Be braver, be bolder, and be ambitious. Don’t be scared and don’t be such a wuss
Go with your gut. Be braver, more ambitious and confident. And stop being such a wuss
Dear Judy
You’re 18 and you’ve done well at school. You’re about to get the chance to go to study on a tennis scholarship at the University of Virginia in America.
Your lack of confidence and fear of the unknown means you turn it down. The world is different for the 18-year-old you than it is for 18-year-olds of today and it feels like too big a step.
Occasionally, you’ll look back on that decision and wonder how your life would have turned out if you’d actually gone to America. Who knows?
My advice for you is stop being such a wuss, go with your gut, be braver, at a younger age. Focus on what could go right. Be more confident in yourself and more ambitious, you’re more than capable. As it turns out, though, you’ll be in your fifties before you feel you have a voice and can use it to speak out about the issues you really are passionate about.
The people around you will always have a big influence on your life, but they won’t always be right. Your form teacher will scare you off becoming a PE teacher. She does it with the best of intentions – the teaching profession is in disarray – but you’ll look back and wish you had been strong enough to have the courage of your convictions.
In the end, you will still end up coaching sport anyway. You’ll leave university with a degree in business with French and German, but sport will be your passion and where your heart lies.
You will reach a stage where you think “stuff you” if someone is trying to stop you from succeeding.
Sports coaching is a male dominated domain and can be a sexist industry.
You’ll come up against some dinosaur men and lots of inflated egos. Don’t worry, you’ll be more than a match for them.
It’s a young person thing and particularly a girl thing to do what you think others expect you to do. But you’ll come to realise that it’s OK to take risks and to make mistakes.
And that it’s more important to make decisions that are right for you. And that life is what you make it – and what YOLO means!