Hello January-2019 me,
It’s the July-2020-you writing from the future. Don’t gasp. I just want to make sure you’re not acting like an idiot, like I was. I know you feel quite lost and unsure about what to do now, so I’m here to give you some advice. I hope you’ll do what I say, because if there is anyone to trust, it’s definitely me. Let’s crack on.
Life-changing-advice 1: Read all the books you bought.
We get bored of non-fiction easily and that’s why I ended up with a stash of untouched books in the cupboard. But good news, I discovered a great tip that will get us through to the end of a book: read only 2 pages daily. Build this habit and you’ll have no trouble finishing any book. After that, write a review along with some interesting quotes and facts. Writing things down means that whatever you’ve read doesn’t get lost with time. A year later, you’ll find yourself a more knowledgeable person with that notebook filled with useful information.
Life-changing-advice 2: Learn and Practise Coding Consistently
You’ve learnt a little of HTML and CSS, but sadly I only remember 5% of what you learnt. If you don’t want your efforts to go to waste, keep practising and applying what you’ve learnt. Build random websites, upload a few cat pictures, anything. Just keep coding until it’s your second nature. Besides that, continue exploring other coding languages as well. It’s a very useful skill to have and you’ll find it easier to complete the computing projects in uni.
Life-changing-advice 3: Reflect and write daily
Now when I think back to the unintentional gap year I took, I have absolutely no idea what I did or accomplished. I want you to write in your journal everyday what you did and reflect on what could be better. Think further down the road, “what would I regret not learning a year later?” This will give you a push to take things more seriously and not waste away your days scrolling Instagram.
Life-changing-advice 4: Pick a subject and learn it intensely for a month
You are entering university, and soon- the real world. It’s time to broaden your scope of knowledge. Choose something interesting and do research on it for a month. Write down all your findings and thoughts about it. This way you’re increasing the variety of topics that you’re familiar with, which will help you have more conversations with different people.
Life-changing-advice 5: Build your stamina
The most important base any sportsman must have is stamina. Once you have built up a good stamina, you won’t be afraid of joining any sport, because you’ll know you have the basics. It’s hard to train alone, but you should push yourself just that bit more each time you run. Set weekly milestones that don’t seem too huge, run three seconds faster than yesterday, run 1km more than last week and keep going. By advancing little by little, all of these milestones will add up.
It’s time to say goodbye now and I know this sounds like a lot, but I just want you to know that you will still be alright even if you don’t listen to what I’ve said. Don’t worry too much, good things will happen and you’ll meet great people. I wish you the very best in your parallel world.
Love,
Yourself from 2020