I’ve been wanting to write something like this for a while now, and my 20th birthday feels like finally the right time to do it. I’m at an interesting spot in life right now. The past two years have changed me a lot, and turning 20 feels like a good time to write some of that down.
“How many of the things in your life do you do because you want to do them, and how many do you do because you feel like you have to do them?”
If I had to give one piece of advice to myself about the last couple of years, it would be to stop performing. The vast majority of problems I ended up facing over the past couple of years can be attributed to me not being able to say no, or trying to get validation that doesn’t really do anything for me.
It is so much easier said than done, but not being anxious about what other people perceive and think about you makes you so much happier than you would’ve been with their approval. However, there does exist a fine line between choosing yourself and helping others. As I understand it now, the general rule of thumb should be to help people when you can and accept help when you can.
Another aspect of performance that I think is important to highlight is oversharing. Telling everyone what you are doing or going through can become a way of creating expectations before you’ve even processed things yourself. A lot of the time, people can tell when sharing is coming from ego rather than honesty, and it changes how the conversation feels.
Note:
This feels slightly contradictory to my previous statement about not caring what people think about you, but I think the rebuttal to that is that the difference lies in where the sharing comes from. There’s a difference between just saying shit versus having a genuine conversation.
The final aspect of performance that I would advise myself about is performing to myself. This feels a bit more wishy-washy under the “performance umbrella,” but it’s extremely important to listen to the gut-feeling side of yourself instead of the immediate-gratification side. The choices you make from the gut-feeling side always end up being more fulfilling and sustainable.
I think a lot of growing up is learning to tell the difference between what feels good immediately and what actually feels right. I’m still figuring that out, but this feels like the main lesson I want to carry with me into 20.
TLDR: Be self-aware, trust your gut, don’t overshare, be present, don’t perform.