What advice would you give your younger self?

What advice would you give your younger self? It’s an intriguing, thought-provoking question.

And especially timely with International Women’s Day coming up March 8th.

It was posted by Dr. Cris Wildermuth, Associate Professor at Drake University on LinkedIn. She wrote about the advice she’d give her younger self and encouraged others to do so as well.

It caught my attention and I followed her advice (pun intended) here.

1. Appreciate being a human and simply being alive (in all its complexity). Seek out joy and be deliberate about celebrating.  There will be lots of challenges but that makes the appreciation, joy and celebration all the more sweeter.

2. Seek learning in all ways.  Soak it up, way up. Learning will be your way out of challenging circumstances.  Whole worlds exist that you have no idea of yet and learning will help you access them.

3. Seek difference, seek diversity.  Everyone has their own perspective, their own points of view and that’s why it will be incredibly enriching to deliberately seek out ‘other.’ 

4. Follow your curiousity.  It will lead you to amazing adventures, you’ve never dreamt of.  Trust your inner compass and go for it.

5. Humour is your golden ticket. In the darkest of times, humour will see you through.  And speaking of which, that odd guy that makes you laugh, who becomes your best friend –  you’re going to marry him.

Now go on and learn, laugh and lead.

Learn

• Read Dr. Cris’s post and others here.
• Take a moment to write down five things you’d tell your younger self.

Laugh

• Speaking of adventure and following your curiousity, here’s a clip of me learning how to 4WD in Kenya.

Lead

• Share your advice with me in the comments below.

P.S. Let’s stay connected. Free weekly coaching by email on how to use humanity and humour to problem solve, right here.