Growing up my parents have always been very lenient on me. They would give their input on situations, but wouldn't force me to choose what they wanted or what they thought was right. They would let me fail if I needed to, but would always be there to support me and pick me back up to happiness. Along the way, these are some of the things my parents have taught me.
1. Be yourself
My parents always told me to never change to be someone you're not. All throughout high school, I struggled trying to maintain friendships which resulted in me only hurting myself. I have definitely learned that staying true to yourself will benefit you in the future because you will know where your limit to try to make people happy is.
2. Admit your mistakes
My parents have taught me to admit my mistakes because there will be times when you will not be able to blame someone else for it (which you probably shouldn't do anyways but hey, it happens). If you don't study for a test and you get a bad grade, how many times can you blame the professor for not teaching you when you could be teaching yourself or going to tutors to learn the content? Just admitting your own faults helps you feel better, in a way, about yourself. With the support of my parents, they have helped me a lot with this.
3. Care about the right things
With my personality, I tend to care about the little things that shouldn't mean much in my life. My parents have taught me to pick and choose the things that mean the most so I'm not wasting my time on stuff that won't matter down the road.
4. Work hard
I've learned to work hard in everything I do whether it is in school work, sports, or music. If I didn't work hard, I wouldn't get the most out of what I loved to do. My dad helped coach my softball team throughout all of middle school and reminded me that with all my practice, I can achieve my goals of being a pro-softball player. Even though my goals had fallen through these past couple of years, his words still stick with me.
5. Be honest with yourself and others
Learning to be honest with yourself and with others is hard. You don’t want to become too honest because then people will not want to be friends with you, but you also don’t want to lie when something is really on your mind. This was a big problem of mine growing up because I was never honest with people and only told them what they wanted to hear. It hurt to see my friends upset over guys, or friends upset with other friends and I always turned to my parents for advice. I learned that if you really feel strongly about a situation, tell people the truth even if it might hurt them for a while. It’s better to not lie to people and yourself telling them everything is okay.
6. Be true with your strengths
My dad always told me that even though I may not get the best grades, being well-rounded can help my future. Grades don’t always matter when you are in search of a job. If you have decent grades but joined a lot of clubs and activities, this will show that you liked to be apart of many things. When I decided to switch my major from communication disorders to public relations, I felt like I was giving up on something that I really wanted to do. After taking a few communication classes, I realized where my strengths were and now know that I made a great decision by changing my major.
7. Don't expect your dreams, work for them
Theatre has taught me that even though you may be the best singer or dancer, you may not always get the part you wanted. My senior year of high school I was picked to be the lead in our fall musical. I was very timid at first to try out for the lead, but with the help of my parents, they made me realize that if I really wanted something I had to work hard for it. I was not going to get handed something like this. After spending hours and hours singing the same song over and over again, I sang my audition and found out I had gotten the lead. Because of their support, I was able to prove to myself that if I worked hard I was able to achieve my goals.
8. Never give up
Many times I have wanted to give up in situations I knew I would not win. With the advice in each situation from my parents, they would always say encouraging words or give me reasons why I should keep on going. By never giving up, I have continued to do many things like dancing and singing, and keeping up with my grades.
9. Avoid unnecessary drama
Throughout high school I was always involved in drama because of my friend group at the time. I hate being involved in the drama because it was always over something pointless. It would turn into me trying to be nice to everyone and fix the problems, but then when everyone would be resolving everything, they would turn it back on me and unfriend me. My parents have helped me realize that there are people you should be friends with and there are people you should not be friends with no matter how hard you want to be. Now, my life is almost drama-free and I could not be any happier.
10. Don't settle for less
My parents have taught me that I should never settle for less in many situations. Like I said, high school for me was the toughest four years of my life, and I always felt like I had to take the short end of the stick just to make everyone around me happy. I have learned that my main focus should be to make me happy first. I was done getting thrown around and realized that I shouldn’t have been in the first place.
11. Treat others the way you want to be treated
Yes, I have wanted to be mean to people when they deserve it, but my parents always said to me that if I want that person to be nice to me I have to kill them with kindness. This has always stuck with me because I never can be mean to someone’s face. I can’t say mean comments to customers at my job when they are wrong and it kills me inside when I see my coworkers are doing it. If I want to be treated well, I have to treat other people the same.
