that’s just my opinion….
Thank you Shula. I totally agree that the best way for the young to learn is by living and experiencing both the wins and the disappointments. This was an exercise to see how telling our younger selves what we know now, might help us to create whatever change or improvements we wish for in our lives today; not what we would tell some young person. As we get older, I think we have an increasingly better sense of what is intuition, vs. impulse. In my adult experience, when my quiet little voice has spoken and I ignore it choosing instead to rationalize or over analyze, in hindsight, it was my intuition that was right. I think as we grow and learn through our mistakes we can indeed learn how to trust our instincts/intuition. I also think a string a pretty words can go a long way if it means something to the person by way of motivation, comfort, or encouragement. I agree that we need to recognize and embrace all that we face in life, and yes, conquering the most difficult is when we learn the most and it is certainly most rewarding.
It seems to me that we already have herd same advices from our parents in our young age and did we listen ? ……….
As Mark Twain said: ” The older I get, the smarter my father becomes”
(Sorry for my accent)
I would tell myself to be as positive as possible and not to worry about things I can not change. If there is something I can do to affect an outcome, then I should do it to the best of my ability. Worrying about something I can not change does me no good and is simply negative, self-destructive energy that can also affect those around me. There is wisdom in Bobby McFarren’s song “Don’t Worry, Be Happy”.
As I understand it, the idea of writing to our younger self is to express what we have learned in life, and to impart some wisdom. Obviously, our younger selves no longer exist, so what we are really doing, is telling ourselves what we have learned in life. This is a great exercise! It makes us think of our years gone by, decisions we have made, how we have changed, and how we might make different choices now. Thus, the little talk to our younger self.
This type of advice is different from what we heard from our parents while we were growing up. This comes from US, from our own experiences. A real opportunity to see who we were and what we have learned on our journey to who we are today. i think that if we would repeat this exercise in 5 years, we might come up with an even different advice. We are always growing and changing. I am sure that the advice I would give my younger self at this stage of my life is different than what I would have said 10 or 15 years ago. This has made me think so much about my life, my values and my relationships! I appreciate your idea, Nancy! Thank you!