Self Reflection – Advice For A Younger Self
Hello, welcome to the second of a three part series to bring you the voices of the millennial women of today! I will be sharing their perspectives on opportunities in the workplace, life lessons that I’m sure will resonate with several of you and their take on mentoring. This series was driven by the curiosity of thoughts I have shared below.
“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.”
In the game of life, we don’t have time to stop we have to keep pushing ourselves to improve. Growing in life does not come from complacency it comes from consistency and persistence. While young women in all fields have been known to push themselves, there happens to be the question, are they succeeding nearly as much as they could be? Are there acquirable tools to aid in the advancement of their careers?
In other words, is there something that these young women may be missing, such as opportunities or connections, that could boost their careers? I, Anita Chitnis, had the privilege of interviewing young millennial women from California to New York on behalf of WINGS for Growth. These women truly enrich as women who reside in different fields, different backgrounds, and different mindsets.
To protect our participants’ privacy, we have chosen to share only their last initial. We thank them deeply for sharing their voices with WINGS and hope other young women out there find this inspiring. These young women from completely different professions, performing arts, nursing and public health industries, had somewhat similar messages.
For this portion of the series I, on behalf of WINGS, decided to delve into self-reflection. These days the letter to your younger self is a very popular way of reflecting on one’s own action as seen in a variety of posts around the blog world. So, our participants get their two minutes talking to their mini version 10 years ago.
If there was a piece of advice you could give to your younger self to help her grow more, what would it be?
“Don’t worry so much about people’s perceptions about you, society will always be the way it is. You don’t have to fit in a mold, just focus on achieving personal success.” – Anjana S., Washington D.C.
“Pick something that you are really interested in now and work hard at it. If it blossoms into something and you can make a career out of that is okay but this is the time to see what you like and don’t like. Don’t shy away from opportunities because it may not work out!” – Laura P., New York City
“Put yourself out there and apply to different positions. Volunteer at small firms to gain experience while building yourself and don’t worry about making mistakes. Just going to one career fair and applying for one internship made me a much more confident person” – Seton K., Morristown
There was a theme that stood out among all, being authentic and true to yourself will enable you to pursue your dream and fulfill a purpose. As we grow, we think back to what demeanor we portrayed as our younger selves. I, personally, look back and wish I had done something different. While we all know hindsight is 20/20, any advice we would have given our younger selves, we can use to better ourselves in the future.
To go on further about being authentic, recently, I read an interview with Sara Blakely, founder and creator of Spanx. She had said that people may not understand what you are doing and will always give you advice based on what they know in their own life to be true. She went on to explain how she was busy building a business empire for herself, not quite worried about starting a family yet that was the only advice she would receive from others. A few years later she has both, her business and a beautiful family. Being authentic and following your passions can lead to the best of opportunities.
We hope you enjoyed the second of the microblog series and continue to follow our journey as we learn more from these educated women. To see more articles like this please make sure to share your comments below. If you missed our first post in this series, you can find it here
More importantly, we want you to know that there are many ways to get involved with WINGS for Growth. There are mentor roles available or you can explore the idea of becoming a mentee and benefiting from a mentor with us. In addition, you can champion a mentor mentee engagement or be a volunteer to really get to know who we are as an organization! Remember, it is never a bad time to learn something new!
Until next time,
Anita
This blog article was contributed by Anita Chitnis an aspiring writer, blogger and a volunteer at WINGS.
