Habits I Regret Not Starting in My Teen Years

Because I would’ve saved myself from a lot of… regret.

My teen years just ended this year. I turned 20 just almost five months ago, and I’m already starting to reflect on the things I wish I did in my teen years. Most of those things were habits.

This blog post is about the habits that I wish I built in my teen years. Looking back, doing these habits earlier would’ve made my life easier now.

However, the most important part is that I’m doing those habits now. While I wish I did them earlier, it was important that I ended up doing them anyway. Those habits are what I am going to share with you in this blog post. I’ve even categorised the habits that you can just go to whatever it most applicable to you:

• Health Habits
• Career/Study Habits
• Self-Growth Habits
• Productivity Habits
• Finance Habits
• Social Habits

And there are about 2-3 habits in each of these categories. You can probably tell, there are a lot of regrets 😂 but don’t worry, I got over those regrets by actually starting those habits anyway.

So here are the list of habits that I wish I started earlier:

Health Habits

While there are health habits that I am happy to say that I built early on in my teen years (exercise, drinking required water intake, 10,000 steps a day), there are still a few that I regret that I didn’t do.

Cut Out Junk Food

In my all of my teen years, chips and chocolate were my all time guilty pleasures.

I had this idea in my mind, that as a teenager, I didn’t have to worry about what I was eating, I just worry about it when I am an adult. However, I wish I just broke that junk food habit sooner.

When I was eighteen years old, I started to become a lot more mindful on what I was eating. I became a bit more self-conscious about the foods I was putting into my body. But I still never let go of the habit of just eating junk food as opposed to more healthier options.

So my reasons for regretting not cutting out junk food in my diet, is that it became a lot harder for me to break that habit. I feel like with any sort of habit, the longer you do it, the harder it is to break.

I wish that I didn’t have that mindset back then. And the one takeaway I want to give to you, is that if there is a habit that you want to break, it’s better to break it now, than wait until later. Because the longer you delay starting to break that habit, the harder it is going to be.

Eat More Fruits & Vegetables

Speaking of food, I’m going to talk about the opposite of breaking a diet. I’m going to talk about building a particular habit which is to eat more fruits and vegetables.

I’ll be honest here, I don’t mind fruits. In fact, I love to eat fruits, but it’s much harder for me to eat vegetables. I was a very picky eater as a teenager, and just writing that made me realise that I’m still a bit of a picky eater until this day.

What I wish I did for this habit, was similar to what I wish I did with the last habit. I wish I built the habit of eating fruits and vegetables regularly earlier. Because as you know, I had that mindset that I didn’t have to worry about what I was eating until I got older.

Now, me still being a picky eater doesn’t help me with trying to build that habit now. As you can see, this is just another example on what happens if you delay starting a new habit that you want to build.

Worked on my Posture

So, I’ve struggled with poor posture for years… all of my teen years. I’ve had people point out that I need to stand up straight, I’ve had people literally tap me on the back to pull my shoulders back. Posture was something that I wish I had worked on earlier.

I didn’t end up going to a chiropractor until three months before I turned 20. Do I wish that I went to a chiropractor earlier? 100% yes I wish I did.

Because the chiropractor, gave me an overview on why I had poor posture and issues with my posture. As you know, in high school, you study a lot, and you study for hours on end. That affected my posture a lot because I would spend days and days just sitting down on my desk without actually getting up (except to go to the bathroom) and that cost me good posture.

So when I so the chiropractor she began telling me of things to implement into my life to improve my posture, and the reason why I beat myself up a bit was because they were all things that I could’ve easily done. This had included:

• Using a monitor for school/work instead of using a laptop (because when you face down to look at your laptop, you put strain to your neck)
• Move around every 30 minutes to make sure that you’re not sitting down all day.

These were all things that I could’ve easily implemented from the day I became a teenager.

Now, as a adult, my posture has improved, and as my posture improved my confidence also improved. I struggled with self-confidence for a lot of my teen years, and I just wish that I took care of those posture issues during my teen years because I feel like I would’ve felt a lot better about myself… I know that there are a lot of things that go into self-confidence besides the way you stand up, but it would’ve helped just a bit.

Study/Career Habits

There are many things that I wished did in my teen years that would’ve made getting a job and getting through my studies much easier. Here are the habits I wish I started:

Actively Update my Resume

Something I wish I did more often in my teen years is update my resume and build my cover letter skills.

I’m not kidding here, I created a resume when I was 16 and I stuck with it for two years! So by the time I was eighteen, out of high school, and looking for a job, all the things included in my resume wasn’t that relevant anymore. Plus, since then, I did do so many placements and experiences that I still haven’t included it.

