Survival Guide For Sixteen Year Olds

When I was younger, sixteen felt like the age of all ages. I used to fantasize about how incredibly cool I would be once I turned sixteen. I would have my license and I’d get a car for my birthday. I’d go out to parties with my friends. We’d do bonfires at the beach, and I’d sneak out on the weekends. We’d run down the street just to be stupid. I’d fall in love with a boy who was just perfect. Life would be great. It would go down as one of the best years of my life.

I immediately learned that being sixteen was absolutely nothing like I thought it would. All those Disney movies from the 2000s clearly were lying; being sixteen sucked. Not even in the way I thought it would suck. I hadn’t expected being sixteen to be so hard or so frustrating. It was undoubtedly the longest year of my life. One I certainly would count as memorable, but maybe just not in such a positive way. 

So I chatted with a couple friends of mine who also agreed sixteen was basically hell, and we compiled a list of everything we wish we knew when we were sixteen. Not that we even think our sixteen year old selves would listen. We probably wouldn’t. But it would have been nice to have known the world is not always going to be like how it is when you’re sixteen.  

First thing’s first: you don’t have to take everything so seriously.

One of the things that made being sixteen so hard was the fact that every little thing felt like the end of the world. There was just this crazy pressure placed on everything. On classes, on relationships and friendships, even sports. When I was sixteen, every decision I was presented with had the pressure of ruining my entire life on it. At least, that’s how it felt. Failing a test or getting a B meant saying goodbye to college. Being a student athlete was my core identity, and all my self worth was placed into how much playing time I got. The boy I was dating felt like that one I was going to marry, so when we broke up, I was convinced I’d never find love again. 

I wish I had just taken a breath. I wish I had taken a step back. I wish I hadn’t taken it all as seriously as I did. 

High school is only four years of your life. In the grand scheme of things, that’s hardly a dent in your life. Focus on classes and clubs that you actually enjoy. Definitely still try your hardest, but if your hardest is a B+ then that’s okay! There’s no point in pulling all-nighters for classes that don’t even end up mattering in the future. Try not to make sports or academics your entire identity. There’s more to you than your grades and how much time you get on the field. As you get older, you’ll start to see how superficial and tiny those things are. And as for your relationship, don’t put so much pressure on it. Don’t stay in a bad relationship because it seems better than getting your heart broken. It’s really, really not. You’ll experience love again. Just have fun.

With college specifically, you can relax. 

Something high school counselor’s did a fantastic job at was making college seem like some impossible feat that takes years of insane dedication to get into. And while it does take hard work to get into the college of your dreams, perhaps, it’s also not as hard as people make it out to be. Getting into a college is significantly more straightforward and possible than I ever thought it was. I absolutely did not have to spend all of high school terrified that a few bad grades would make me ineligible to get into college. But it’s hard not to when all the adults around you are constantly pushing propaganda that if you don’t get into college you’re a failure down your throat.

Alternatively, I wish I knew that college was something I was actually going to go to. At sixteen, I couldn’t envision myself past that age. I didn’t even want to think about the next day, let alone college. I didn’t put much effort into researching where I wanted to go or what I wanted to study — which can be different from what you’re good at in school. If I had started to get an understanding of those things sooner, I would have been able to put effort into clubs or activities that I would both enjoy and make me look better on college applications. It also would have been nice to have known I did have a future I could look forward to. Which leads into my next point:

The world is bigger than your hometown.

This was something I could not even fathom at sixteen. All the people in my life at the time were people I thought I was going to know for the rest of my life. In reality? I only currently talk to about three people I went to high school with. And if I had known this in high school, I would have dedicated more time to nurturing the friendships that actually mattered. Not only that, but I wouldn’t have taken as many things people said to heart as much as I did. The realization that none of the people you go to high school or middle school with really matter makes it easier to let go of them. I wouldn’t have been so concerned with my reputation or what people were saying about me. 

Realizing this also makes me regret not having spent more time with my family or the friends who genuinely cared about me. Isolating myself or surrounding myself with toxic friends made my sixteen year old brain poisonous. If I had realized how big the world is, maybe I would have seen that I wasn’t so lonely after all.

Get off your phone. Like, actually. 

There’s nothing I hate more than proving the annoying adults in my life right – but this is one thing they told me that I wish I had listened to. I was obsessed with my phone when I was sixteen. I was infatuated with my social media presence, with how many likes I got on a post, with how many people viewed my video or story. I shaped myself based on what I wanted people to think about me. I wasted hours scrolling through apps on my phone, claiming I was sad but doing nothing to get any better. And you do not realize how horrible and toxic of a habit being on your phone is until you get off. Part of the reason I wasn’t able to enjoy being sixteen was because of this addiction that I had. It’s hard letting go of it, but you don’t have to be as preformative as much as you think you do. At the end of the day, the amount of likes you get on your most recent Instagram post has nothing to do with your worth as a human. If you aren’t getting hundreds of likes on your posts and are upset about it, just remember: you’re sixteen, not a Kardashian, and that’s completely okay.

Instead of being on your phone, maybe try to find a hobby. Once I got to college I realized that I didn’t actually have any of those, and it made me feel… boring. When asked what I like to do for fun, am I really supposed to say TikTok? I had no concept of activities I enjoyed, or even how to take care of myself. Taking the time to actually get to know yourself when you’re sixteen is extremely important. Getting off your phone is the first step in doing that. 

You don’t have to hate yourself. 

Advice for my sixteen year old self personally: that eating disorder is absolutely not worth it. At sixteen, everything in my life felt so out of my own hands. I needed to be able to control something. Falling into the bad habit of not eating and exercising more than my body could handle was the worst decision of my entire life. If I didn’t like myself before my eating disorder developed, then this made everything a million times worse. I hated myself. And I was convinced that I was supposed to be that way. When you’re sixteen, everything feels horrible and gross, and all of a sudden out comes this pressure to hate yourself. Your friends hate themselves, the people you don’t like hate themselves, and so you hate yourself too. But it doesn’t have to be that way. I wish more than anything that someone had sat me down and told me that I didn’t have to hate myself. 

Hating myself made me a terrible person. I was mean to my parents because I didn’t know how to deal with my own problems, and talking to them felt impossible. I projected all my complications onto the people around me, and it was unfair. I became unrecognizable. I kept myself in toxic situations that I shouldn’t have. If someone had asked me what was really wrong, maybe I would have told them. If I had realized how horrible I was being to myself and to others, maybe I would have stopped being so mean. 

Build a backbone. Stand up for yourself, to other people and to yourself. Stop expecting yourself to be perfect or to have the answers to everything. You’re sixteen. You’re allowed to not know anything. So be kind to yourself. Show yourself and others some compassion. It’ll make you feel better.

Drink more water. 

This one seems a little silly, but it never hurts to keep up with hydration! It’s such a basic step to taking care of yourself, but one that’s probably the most crucial to beginning that journey! 

When you’re sixteen, you don’t really think about any of these things. It’s hard to see past what your teenager brain sees in front of it at that moment. Everything feels like the absolute worst thing ever, but trust me if you take a step back, nothing is as big as it seems. It shouldn’t be. You’re only sixteen! Act your age! Be silly and stupid like how teenagers are in movies. Don’t let social standards and outside pressure influence who you are becoming. Don’t pressure and hate yourself because of what other people are saying or doing. 

Just relax. Calm down. You’re only sixteen for one year. It’ll be over soon, I promise.

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• self growth
• teenagers