Has anyone ever given you some life changing advice?

[scottyhannah]

My first ever boss told me to find my voice and do things with purpose.
It was a dig at the time as I was a shy little 17 year old but for some reason it stayed with me for the next 30 years and I still hear his voice butt into my head when I need motivation.
He would have no idea that his frustrated jibe would have helped make me who I am.

If you keep doing what you are doing you’ll keep getting what you are getting
From Mark Rashid horse trainer but also true of many situations in life

"The time will pass anyway".

I thought about this when I did a degree 'but that will take three years!' Three years will pass either way.

Not advice as such, but following on from this, a human stomach has more brain cells in it than a cat has brain cells in its brain. It's called the enteric nervous system, and has 500 million neurons (cat brain has about 300 million) and it can alert you when something is amiss, so "trust your gut" is actually very good advice!

‘Everything looks too hard until you start doing it.”
Me, to myself.
Helped me to overcome doubts about my abilities and my career path. Realised I could accomplish much more than I thought.
(plus, helped muffle DM’s voice in my head telling me I couldn’t do anything!)

Superb advice.

Love this!

These are ones I've kinda made up myself but have helped me through life....

"I'll be dead in 100 years and none of this will matter" stopped me worrying as put things into perspective

"Drastic or boring" helps me come out of my comfort zone when I was worried to take a leap. It's helped me with change. Everything would be boring if we didn't embrace change

"Do not make decisions using your head or your heart - use your gut" use and trust your intuition

Love a lot, trust a few, always paddle your own canoe.

Someone once told me you could click 'watch thread' (usually under the down arrow at the top of the thread) so I could add threads to my Watched list without having to post a placemarking post on the thread.

"Threads I'm Watching" is a great way to keep track of all the threads you are either posting on or watching.

I don't get this. Lots of things can be satisfactorily improved on. Got a rubbish partner? It's like saying be happy with it or you'll never be happy with anyone. (Or substitute "mattress", "kettle", "job", "bra"!)

This is incredibly insightful, actually

“Ditch him and move to London”

Two separate random women in their forties to me in my twenties at two separate parties.

Fabulous advice that I took - doubled my salary /had amazing experiences met international friends and met a far better Dh than my ex.

I have 3 "The truth is always in the middle" as everyone sees things from their own perspective. " Never let the sun go down on your anger" obviously applies to people you care about as tomorrow isn't promised and "trust your gut" intuition is there for a reason

You can't control everything.

From a relative:

If you didn't cause it and you can't change it then don't worry about it.

From an ex-boss on my first day:

If you make a mistake, own up, apologise and it can be dealt with and put right. If you cover it up and lie about it, it will just get a whole lot worse.

Both really good bits of advice.

😂

yes. when I was 21 and dithering about whether to spend 5 years at medical school, someone said " 5 years will pass in a flash and you will either use them to set yourself up for life , or you will not" Best advice I was ever given. I went to medical school ...

I read it more as looking at being happy with yourself.
Like, if you are unhappy living in one town, you won't necessarily be happier moving to another because you are taking your own bad attitude with you.

"Sometimes sadness expresses itself as anger."

It has really helped me to understand why I was feeling so angry about things, and to stop feeling ashamed at being angry and treat myself with more kindness.

'You don't have to smile all the time' and 'its ok to accept that not everyone will like you'.
Being able to drop the pretence that I was ok and everything was fine was like being able to put down a huge burden.

Something along the lines of 'you need to put your own oxygen mask on first' and the variations of this.

Recognising at several points in my life that I can't continue to do what I'm doing for myself and everyone around me UNLESS I take care of myself first.

Acknowledging that has been a turning point during several crises of health, work, family, trauma, legal proceedings.

Advice that I try to keep in mind, and live by:

Fake it till you make it
Wear the world like a loose garment

'Not everything you do has to set the world alight, it's okay to just get the job done - your reputation will not suffer'
Said to me while I was having another meltdown due to being a huge overachiever who had totally lost sight of the fact that its just a job!
Also a great interview tip if you are stressing that an example is 'boring'

'Don't let your boss hear that you fucked up from anyone else than you - go to them with am apology and a solution, even if its only half of one'
This applies to everyone in your life, tbh.

'Will this matter in a week/month/year?'
Or another side to this:
'do you still want to be in the same situation a year from now?'

A few things that are obvious in hindsight but blew my mind at the time:

1. You can be tactical in your friendships, i.e. decide who you do what with, and who you go to for particular things. Before this, I was firmly in give mode rather than friendships being reciprocal.
2. The only certain thing is change so you have to learn to accept it.
3. Embrace every 'boring' day/week/month/year. Boring means nothing bad has happened!
4. Incremental improvement is possible and good. i.e. you don't have to stop eating chocolate overnight, you can slowly move the needle towards where you want to be, e.g. every other day, then once a week.

There have been a few...

"If jobs were that great, nobody would pay you to do it for them" (can't remember who)

"We either take a contract or not. We don't half-ass it because we're not being paid as much as we want." - My boss, lecturing his boss on work ethics

"You speak too slowly and monotone, it's depressing and nobody wants to talk to you. Be more human and less like a robot if you want to keep your job." - A later boss, which caused me to be absolutely paranoid about it and mask even harder for the last 25 years. Turns out I'm autistic, and he's an asshole (although the latter was already pretty well-established).