20 things I learnt before turning 20

As I celebrate my 20th birthday I find it important to look back and realise what I’ve learnt from life up to this point. As I leave behind my teenage years and enter a new decade of my life, I want to reflect on my experiences up to now and how they’ve helped me to grow. In doing so, it also helps me to remember I have much to learn and to go into my twenties ready for new challenges. Because I’m going to explain what I mean by each point, this is going to be a long post so grab a cup of tea and a biscuit and dive in.

1. The importance of me time: I feel like I’ve definitely spoken about this on my blog before but that’s only because I feel it is so important. For so long, I would fill all my time wanting to keep busy but all this time I was neglecting my need for time alone. Don’t get me wrong I love to see friends and family and often start to feel lonely when I haven’t had contact for a while. However, I’ve learnt to embrace the time when I’m not surrounded by people and if I have a busy schedule I make time to have a bit of self-care.
2. People will change and that’s okay: this includes you. Change can be scary but it’s important to embrace it as it can often be for the best. Even if it doesn’t feel like it at the time things can work out in the end. It may be a blessing in disguise.
3. You really do live and learn: I’ve heard this saying so many times and as cliché as it sounds it’s very much true. Most people are just learning as they go along. Even if you feel overwhelmed by the future just remember you’ll learn as you grow and things will begin to fall into place. This leads me nicely into my next point.
4. Own up to your mistakes and learn from them: It can be scary realising you’ve made mistakes and admitting to them. This however, is the only way you can learn and begin to improve yourself. Also, in facing them straight on will allow for others for forgive you, if what you have done has impacted others in some way.
5. 18 may be legally an adult but it doesn’t feel like it: I may have been an adult legally for the past two years but there’s so many points of adulthood that I am yet to learn. There are experiences that I haven’t yet had or issues I haven’t yet worked out how to resolve but I am slowly learning. You don’t just learn how to be an adult over night.
6. You won’t do everything first try: It can be so easy to think something is too difficult and give up after failing first try but you won’t learn if you don’t persevere. I recently attempted to put up shelves for the first time (which was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be) and I just couldn’t get it right. In the end I asked for some help but I still worked through it and now I’ve learnt how to do it for next time.
7. Not only is it okay to ask for help but it’s important: This has so much scope. It relates to my previous point about how you may think something should be easy and it would be embarrassing to ask for help. Most of the time people will be happy to help and won’t care if they think it’s easy, people are different. Not only this, but if you’re struggling with say mental health, it is vital to open up and look for help.
8. Other people will go through the same things you will, you just may not know it: You may feel alone in your struggles at times but often you won’t be the only one experiencing it. I’ve found that by opening up to friends about things we can often relate and feel less alone. And even if they personally haven’t been through it, they may know someone who has or offer advice on how to get through it while being there for you.
9. How to live independently: Going to university has eased me into living alone. I have that security that I will be going home in the holidays while navigating independent living during term time. Like I said earlier about living and learning you’ll work this out as you go along. Yes, it can be daunting at first but if you’re at uni most people will be in the same position and you can get through it together.
10. Things can be harder than they seem and vice versa: A lot of the time you could be dreading doing something thinking it will be too difficult when it really isn’t. The best way to navigate this is to wait and see. As the saying goes; cross that bridge when you come to it. Even if something is a lot more difficult than you perceived it to be you can work through it, don’t let yourself be put off by that.
11. Make the most of your time with friends and family: I don’t mean this in a morbid way but going off to university changed the dynamic of when I see people. The friends that I saw everyday at school and my family who I permanently lived with suddenly became people I would only really see in the holidays or if I visited for a weekend. My university friends became people I live with and then don’t see when I go home. I try not to take advantage of the time spent with people and enjoy the memories we make.
12. Growing up isn’t all it’s cracked up to be: I remember being a young teenager looking up to people in their late teens thinking they were so grown up. Now I’m at that age I don’t feel that way at all. It’s strange how we perceive the years ahead without truly knowing what’s going on.
13. You can’t know everything: when I was younger in school I loved the thought of discovering and learning new things and I still do now. The only difference is now there’s so much more to the world than I really realised and I can’t learn things fast enough. I find it important to accept there will be conversations where I won’t have an opinion because I don’t know enough on a topic but I hope from understanding the stories and opinions of others I can learn new things.
14. You’ll have bad days, the important thing is learning to embrace the good days: So often it is easy to dwell on the bad days and thing what went wrong or what could have gone better. Instead, I like to look at the good days and treasure the memories.
15. You won’t look stupid admitting you don’t know something: I personally feel it’s better to admit you don’t know something so that you can be informed. You’ll probably look even more silly talking on a topic you don’t know anything about or you don’t fully understand. Personally, I love a chance to learn something new!
16. It’s important to go at my own pace: For so long I saw life as a race. I felt like I needed to keep up with my peers to be successful in life. However, as I’ve grown up I’ve realised I need to do things at my own pace and it will be worth taking it slow in the end.
17. I have definitely changed over the years: like I said earlier change can be really good. I like to look back over how I’ve changed and what life events have led me to do so. I have come to the realisation that I’m not the same person I was when I was 16 and that really is a good thing. Looking back at her I’m glad of everything I went through to become who I am today.
18. I have slowly grown into myself as I navigate life: As I have lived and exited my bubble life, I have learnt to understand myself better and developed as a person.
19. There is still uncertainty ahead: Though I have learnt so much in my first 20 years, there is still so much to learn. I have no idea where I will be in five years or realistically even a year from now. But, I look forward to finding out.
20. I’ve had my ups and downs but so far I’ve had a good twenty years!

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