If I could sit across from my teenage self today, I don’t think I would start by telling him to work harder.
I wouldn’t tell him to get perfect grades, choose the most impressive career, make more money, or have his entire future figured out before leaving school.
I would probably look at him and say:
“Relax. You have more time than you think.”
Because when you’re young, it can feel like everyone else has received a map for life except you.
Someone already knows they want to become a doctor. Someone else is certain they will become an engineer. Another person seems to have their university, career and future neatly planned.
And if you don’t know what you want yet, you can quietly begin wondering whether something is wrong with you.
There isn’t.
You are still becoming.
And if I could go back and give my teenage self a few things to carry into adulthood, these are some of them.
1. You Don’t Have to Have Your Whole Life Figured Out
I know the adults around you may keep asking:
“What do you want to become?”
It sounds like a simple question.
But sometimes it carries an enormous amount of pressure.
You are expected to make decisions about a future you haven’t experienced yet.
You haven’t met many of the people who will influence your life. You haven’t discovered many of your gifts. You haven’t experienced enough failure to know what certain failures will teach you.
You haven’t even become the person who will eventually make many of those decisions.
So give yourself room.
Your teenage years are not supposed to contain the final blueprint for your life.
They are part of the discovery process.
You are allowed to explore.
You are allowed to change your mind.
You are allowed to discover that something you thought you wanted isn’t actually for you.
You are allowed to say, “I don’t know yet.”
That is not weakness.
Sometimes it is honesty.
And honest uncertainty is better than false certainty.
2. Your Grades Matter, But They Are Not Your Identity
Study.
Take your education seriously.
Learn how to work hard.
Develop discipline.
Build a strong foundation.
But please don’t make the mistake of believing your grades are a measurement of your entire potential.
They aren’t.
A report card can tell you how you performed in a particular academic environment. It cannot tell you everything about your creativity, your character, your ability to lead, your compassion or your ability to solve real-world problems.
It cannot tell you the kind of parent, mentor, entrepreneur, teacher, writer, leader or friend you might eventually become.
You can be an excellent student and still need years to discover your direction.
You can struggle in school and later discover that you have extraordinary gifts in areas nobody was measuring.
So don’t neglect school.
But don’t worship it either.
Your education is part of your preparation. It is not the definition of your life.
3. Don’t Choose a Life Just Because It Impresses People
This one can save you years.
There are careers people respect. There are careers people don’t understand. There are careers that sound impressive at family gatherings.
And there are careers that might be incredibly meaningful to you but don’t impress anybody.
Be careful.
If you choose your future primarily because you want people to admire you, you may eventually wake up inside a life you never actually wanted.
You may become successful at something you don’t care about.
You may earn money and still feel empty.
You may achieve the thing everyone celebrated and quietly wonder:
“Why doesn’t this make me happy?”
Success isn’t bad. Money isn’t bad. Prestige isn’t bad.
But none of those things should be allowed to make the decision for you.
Pay attention to what genuinely interests you.
Pay attention to what makes you curious.
Pay attention to the problems you naturally notice.
Pay attention to the kind of work that makes you feel useful.
And pay attention to what people naturally come to you for.
Those things can become clues.
If you are still trying to understand what your purpose might be, this is a natural place to interlink to your post about discovering your purpose.
4. Your Gifts May Be Hiding in Plain Sight
One of the strange things about gifts is that you may not recognise them because they feel normal to you.
You might think, “Everybody can explain things like this.”
Maybe they can’t.
You might think, “Everybody notices when someone is struggling.”
Maybe they don’t.
You might think, “Anybody can write.”
Not necessarily.
Maybe you naturally organise people.
Maybe you make people feel comfortable.
Maybe you can see patterns.
Maybe you are unusually creative.
Maybe you are good at fixing things.
Maybe you ask questions that make people think.
Maybe you can simplify complicated ideas.
Maybe you have a strange ability to encourage people when they are discouraged.
Don’t dismiss these things simply because they come naturally.
Your gifts don’t automatically reveal your entire purpose. But they can give you clues about how you might contribute.
Start paying attention.
