Learn from my mistakes

Full disclosure, I’m very much a Miss Alice in that I don’t always follow my own advice. That’s said, I have some advice to offer all of you that I have learnt the hard way

• Don’t procrastinate. Just don’t.

I’m a serial procrastinator and still haven’t taken this piece of advice even when I’ve seen the consequences, but I do know that it would save me a lot of stress if I just did tasks earlier. Don’t procrastinate on things that need doing, it’s likely you’re just giving things time to get worse or bigger

 

• You can’t hold a friendship up on your own. There needs to be effort from both sides.

It’s a bitter pill to swallow, especially when you really love your friends. But you need two people for a friendship to exist, and both people need to actually want it. There will be unequal effort at times of course, things are rarely 50/50 and sometimes one person will have to carry everything for a while – but it’s not sustainable for you to hold the whole relationship up.

 

• You shouldn’t hold yourself accountable for other’s actions.

Sounds simple right? It can be very tempting at times to mince words in order to manipulate a situation in your favour. But you only have control over your own actions. Trying to influence others actions, thoughts and responses will lead to holding yourself responsible for things you aren’t responsible for. You’ll put a lot of pressure and stress on yourself that doesn’t belong to you.

 

• Be honest

Big one here. Be honest even when it might not seem like it matters. Some of the biggest mistakes and regrets of my life have come from exaggerating or lying to people when there was no reason to. A little exaggeration to make yourself or your life more interesting can seem harmless, but it can really come back to bite you. And if you’ve already made the same mistake as me, own up early and ask for forgiveness from the people you fibbed to. You might not be forgiven, but as mentioned earlier, it’s beyond your control.

 

• Just get on with it and have a go!

A little different to my advice against procrastinating – if there’s something you want to do or feel is a good idea but you don’t necessarily need to do, get on with it anyway! It will almost always be helpful in the future granted it isn’t dangerous. If you want to start writing, just start and don’t be afraid! If you want to get a job, apply everywhere. If you want to get fit, ­make moves towards it. There will never be a perfect time for starting new things or challenges. Even if you’re not good at something at the start, by starting you’ve had at least one opportunity to practise and improve.

So there’s my 5 hot tips for life. There are plenty more that I’m equally unqualified to give, but these are a good starting point I think.

 

Stay safe,

keyboardphilosopher