Would Your Younger Self be Proud of You?

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Live Your Life On Purpose

5 min readMar 30, 2020

First question. Who did you want to be when you grew up? An astronaut? Veterinarian? Doctor? Lawyer? Second question. Who are you right now? And would your younger self be proud of you?

Who Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up?

As a kid, I first wanted to be a veterinarian. I love dogs, loved learning about animal husbandry, and lived on 5 acres with dogs, horses, a cat, chickens, rabbits, and guinea pigs. An animal lover’s paradise, right?

But my desire to practice veterinary medicine died when we put down our Boxer, Mocha. I couldn’t understand how I would handle that kind of emotional wreckage as a vet and now, as an adult, I sob whenever I watch a before/after dog rescue video on Facebook. #letmeadoptallthepitties

Then I wanted to go into psychology. This desire stayed with me until my senior year of high school, and I can’t quite remember why I abandoned that career path — but it may have had something to do with how long I’d need to be in school to get a high enough degree that would be useful in the job market (Masters or higher).

Ultimately, I earned a bachelor of science in mechanical engineering, and now I work full time in the power industry. The simplest way to think about my industry is that whenever you flip a light switch in your house, someone had to make that electricity somehow. My company “makes electricity.”

I think younger me would be proud of who I’ve become over the last fifteen to twenty years. It’s useful to look back at who we were as youngsters and think about what we wanted to be when we grew up. Those childhood desires could still translate into what we truly want to do when we “grow up.”

It shines a light on where we’re stuck (if we’re stuck), what we need to change (if something’s not working), and if we need to take drastic steps to become the person our younger selves WOULD be proud of.

Photo by 🇨🇭 Claudio Schwarz | @purzlbaum on Unsplash

Think Back to Yesteryear

It all comes down to doing some serious self-reflection. You could journal, talk to someone, or just sit with your thoughts for a while. What comes up?

For me, I wanted to be a veterinarian. Now, that translates into wanting to pet all the dogs I see. We’re cat parents, but I really miss owning a dog. When we got our cat, Luna, she brought a lightness into our house that I didn’t know we were missing until she arrived. Long term, I know I need a dog.

I also wanted to be a psychologist or work in psychology. The brain and human behavior fascinate me, and as I grew up that translated into reading a LOT of self-help books, getting really into personal development, leadership, and habit research, and now I’m in Self Coaching Scholars and really blowing the top off my previous limits.

And “finally”, I have an engineering degree. I don’t “use” my degree to do actual, real engineering (trust me, I’m an engineer), but I work daily with engineers and it pays to understand what they’re talking about without getting lost — and it pays dividends to be the kind of engineer who can also write, and write well.

My manager calls engineers who can write, unicorns.

It’s almost uncanny how true that is.

Understanding my past desires helps me look around at my life right now and see that I’m here because of the decisions I made. And if I don’t like what I see, I can’t blame anyone but myself. It’s up to me to change things if my younger self isn’t proud.

Write Younger You a Letter

I wrote a 5-part series of articles a while back called Dear Younger Me.

Talking to who you were in the past can give you incredible insight into who you want to be in the future. After all, you’re the future version of that kid who wanted to grow up and be an astronaut, or a writer, or a teacher, or a doctor.

Did you live up to your own expectations? If not, why not? What changed? And would your younger self understand your choices?

Lay them out in simple language.

I lost my first best friend — my dog — and decided I didn’t want to bear that kind of emotional pain by becoming a veterinarian.

Seeing the time cost for getting anywhere with psychology showed me that I didn’t want to be in school for 8+ years. I learn best when it’s self-directed, not in a rigid classroom setting with syllabuses and homework and grades.

I made it through engineering school, so I’m definitely technically minded. But it also revealed that I overthink things… A lot. When my editor went through my book manuscript, one of her comments was that I have an “engineer brain”, meaning I pack too much detail into the scenes.

It’s a good thing to know about myself, and it lets me see where I overthink and over-analyze other situations, and where I might need to cut back on the content to focus on the message.

Write Future You a Letter, Too

What if you could receive a letter from your younger self?

Well, you can. You can write one now and let FutureMe.org send it for you in 1, 3, or 5 years, or on a specific date that holds meaning for you.

Capture how you’re thinking now and let your future self gain wisdom from where you are right at this moment. Remind your future self what you wanted for him or her when you were younger. Reassure this future you that you’re proud of wherever you end up because you know you have the tools to create a life worth living — the life of your dreams.

Grab Life by the Horns

You’re in charge of your future. Younger you made the decisions that put you where you are right now, and the only person responsible for whether or not you reach your goals is YOU.

Make your future self proud, and be the kind of person younger you would be proud of.