What would the me of now say to the me of 7 years ago

Today, December 25th, Christmas is celebrated all over the world, where it can adopt several nomenclatures, but maintains the essence of its meaning, birth (according to Christianity, the birth of Jesus).

Thinking about this meaning, I reflected on birth, or rebirth, and if I could go back in time, I would give myself some advice that would already be of great value.

7 years ago, at the end of 2012, I had finished high school and passed the entrance exam to study Information Systems, aged 16, so that certain immaturity could pass up some opportunities over time.

But maybe with that advice, I would have had wiser choices. And then, let's go to them?!

1. Care less about the opinions of others

It may seem like rebellious advice, but it is essential to know how to filter the opinions of others in your life.

When you're a woman, you're 16 years old and decided to study exact sciences, where predominantly 90% of the students will be men and you can be the only woman in the class, it already sounds quite challenging, and it becomes even more so when the people around you decide to say that you won't fit in the course, or that Technology is for men and (nerds), or that you won't be a successful professional, just because you weren't in courses that were part of the academic hype, like law, medicine and civil Engineering.

But I followed my reason at that moment and decided to opt for a course that was being indicated as one of the 10 most promising careers for the future, going against all the negative opinions I received, and well, reaping today the fruit of being, in my opinion, a of the best areas in which a person can be, with great opportunities, with companies that want to make a difference in the working life of employees, and above all, with the paradigm shift, in which today it is much discussed how to increase the participation of women in technology, engineering careers…

2. Study hard

I always had a certain ease in learning, with that I didn't feel the need to study for tests, because I knew that the minimum to pass would be somehow 'easy' to achieve, so I didn't need to make an effort to get a 10, because the 6 or 7 without great efforts were already valid.

However, I lost the habit of studying over time, and I realized that I was wrong for many years.

Being in the IT area is much more than just liking technology, you have to LOVE studying, constantly learning, keeping up to date and being aware of what is happening around you.

So certainly one of the biggest pieces of advice I would give myself is: study as much as you can, make your studies fun, without monotony, and always try to learn more about anything, about food, politics, behavioral issues...

3. Build plans, goals and own your own destiny

For a long time I believed that fate was like luck, something that could happen without my planning and would mostly be good things.

In my maturation building phase, I came to the conclusion that the destiny we always talk about is the combination of all the small decisions we make throughout our lives.

For example, if I choose a course that won't give me great chances of being in the job market, or if, over the years, I haven't been a very structured person with my money, I've spent a lot without discernment, surely my 'destiny' won't be as promising.

So I learned that life is governed according to what we plan, and if we don't do that, we will be guided through everyday events and we will end up like in Zeca Pagodinho's song, letting life take us.

4. Take care of your money

When I decided to get married, I learned from my husband that money says a lot about the kind of life we can build, especially as a couple and wanting to plan to build a fulfilling life together.

We are in a capitalist world, where everything revolves around money, where we need it to feed ourselves, to pay for our health, our transportation, that is, it has the power to generate a better quality of life for us.

I've been working since I was 18, and I earned a great salary for that age, but I lacked financial education, which I believe we should have since we were children, and due to this lack, I didn't know how to save my money and my efforts, because if you save it, or use it wisely, you are also saving the time it took to get it.

Money when used wisely gives us freedom. Freedom to choose a better company to be with for 10 hours a day, freedom to travel and be able to enjoy experiences that will be with you forever, freedom to invest more in yourself and have more time to be with the ones you love.

Having a better mindset about my money today certainly makes me a person richer in knowledge and wisdom, which I didn't have a few years ago.

5. Watch out for social media

Being born in such a modern era has its setbacks, and one of them is how easy it is for social media to keep us hooked.

When I was 13, I already had the ease of dealing with networks, such as MSN, Orkut, Facebook, so I started to enter the adult phase, having them as part of my generation's day-to-day life.

But today we have many and other social networks will appear each time, with a single objective, to have your time.

I am an avid reader of Leandro Ávila, a great investor who dedicates his time to writing books and articles about investing, and how to have a balanced and satisfying life. With him I learned that we are rich in something that is very valuable, and that sometimes we spend our whole lives without giving due value to this precious asset, TIME.

When we are born, the hourglass of our life is turned and each grain of sand that falls is one less life time, it is an asset that the more days pass, the less we will have and the easier it is to lose it.

Why are advertisements getting better today? Why do we have so many series, games, movies and social networks that are so attractive? Everything so that you can spend your time on them, and each more time you spend on these activities, less is left over for others.

According to this report by Época Negócios, Brazil is in 2nd place in the world ranking of countries that spend more time on social networks, where on average people spend almost 4 hours a day connected to social networks.

Doing a basic calculation, where we spend an average of 8h to 10h a day in our work environment + 1h commuting + 7h which are recommended for us to have a good night's sleep + 4h on social networks, we would have an average of 4 hours left to do other activities, such as studying, dedicating ourselves to household chores and the people we love, that is, it is almost impossible to do all this if we dedicate so much time to being online.

Since I left the online world, I could notice big changes in my life, such as: less anxiety, I dedicate more time to my studies and reading, I can do my housework and still have free time, I can sleep well and feel ready. for day-to-day life, the opposite of what I would have done before, where I constantly shared my intimacy and personal life.

6. Adopt the minimalist lifestyle

Minimalism brought me a lifestyle in the form of simplicity. He taught me that even though I was under strong capitalist influence, I would have a way of being different, of thinking differently and, on top of that, taking better care of my money.

Minimalism came from a cultural movement of the 60s, where artists sought to express their art through more subtle forms, less colors and more precise finishes, that is, less became more.

Steve Jobs used the minimalist concept when creating Apple's culture.

Through minimalism, I discovered that less is more, that having life experiences would be more valuable than having only material goods, that I could own fewer objects with more quality, and above all, do things consciously and not on impulse, without let myself be carried away by immediate capitalist despair.

7. Be responsible for my choices

Sometimes when you're young it's common that we don't have that thought, and we end up blaming everyone around us, except ourselves, and this is due to the lack of responsibility for our choices.

I learned that I am responsible for what happens in my life. a, be it something good or bad.

So putting together this sense of responsibility + planning, I could see that the chances of better results in my life depended solely and exclusively on my actions.

Today I find myself more aware of the choices I make, not being driven solely by emotions, having acquired the ability to use reason and not just emotion as usual.

This motivational video helped me rethink my choices:

And as Deivison Pedroza says: Life is made of choices and they can determine how your tomorrow will be. That's why it's so important to think about everything you do. A wrong path can lead you to an obscure destination. And often no return. And on this journey, every choice matters.

Each choice matters, and the sum of them will dictate the rules of our life.

As a help in reflection, I leave this song that was the name of the 2012 A-ha album, Lifelines - A-ha, because it deals a lot with of what we said throughout this article, about our destiny, where the composer reflects on what he would do if he could go back in time.

As we still don't have that power, we can plan and rethink about the destiny we are tracing for our life, where we can take this advice for life and not just in youth.

And if you could give yourself advice when you were younger, what would you tell yourself?

A Merry Christmas to all and great personal planning! 🎄