This was a habit that I regretted not doing because when the time came for me to look for a job, I had to spend up to two-three hours updating my resume. The worst part was that I could’ve handed in my resume already to companies who were actively looking, and by the time I finished updating my resume, they weren’t taking on anyone anymore.

Now, this isn’t one of those habits that you have to do every day, even every week. This is a habit that is worth doing at least monthly. Because one month is a good time frame to see what new skills you have built, what other volunteer and work experience that you have done, and also include any accomplishments.

The last thing you want to happen is that you come across a great opportunity that would require you to hand in a resume. However when you’re in mid-exams, or in a middle of doing a big assessment, and you don’t even have time to fix up your resume. You would make life easy for you if you already have an updated resume ready to go.

Wow Lauren, really wish you did this earlier.

Network More

Speaking of applying for jobs, another habit that would’ve helped me is networking more, especially networking with people in my industry.

I have learned as I got older how important networking is. Networking is so valuable because it gives you an advantage over other people when it comes to looking for jobs in your industry. I regret not doing this in my teen years, because as I got out of high school and looking for a job in the law industry, I didn’t have any connections.

Because I didn’t have any connections, the best thing I could do is apply for jobs on job-searching sites where hundreds of other people also applied. Sometimes I directly call or email a company to see if they have any job opportunities but I would never hear back from them. Some of my friends who work at law firms tell me that they got their job through a connection of there’s.

Now that I’ve began to do networking more often as I entered my adult years, I began to see the value in it even more. I don’t just network within the law industry, but also within the blogging community, the YouTube community, and yeah the personal development community. Networking is also quite fun, and there are a lot of benefits to it. Realising this makes me wish I had done networking earlier in high school.

Recognise that failing is learning

I’ve mentioned in a few blog posts on how I learned to turn a loss into a lesson and how my failures allowed me to learn, among all other lessons about failure.

Because in my teen years I took failure so personally. I saw failure as a terrible thing, and if it happened it was the end of the world. This continued on after high school and into uni and in the job-seeking world.

Whenever I got a grade that I didn’t want. I failed. Whenever my job application gets rejected, I failed. When I actually failed my class… I failed (I’ll tell you what I mean by this)

The truth is, I didn’t fail. If I learned from the failure and knew what to do next time, then it wasn’t a failure after all. If that loss was turned into a lesson, I didn’t fail. If my setback turned into a stepping stone for growth, I didn’t fail…. and let me tell you I wish I had this mindset in my teen years.

I regret not building the habit of seeing failure as a learning experience earlier. Having that mindset in my teen years would’ve saved me from a lot of stress and discouragement, and beating myself up. It would’ve saved me from destructing my own self-esteem and confidence.

Self-Growth Habits

Just remember that I am not saying that I wish I did these so I would’ve “grown myself” a lot faster or made it a lot easier. Because the truth is growth is a process that does not need to be rushed.

These are habits that I regret not doing because it would’ve saved me from a lot of stress and beating myself up from time to time:

Know that confidence is learned – building that skill

This was a big one for me. I wish that I learned much earlier that confidence is something that you learn and build overtime. No one is born confident, no one is born shy… confidence is a skill that is built.

I’ve gone through all my teen years beating myself up for not being born with confidence. I would get easily upset at myself for not having the confidence to speak in class, or to pursue a passion project that I really wanted to do. I regret not building the habit of learning to build my confidence for that very reason.

Because yeah, I look back at my high school experience and wished I participated in class discussions more. During classes, I remember having a lot of things that I wanted to say but held back because I wasn’t “confident” enough. I envied those other students who had the confidence to raise their hand for whatever they wanted to say.

And yeah remember when I mentioned not having the confidence to pursue a passion project? This passion project was my blog. I wanted to start a blog in high school but I didn’t have the “confidence” to do it, I wasn’t born with “confidence”.

If I had learned this habit earlier, I probably would’ve launched my blog right out of high school and who knows where it would’ve gone by now. Maybe my participating in class discussions I became a much better debater… but the what if’s aren’t worth it anymore.

I guess your takeaway from my experience as well is if there’s something you want to do, do it. That saying where they say that “you only regret the chances you didn’t take”… I can say that it’s 100% true. My regrets on what I didn’t do in high school are the reason why I started taking more chances on the things that I want to do.

Saying No

Let me just justify my reasons for this! Back in high school, you know that in grades 11 and 12, those are the years when you’re supposed to look for opportunities. In fact, that’s when everyone tells you to grab every opportunity, say yes to every opportunity. That was exactly what I did.

