Let’s Talk: Things I Wish I Could Tell My High School Self

I’ve been out of high school for over five years now, and boy have a lot of things changed. Though a majority of my readers fall within the 20-30 age group, I do have a chunk of young readers that I thought could benefit from this post. We all went to high school at some point, and it’s safe to say there are so many things we each wish we would have known back then that we do now. Today’s post is opening a conversation on the things I wish I could tell my high school self, touching on finding your niche, being social, dating, insecurities and more!

To give you some background on who I was in high school, I was pretty quiet. I had a great small group of friends who I’m still friends with today, I didn’t play sports (only volleyball 7th-9th grade) or really join any clubs. I was the newspaper/yearbook co-editor, so I spent a lot of my time in the journalism room. I briefly pursued modeling the summer between my junior and senior year, signed with a talent agency, met with modeling agencies in NYC and ended up deciding against it. I later went off to school at Franklin College as undeclared, later majoring in PR.

With that being said, everything I’m about to talk about I kind of already knew in the back of my head in high school, but now I can confidently confirm these things to be true. Here’s my viewpoint, five years later.

Just because you don’t have a niche here, doesn’t mean you won’t ever find one.
I’ve always wanted to do my own thing. Ever since I can remember, I’ve wanted to be different than everyone else and do something totally new, which can be tough to do in a small town, high school bubble. I wasn’t a sports girl (been there, done that with volleyball) and needless to say, I wasn’t interested in any of the clubs either. This eliminated a lot of social opportunities for me as a shy girl that wanted to blaze her own trail — in comes blogging, three years later.

You’re not abnormal for not wanting to do what everyone else is doing.
I always knew this was true, but I often found others questioning why I didn’t want to do what “everyone else is doing” like going to all the football games, etc. This sounds so stupid typing this out, but let’s be honest, most things that happen in high school aren’t that big of a deal and aren’t as important as they seem at the time. Playing sports and going to all the games was something everyone did, but I just wasn’t interested. There’s nothing wrong with not wanting to go to these things, but I wish I would have been more assured of that at the time.

No one cares if you date anyone or not in high school.
I wasn’t too interested in dating anyone in high school (at least not anyone I knew), but sometimes I wondered in the back of my head if I was missing out on anything by not doing so — and the truth is, NOT AT ALL! Trust me, there’s plenty of time for that in college and the rest of your life! If you don’t like any of the guys/girls at your high school, that doesn’t mean you won’t find anyone that you do like. Looking back now, I’m so glad that I didn’t date anyone from my high school because the guys that I thought were cute would have probably been really awful life choices. Good job, Abby.

Don’t resist putting yourself out there if you want to.
Though I’m glad I never tried to be anyone other than myself in high school, I do wish I would have been a little more outgoing. I’m a lot better at this now than I was back then, but it certainly wouldn’t have hurt to talk to more people, be more social and sure of myself. I think it’s easy to get stuck in a confined bubble of “this is who I am and I can’t change now” in high school, but that’s so untrue! Though it can seem difficult or sometimes impossible at the time, don’t hesitate to be who you want to be, even if it’s different than who you were yesterday.

Stop being insecure.
Like pretty much everyone else, I was insecure in high school. For example, I couldn’t take myself seriously when it came to modeling and was uncomfortable in front of the camera and with attention on me, hence why that all came to a close. I often felt too skinny, too plain looking and was way too hard on myself. Though insecurity is a constant for most of us throughout life in one form or another, I’ve grown so much in this area since high school. I wish I would have felt more confident in my own skin back then and stopped worrying about the things I didn’t like about myself at the time.

For those of you that hate high school, I promise, it gets SO MUCH BETTER! I loved college so much from day one and was the happiest I’d ever been at that point. I came out of my shell, extended my already great group of friends, and did so many fun things. I was independent, never homesick and completely fell in love with college and what my life had become. I met my now husband, Justin, within the first three days of my freshman year, found a major that I loved after being undeclared, and felt like the best version of myself.

So if you’re in high school (or middle school) right now feeling like you can’t find your place, worried that you’re not interested in dating anyone you know, or stressed about drama and gossip, remember that high school is not as important as you may think it is. A lot of people probably tell you that already, but I promise you it’s true. Make the most of it while you’re there, stay true to who you are and don’t let what your peers are doing or saying influence you. Be an individual and do what makes you happy.

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I think it’s incredibly important to talk about these things, so I hope you found this post insightful. If you’d like, please share some things you wish you could tell your high school self in a comment below! I encourage you all to journal or post some things you feel would have been important for your younger self to know — and sharing could help others who may be in need of your words. If you like this kind of content, read up on all of my previous “Let’s Talk” posts here. Have a great Wednesday and I hope you enjoyed this time machine post! 🙂