What would you say to your younger self?
Hindsight is a wonderful thing and though at the time when I was younger, I felt like I knew it all, and that I was doing things right, I could have always done things better.
When I was at school, I was so sporty, you probably wouldn’t believe. I played netball, hockey, tennis, did cross country, athletics, rounders and gymnastics. Not to blow my own horn, but I was pretty good too. I played Netball for my county, got medals for cross country and went through several ‘badge’ levels at gymnastics, as well as various school sports awards and players of the year. I played tennis and although it wasn’t my favourite thing ever, I must have done OK, as when they needed another person for the school tennis team, I remember my teachers saying “Oh, Becky will do it”. A bit of a sporting ‘jack of all trades’ really.
While this was great, I loved playing sport and I was always the last girl left running in the ‘Bleep Test’, I wish I had really pushed myself more. When I was at University, I was chosen to be on the Uni team, which again, was great, but due to being quite shy and nervous around the ‘older’ girls, I didn’t always play to my full potential. As a result, I didn’t play that many actual matches. And then I just thought, I won’t bother anymore.
It felt like I had gone from being the top sportswoman in my year and at school, to then being just ‘okay’. It all knocked my confidence quite a lot.
Now, not to make this sound like a massive sob story, I thought I would share what I have learnt from my experiences and what I should have told myself back then.
- I wish that I had stuck it all out, carried on training and worked even harder, so that who knows, I could have still been doing sport to a high level now.
- I would tell my younger self to get a grip! Work hard and play hard. Train hard and keep playing sport.
- I would have told myself that you can’t be the best at everything. It doesn’t mean that you should stop doing it though!
- I would tell myself to not give up, keep doing the sports that I enjoy and that it doesn’t matter if I’m not always on the first team. I’m still part of the team and I should keep training to improve myself.
What would you tell your younger self?
Rebecca x
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Ahhh I think I have too much advice for my younger self and it wouldn’t all fit on this page! But I also think that maybe some of the mistakes and lessons I’ve learnt make me into the person I am today. (and hopefully won’t make the same mistakes again!) x
very true – how we have been and things we did help us learn and grow 🙂
Gosh you’re so right, there are so many things I would tell my younger self. But I reckon my younger self really wouldn’t have listened! So as I’ve got older, I’ve learnt to take advice a lot better. Sometimes people who are older, are often wiser. Only sometimes though… 🙂
Oh, there are plenty of things I’d tell my younger self! I was the opposite to you, though, in that I avoided sport whenever possible! It’s hard because when you’re younger, you do really think you know it all, and then you get older and wiser and realise how little you still actually know!
I love these posts. It’s so great to hear what people would say to their younger self. I know I have a whole book load of stuff that I would scream at my younger self. lol If only we could do that. Although not sure I would have listened. There may have been eye rolling involved too. lol Great post. Thanks for linking up to Share With Me #sharewithme
Thanks Jenny
I can relate to so much of this post…I played every single sport and tennis was my weakest too! Not sure what it was – still not great now. I remember being hockey captain but I never dared tell anybody what to do, so it was all rather pointless! Hahahaaa! So ridiculous!!! and I stopped playing hockey at Uni because the girls scared me! x
Ha I think that was true for me too. They all seemed to know each other really well. And when you don’t drink, they just didn’t get it so made the social side kind of awkward lol x