However, what they never told us is that there will come a time that you need to start saying no. You can imagine how confused I was.

I was supposed to grab every opportunity, say yes to everything that comes my way, then I get a busy schedule. Because I have a busier schedule, it means that I need to now say no?

Not only do I regret not building the habit of saying no earlier, I wish that someone told me that I didn’t have to say yes to everything. Everything that I was told in high school about saying yes to every opportunity that comes your way I carried after high school. I thought that I had to grab every opportunity.

When I grabbed every opportunity, what happened? My schedule got busier and I began to feel overwhelmed. Well, it was because I was supposed to grab every opportunity. It took me time to realise that I’m allowed to say no.

I wish I built that habit earlier, it would’ve saved me from a lot of stress from telling people that I can no longer do what I committed to… that was the worst feeling ever! I took on so many commitments, not realising that I was leaving no time to doing the things that are more important to me.

Now, I’ve gotten a lot better at saying no to the things that don’t contribute to my goals. Honestly for most of them, it’s just a no for now. Because there are a lot of volunteer opportunities that I want to do because I genuinely want to help. However, my schedule does not have the capacity to fit it in.

But it’s okay, it’s not a no forever, it’s just a no for now. Really wish I knew that earlier.

Getting out of my comfort zone

Yes, that counts as a habit. Getting out of your comfort zone is a habit.

Did I go out of my comfort zone in high school? Yeah a few times, but when I was pushed to do so.

The things that were out of my comfort zone were things like applying to work experience (yes that was out of my comfort zone because I never talked to professional human beings before), going around the shopping centre asking for people to do my survey on teen pregnancy (it was my school project!!), or even just simply doing interviews with people for my school assignment. Those were things out of my comfort zone.

However, those were things that I had to do. Applying to work experience was mandatory, and I had to directly contact professional people in companies whether I like it or not. And I had to survey people in the shopping centre because I needed a bigger demographic for my school project on teen pregnancy, I couldn’t just survey students at school and we weren’t allowed to survey teachers… so yeah I was a bit of a weirdo walking around the mall asking random people to do my survey on teen pregnancy. That project was mandatory, but the topic was my choice (really Lauren, really?)

But what about things that I didn’t have to do but I really wanted to do? I didn’t do them. My biggest example is that I wanted to launch a blog and that was out of my comfort zone, but I didn’t do it.

My reasons for not getting out of my comfort zone more often were a bit silly now that I look back. I was afraid of looking stupid, people saying many negative things about it…. none of those reasons included physically hurting myself.

I listened to an audiobook not too long ago called How to Stop Worrying and Start Living, and one of the key points that I remember the most is when it comes to worrying about something we’re about to do, think about what the worst thing that could possibly happen? Because it’s right, what is the worst thing that could possibly happen?

I’m not going to physically hurt myself by launching a blog, the worst that could happen is I fail miserably (but I learn from it and move on!)

I’m not going to get physically hurt by emailing companies online asking if they have any job opportunities, the worst that could happen is that they say no.

I’m not going to die by writing a book that I’ve always wanted to write. The worst that could happen is that people criticize me and make fun of me.

Productivity Habits

These are habits that I wish I had learned to do earlier, because they would’ve helped me a lot in my final years of high school and my first year in university.

Stop trying to do everything

Remember earlier when I talked about wishing I built the habit of saying no? This is what it is.

I remember that when I first started to get into personal development and productivity, I thought it’d be so good for me if I tried to do everything. I was already in university obviously and I just got a job. BUT that wasn’t enough, I still wanted to do more volunteer work, I wanted to participate in all the extra-curricular activities, and I was trying to build this blog on top of that.

I spent that particular semester trying to do all of that. I thought it’d make me happy now that I am keeping myself busy doing all of these things. But what happened? Not only did I burn out in the process, my grades suffered because of that. I failed one of my classes that I had to repeat the next year, and I had a stage of burn out that took me a while to recover from.

I regret not building that habit to stop trying to do everything. I wish that I knew that I didn’t have to do everything. If I still wanted to do them, I could always do them later on down the track.

Pomedero Technique

This is my opinion but the pomedero technique is the best productivity technique to have ever existed. I honestly regret not knowing about this technique earlier. It would’ve made my studies in high school much more effective.

I used to do 6 hours of study sessions when studying for my final high school exams.

