Revealed: The life advice the public would send to their younger self

• Thortful.com have asked the public to submit and vote on their favourite pieces of life advice they’d want to tell their younger selves

• The number one piece of advice is: “believe in your gut reaction”

• We spoke to life coach and author Rebecca Lockwood about how to stop comparing your life to others

There are many things we wish we could tell our younger selves that would’ve made life just that little bit easier. Whether that be to stop ignoring those red flags, learn how to budget or dump that person you’re dating.

To help inspire today’s youngsters, greetings card marketplace, thortful.com have asked the public to submit and vote on the top pieces of advice they’d want to give to their younger selves.

Here are the top 20 pieces of life advice as submitted and voted for by the nation:

1.     Believe in your gut reaction.

2.     Don’t get married so young – enjoy life and travel more.

3.     Don’t beat yourself up about every little mistake – everyone makes mistakes.

4.    Enjoy life and try not to worry too much.

5.     Invest time in studying!

6.    Be honest and helpful for all.

7.     Love yourself as you are loveable and be true to yourself.

8.    To be less anxious about everything and stop overthinking things.

9.    Don’t put things off until tomorrow.

10.   Just enjoy yourself and be carefree as long as you can.

11.    Learn from mistakes.

12.   Live life to the full.

13.   Be you all the time.

14.   Listen to your parents.

15.   Go into further education.

16.   Don’t worry about what you look like.

17.   Don’t worry so much about what people think of you.

18. Don’t believe that everyone who says they care about you has your best interest at heart.

19.   There is no rush, take your time and find out what you want to do.

20. Love yourself more and be happy with what you have – life is not a competition.

The piece of advice voted in first place was: “believe in your gut reaction” closely followed by “don’t get married so young – enjoy life and travel more” in second.

Much of the advice submitted centred around the topic of self-love and self-confidence proving that when we’re young, self-expression is a shared struggle.

Another common topic was the idea of taking life at a steady pace and not rushing into things. One respondent said, “there is no rush, take your time and find out what you want to do” whilst another said, “take your time before making any decisions”.

Life coach and author Rebecca Lockwood said this: “The most important thing to remember is that no one has all their stuff together, and so on the outside looking in it may appear that they do, which is why you compare the back end of your life to the shop front of their lives. It’s so important to check in with yourself and what’s important to you, and be guided from within or you may find yourself in a place with no idea how you got there. What do you want in life, what is important to you, how do you want your life to look, feel, sound and be like.”

To read the full list and submit your own pieces of advice visit: https://www.thortful.com/letters-to-young-self