Ask people who know you well:
“What do you think I’m naturally good at?”
And don’t argue with every answer.
Listen.
Sometimes other people can see something in you that you have become too familiar with to notice.
5. Purpose Is a Journey of Discovery, Not Always a Lightning Strike
I wish more young people understood this.
You may hear someone’s story and think they simply “found their purpose.”
But what you don’t always hear are the years of confusion, experimentation, failure, learning and small decisions that came before the clarity.
Purpose doesn’t always arrive dramatically.
Sometimes it unfolds.
You try something.
You discover you love it.
You try something else.
You realise it isn’t for you.
You volunteer somewhere.
You meet someone.
You discover a problem that bothers you deeply.
You develop a skill.
You begin helping people.
You notice that you keep returning to the same kind of work.
Slowly, a pattern appears.
That’s why I wouldn’t tell my teenage self to obsess over finding one perfect sentence that explains his entire existence.
I would tell him to pay attention to the patterns.
What keeps coming back?
What consistently matters to you?
What kind of problems pull at you?
Where do your gifts and your concerns seem to meet?
Sometimes purpose becomes clearer as you live.
6. Don’t Compare Your Beginning With Someone Else’s Middle
This is especially important in a world where everybody’s highlights are on display.
You will meet people who seem ahead of you.
Someone will launch a business while you’re still figuring out what you want.
Someone will get a scholarship.
Someone will become popular.
Someone will seem incredibly talented.
Someone will discover their career early.
And you may look at them and think:
“I’m already behind.”
You’re not.
You are looking at a small part of somebody else’s story and using it to judge the entire story of your own.
Don’t.
Your journey has its own timing.
And sometimes what looks like delay is preparation.
The person who seems behind at seventeen may have a completely different story at thirty.
So learn from people. Be inspired by people. Celebrate other people’s progress.
But don’t turn admiration into self-hatred.
You don’t need to become somebody else to have a meaningful life.
7. Don’t Just Discover Your Gifts. Develop Them.
Having potential is not the same as developing capacity.
This is something I wish every teenager understood early.
You may have the gift of writing.
Write.
You may have the gift of speaking.
Speak.
You may be good with technology.
Learn more.
You may love helping people.
Study people.
You may want to lead.
Learn how leadership actually works.
You may want to build businesses.
Learn business.
Your gifts are a starting point.
They are not the finished product.
And this is where education becomes much bigger than school.
Read books.
Take courses.
Watch people who are excellent at what they do.
Ask questions.
Practice.
Volunteer.
Build things.
Write badly before you write well.
Speak nervously before you speak confidently.
Lead small things before you lead big things.
Purpose gives you direction. Skill gives you the ability to move in that direction.
8. Be Intentional About Who Influences You
You may not realise it yet, but the people around you will shape you.
Their opinions will influence your decisions.
Their habits will influence your habits.
Their definition of success can become your definition of success without you ever consciously choosing it.
That doesn’t mean you should only spend time with people who think exactly like you.
It means you should become intentional about influence.
Find people who challenge you to grow.
Find people who have character.
Find people who are willing to tell you the truth.
Find people who are further ahead in areas where you want to develop.
Find mentors.
Ask questions.
Listen.
Learn.
And remember that a mentor doesn’t have to be someone you know personally.
Books, interviews and biographies can also give you access to people whose experiences are far ahead of your own.
But eventually, find people you can actually talk to.
Sometimes the right conversation can save you from a wrong decision.
9. Don’t Wait for a Big Opportunity
This is another trap.
You have a big idea.
You imagine the future version of it.
You imagine thousands of people being helped.
You imagine the organisation, the book, the business, the platform or the community.
And because the vision is so big, your first step feels too small.
So you don’t take it.
Don’t do that.
If you want to help people, help one.
If you want to write a book, write one page.
If you want to become a speaker, speak to a small group.
If you want to mentor young people, start with one person.
If you want to build something, build the smallest useful version of it.
Your first step doesn’t have to impress anyone.
It just has to move you forward.
Big impact often begins with something nobody notices.