This was how my 6 hour study sessions went:

1 hour and 10 minutes of studying with no breaks in between – it was followed by a 15 minutes break (where it was just me on my phone. I didn’t even walk around, that 100% explains the bad posture I had into my adulthood)

Then it was 2 hours and 30 minutes of studying with no breaks in between – it was followed by a 50 minute break (where it was just me walking to the bathroom, then go on my phone while eating lunch the rest of the time).

Then it was another 1 hour and 10 minutes of studying with no breaks in between – and I called it a day.

And during those time blocks, my brain hurt! Because I was forcing myself to read and review even though my brain felt burned out already. If I knew the pomedoro technique, my study sessions would’ve been a lot more effective! I didn’t think that there was a such thing as breaking your study sessions down.

Finance Habits

Yes, of course this is such an important one! On one of my random Google searches, I remember finding out that one of the biggest regrets that people wish they did more in their teens is saving money, investing money, and just handling money better in general.

I’m one of those people. While I don’t regret being a big fat cheapo and being tight with money in my teen years, there were still a few habits that I wish I did.

Build a Finance Routine

I wrote a blog post before on a weekly financial management routine that you can use. I only started doing this last year, and I wish I did this in my teen years earlier.

Even though I didn’t have a job in high school and my first year of university, it would’ve helped me to build a helpful money management routine so that it would be easy for me later on.

Whenever I got money I never knew what to do with it. I would always be indecisive on whether I want to save it or spend it for myself. I also would’ve been good practice for me as well. I’m super grateful that I came across a weekly financial management routine that I revised for myself eventually.

Tracking my Tax Deductions

In my weekly financial management routine, I now include keeping track and noting down my deductions. This was because when I did tax time for the first time, I had the hardest time.

I had to track 12 month’s worth of expenses to see whether they count as a deduction… it took me ages! The whole time I was telling myself, why didn’t I do this as I go? Of course, it’s during those moments where you start building new habits or doing those little things that would make life easier for you next time. Noting down my expenses that could count as deductions for that week was one of those things.

A part of me wishes that they taught us how to do this at school, but it’s not like we can turn back time right?

Social Habits

Last but not least are social habits I wish I started earlier!

These are the habits that involved… my social life! I have a feeling that I’m not the only one who regrets not starting these habits in my teen years.

Keeping in touch with connections/networks/communities

If you remember what I said just earlier about wishing that I networked? This continues on from that.

Although I wish I did a lot more networking than I did back in my teen years, I did make some valuable connections that could’ve helped me out a lot.

I’ve made a lot of connections through my work experience placements, my volunteer placements, and even in career fairs. However, while I made those connections, I never kept in touch with any of them.

Seriously, writing this I’m starting to realise my big regrets and mistakes, but I’m holding myself together to make sure that I don’t spiral into a pattern of regret. But what I will say is that it’s one thing to make a connection, but it’s another thing to keep in touch with that connection.

You never know where that connection would go, you never know what opportunities it could lead you to. You never know how they can contribute to your life, and most importantly, you never know how you can help contribute to them! Maybe they may not be able to help you, but you can be someone that they might need!

Deleting/muting people from social media

I laugh at this a bit looking back. Throughout my teen years there were so many people that I wanted to unfollow because I just didn’t like what they were posting, and they weren’t adding value to me whatsover. But why did I never unfollow them?

Because I was afraid that they were going to unfollow me. (if I could put a million eye rolls on here I would!)

I’m sure everyone gets to this stage eventually where you just don’t care about your followers number. You don’t care about who unfollows you anymore because at the end of the day, it’s just a follow! It’s just a click of a button, it’s not really going to do anything.

That’s why I am proud to say that I am the biggest fan of the mute feature on Instagram. Because I’ll admit, I don’t have the heart to unfollow sometimes! Regardless, I imagine how much mental stress and clutter in my mind that I would’ve easily gotten rid of if I had just simply unfollowed or muted people that made me question my self-worth, or didn’t really add value to me.

Don’t let the regret last forever, just learn from it and move on

Even though I say that I regret not building those habits earlier, it doesn’t mean that I just regret it forever. All those habits that I wish I built earlier, I now do and I’m glad I do it.

If there is anything that you regret not doing, the best thing you can do is just to do it. If you regret not saving your money earlier, start saving your money now! If you regret not building good eating habits earlier, start building good eating habits now! The most important thing is to just start, not matter how big your regret it.

Because what’s going to happen if you never start it? You’re going to have even bigger regrets! So save yourself from future destruction and beating yourself up, and just start. Your future self will thank you that you didn’t let that feeling of regret get to you!

-Lauren 😊

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