Women who were driven/high performing in high school: What do you wish a trusted adult had told you before you turned 18?

21 comments

1. “Go to community college and save some money. Don’t listen to your mother telling you to apply to Ivy League schools.”
   Also
   “Take some time to work on your social skills, kid.”

2. I wouldn’t have listened to most adults. But I wish someone had told me that unless you want to be a doctor, a lawyer, or in politics, where you go to college doesn’t matter and high school is mainly about training you to respect authority, which you typically shouldn’t do. Succeeding in school is not a personality and you should only try hard at the parts of school you enjoy and half-ass the rest.

   You should get to be a kid. You should spend a lot of time doing very little. You should play video games and hang out with your friends and break curfew and kiss someone at a party. You should get as much of a life outside of school as you possibly can, and you should be able to believe that even if you screw up or act stupid, your parents will still love you and you’ll still have a good future.

   You don’t need to be a doctor, a lawyer, in politics, or otherwise in a socially respected career to be happy. Life isn’t about being perfect. It’s about going on walks and buying yourself a fun drink and petting animals and putting your feet in the lap of someone you love and making little creative things because you want to. And you are more than capable of making that life for yourself.

3. Work on your self-worth so that you are able to love yourself without constantly justifying it in your mind by thinking you’re worthy of love and acceptance BECAUSE you’re smart and accomplished.

   You are INHERENTLY worthy of love and acceptance, even when and if your smarts fail you for whatever reason. It’s awesome that you’re smart, but it’s not your defining feature, nor should it be.

4. social skills are the most important skill in life. people should be your 1st priority just priorities those people.

5. There’s no award for being perfect. In fact, trying will lead to less opportunity and more frustration. Try new stuff, screw up, try again, change your mind, change your style, do things that make you happy. That’s the key to a good life.

6. “You’re finding high school ridiculously easy because it IS ridiculously easy. You’ll need to learn some actual study skills to make it in college.”

7. “If you aren’t careful, you will burn yourself out.” When I was student-teaching in college, my mentor told me that. And she was right.

8. People don’t really respect SAH moms anymore! Still worth doing though.

9. To keep being driven, and to start really saving money.

10. College won’t be easy, figure out what good study habits work for you. It’s ok to fail, just try again. Also to figure out how to talk to teachers and ask for help.

11. Community college is only a money saver for some majors, series of classes that transfer may not be transferable as individual classes, college is ridiculously impacted.

    A masters degree isn’t all that important unless you’re trying for a job that requires it or going on to a higher degree.

12. Never lose your ambition. Just because you never had any good role models doesn’t mean it can’t be done.

13. Lower your bar.
    Stop setting yourself to extremely high standards.
    Regardless of anyone else or parents in your life trying to heighten that bar to borderline PERFECTION.
    Don’t presume you want to do what your family or teachers have always presumed or thought good for you .
    Honestly..work before you sign up for any college or uni.
    Work any job.. retail hospitality etc. It’ll teach you way more social skills and responbilty than any college..
    And you’ll learn what you’re good at and not. What you hate and not. You learn SOOO MUCH about yourself.

    You can then tweak the more mature view you’ve gained into a role that grabs your interest.
    I went to uni at 17.. I completed a degree at 21. I now have zero interest in that topic and infact would hate working in that area at all.
    I’ve since worked in service retail etc and am currently learning a butcher trade..very different than the child care studies I did..

14. If you think school is easy, focus on the things you find difficult, like learning to say no (to things, plans, and people), building up street smarts, and facing personal fears.

15. The stress you’re going through will make you mentally and physically older than your age. Manifests into bad health. It isn’t worth it. Slow down

16. Don’t listen to your mother. You got one shot at college. Pick a science major

17. The love other people have for you is not conditional to how well you perform. Also, you can make mistakes and take life less seriously and you’ll still have the same worth. Grades or accomplishments don’t make who you are, you are way more than that.

18. [removed]

19. Go into specialized trade work with little women in the industry, so you get paid more

20. You need a hobby outside of academics. You don’t even have to be great at it or monetize it or use it in college. Just find something to have fun and invest yourself in.

    Oh and here’s the money to pay for that hobby.

21. “You have undiagnosed ADHD. Please get that treated before you develop anxiety and depression.”