Connect With Your Teenage-self
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Do you remember what you were like as a teenager? No, I am not talking about the awkwardness and struggles with self identity or the clumsiness as you wonder about who your next date will be. I am talking about how you looked at the future. The optimism you had about who you could become and what you could do in life. Chances are your thought process was much different than it is today after you have been beaten up by life a little. It is time to change that, to reconnect with your teenage-self, and start thinking big again.
Have Big Dreams
As a teenager you probably had big dreams about life. Think back to that time. What did you dream about? What were your hopes for the future? At one point, I remember dreaming about being able to retire young and play golf every day. Your dreams at this age are not limited by life experiences. There isn’t as much that you think “I couldn’t do that” or “that’s not possible”. Instead you believed that it was possible to live your dreams.
Do Anything/ Achieve Anything
Chances are you believed that you could do anything in life. You could achieve whatever you wanted to. What did you want to achieve? Did you have a list of what you wanted to do in life? If so, your list was probably very extensive. The world was in front of you and you could aim to do anything you wanted to. It was all possible.
Change the World
Not only did you believe that you could do things for yourself, but you knew that you could make a difference. You could change the world. Your dreams were not small dreams limited to yourself, they were world changing. What impact did you want to have on the world? What was the thing that you wanted to change, for the betterment of all humanity?
Unshakable Confidence
The most interesting thing is that your mindset didn’t stop with big dreams and a belief that you could do anything, achieve anything and even change the world. That dream was combined with an unshakable confidence that not only could you do it, but you would do it. You would achieve more, have more and be more. You would make a difference in the world. You would make your dreams come true.
So What Happened?
A drastic change occurred. Likely you don’t have those same dreams anymore. You likely do not see yourself changing the world, and while you have goals you likely have much smaller goals than the “teenage-you”. Somehow things changed.
This change didn’t happen all at once. It was a gradual change. It happened step by step in your life as things didn’t quite go the way you thought it would. One disappointment at a time, you slowly began to accept less in life. You started to lower your goals and to dream of smaller goals.
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It started small. Maybe you didn’t get into your top choice for a college. Perhaps you didn’t get the summer job you hoped for. Later, the disappointments got a little bigger. You graduated from college and ended up working in a fast-food restaurant or a retail store. This wasn’t what you went to college for! You started to think more about paying off your student loans than about the dreams you used to have.
Over time, step by step, the burdens of life and the disappointments that occur have diminished your dreams. As a result, you set smaller goals, and you began to accept less and less out of life.
What Can You Do?
It is time to get your dreams back. No, they don’t have to be the same dreams you had as a teenager – although some of them might be. It is not the actual dreams that you need to get back, but your ability to dream; your ability to think big about life, to see the world as full of possibilities instead of full of limitations. It is about being able to see yourself as capable of achieving big things, and getting back your unshakable confidence.
The Irony of It All
The irony of the situation is that you are now in a better place to achieve big goals. You are now far better prepared to do big things, to live an extraordinary life. You have more skills and abilities. You may have more education, or at least a lot more life experience. You know your strengths and weaknesses. You have more connections, a bigger network. You have more potential!
Combine the Two
In the end, what you need to do is combine the two sides. Combine the energy, belief, and dreams of your teenage-self, with the knowledge, wisdom and abilities of the current you! The trick of course is to combine them without letting your current mindset and beliefs takeover again. Stick to your big dreams. Stick to your unwavering belief that you will achieve your goals, and stick to the attitude that comes from those beliefs. This change in mindset and attitude will take time. You will need to work at it and create a new habit of thinking. But if you do work at it, you can replace your current thinking with the type of dreaming that was true of your teenage-self.
When you combine the two, you will move forward rapidly towards your goals. You are better than you think you are and by connecting with the teenage-you, you can reach your dreams, achieve more than you imagine, and you can change the world.
Written by:
The Success Professor – Danny Gamache
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Tags: Achievement, dreams, Goals, inspiration, Motivation, Personal Growth, success
I find that a lot of things I wanted to accomplish as a teen-ager tend to bleed through my present experience albeit in different ways. The themes are there but just not how I envisioned it.
At one point I wanted to be a comedy writer. That didn’t happen but I still spend most of my days writing anyway. I also briefly considered becoming a psychologist as a teen-ager. I didn’t. I earned a Ph.D. in mass communication. But I use a lot of psychological research in my work.
I agreee. A lot of it boils down to not allowing circumstances to dictate your dreams.