10. You Are Going to Make Mistakes
Please don’t let the fear of making the wrong decision keep you from making any decision at all.
You will make mistakes.
Some of your decisions will turn out badly.
Some friendships won’t last.
Some opportunities won’t work.
Some things you thought were your calling will turn out to be preparation for something else.
That’s life.
Don’t make every wrong turn mean something is wrong with you.
Learn.
Adjust.
Apologise when necessary.
Try again.
Sometimes failure will teach you something success could never have taught you.
A closed door can reveal what you actually wanted.
A disappointing experience can expose a weakness you need to work on.
A wrong decision can make you wiser about the next one.
So don’t be paralysed by the possibility of getting it wrong.
You can learn your way forward.
11. Don’t Wait Until You’re Older to Take Yourself Seriously
You don’t need to wait until you’re thirty to begin preparing for your purpose.
You don’t need a university degree before you start developing your gifts.
You don’t need money before you start learning.
You don’t need a large audience before you start serving.
You don’t need permission before you begin becoming the person you want to become.
Start now.
Read.
Learn.
Volunteer.
Practice.
Ask questions.
Build relationships.
Explore.
Try things.
Keep a notebook of ideas.
Pay attention to what energises you and what drains you.
Notice the problems that keep bothering you.
Develop your character.
Learn how to manage your time.
Learn how to communicate.
Learn how to work with people.
Learn how to finish what you start.
These things may not look like purpose work at first.
But they are preparing you for it.
12. Don’t Turn Purpose Into Another Race
There will always be someone younger than you doing something impressive.
Let them.
You don’t have to beat them.
You don’t have to prove that you are special.
You don’t have to become successful as quickly as possible.
The goal is not simply to become impressive.
The goal is to become useful.
Become someone who can be trusted.
Become someone who keeps learning.
Become someone who can solve problems.
Become someone who can serve people.
Become someone whose presence makes other people’s lives better.
That kind of life may not always attract applause.
But it can create something far more valuable than applause.
It can create meaning.
The Question I Wish I Had Asked Earlier
I think many young people are asking the wrong question.
We ask:
“What do I want to become?”
But perhaps a better question is:
“Who do I want to become, and what contribution do I want my life to make?”
That question takes you deeper.
Because your career is only one part of your life.
Your purpose can influence how you work, how you treat people, what you build, what you teach, what you give and what you leave behind.
Don’t reduce your entire future to a job title.
You are building a life, not simply choosing a profession.
And If You Still Don’t Know Your Purpose…
That’s okay.
Seriously.
You are not late.
You are not broken.
You are not wasting your life simply because you haven’t figured everything out yet.
Keep exploring.
Keep learning.
Keep serving.
Keep asking questions.
Keep developing yourself.
And don’t ignore the small clues.
Sometimes the thing you keep coming back to is trying to tell you something.
Sometimes the problem you cannot stop thinking about is pointing toward something.
Sometimes the gift everybody notices except you is part of the answer.
Sometimes your painful experiences eventually become the very experiences that help you understand someone else.
Keep paying attention.
Your story is still being written.
Dear Younger Me, One Last Thing
If I could sit with you for just a few more minutes, I would probably tell you not to be so afraid of the future.
You will make mistakes.
You will change.
Some people will leave.
New people will enter your life.
Some dreams will die.
Other dreams will surprise you.
There will be seasons when you feel completely certain and seasons when you feel completely lost.
Keep going.
You don’t need to know everything today.
You only need to be willing to learn.
And please don’t spend your youth trying so hard to become someone everyone else will admire that you forget to discover who you actually are.
Your life is not a competition.
Your purpose is not a race.
You don’t have to become successful before you become yourself.
Take your time.
Pay attention.
Develop your gifts.
Choose your friends carefully.
Find good mentors.
Learn useful skills.
Serve people.
Start small.
And when you finally begin to understand the contribution you were made to make, don’t just admire the idea.
Do something with it.
Because one day, you will look back at the teenager you once were.
And I hope you won’t wish you had lived a different life.
I hope you’ll smile and say:
“I’m glad I gave myself permission to become who I was meant to be.”
