How many times have you heard this question, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" As a teenager you will hear this question a lot, but you have probably heard it since you were three years old. It is often connected to, "Where do you want to go to college?" and "What will be your major?" and "What are you good at?"
You may also be asking yourself the same questions. You may find that you suddenly beginning to ask yourself, "What am I going to do with my life?"This is a good thing. You are in a position of incredible power when you ask yourself questions like, "Who am I?" and "Who do I want to become?" You are the only person who can answer these questions. You, and only you, get to choose exactly who you will become in the future.
Think about this for a minute. The power of these questions lies in the fact that you can choose to become anything you want! Imagine becoming anything. Think about the freedom that gives you. The great thing about being a teenager is that you are a blank slate. You can pick almost any answer to the question, "Who do I want to become?" at this point in your life, and you are in a unique position to make it happen. You can, to a large extent, design your life completely from scratch. You get to make thousands of choices that will determine exactly who you will become as an adult. Choices like these:
What will I choose for my career?
How much money will I make, and why?
Who will I marry?
How many children will I have?
How will I dress?
Where will I live?
What kind of car will I drive?
Will I go to college, and if so which one will I attend?
What will be my major in college?
What will be my attitude toward life?
What will be my values?
Will I smoke? Will I take drugs?
What sports do I want to play?
And so on...
As you can see, the answers to all of these questions are wide open for you at this age. You could decide today, "By age 30 I will be an architect in Montana, and I will drive a red Mercedes." And you could make that happen. There is absolutely nothing to stop you. You could decide on just about any course and make it happen in just the same way. At no other point in your life do you have the absolute freedom of choice that you have as a teenager. That is not to say that you cannot change your mind later. You can completely redesign your life from scratch at age 30 or 40 if you find that to be appropriate. It simply is a fact that as a teenager all of these questions are wide open and you get to select the initial answers for all of them from an infinite pool. That is a lot of freedom.
The average teenager often faces significant problems in making all of these choices:
Most teenagers never realize that they have total control of their lives. The questions "Who am I?" and "Who do I want to become?" never quite make it up into the average teenager’s conscious mind, so life just sort of bumbles along letting things happen randomly. These teenagers miss a great opportunity because they miss the possibility of becoming anything they want. Your range of options is wide open as a teenager.
Most teenagers do not understand the realities of the world into which they are about to enter. American society is an exciting but tough environment. It requires quite a bit of knowledge to become successful in this environment. As a teenager you are fairly naïve about the real world
Most teenagers also live in a protected dreamland created by their parents. That is probably hard (or impossible) for you to imagine, but it is definitely the case. It is easy for you to make mistakes that can affect you negatively for the rest of your life.
Most teenagers do not believe in themselves, nor do they believe that there is any way to improve their odds of success. No matter what path you choose to follow in your life, you have to be confident and believe in yourself in order to succeed. You also need to learn key facts and techniques that will improve your odds of succeeding. One of the best ways to get started is to simply ask the people around you for their thoughts and ideas, especially adults. Another is to experiment, and your time as a teenager is a great time for that sort of experimentation.
As a teenager you can explore a whole set of options to learn more about yourself and the world around you. You can pick something you really want to do well and you can go do it right now. You don’t have to amorphously think, "Acting might be fun…" Instead say, "I am going to be an actor!" and then pursue it. You can audition for acting parts. You can find some friends and do plays together. One of the great things about being a teenager is that you can pursue many things at once. You can also afford to fail, and you don’t have to worry about it if you do. Head in a direction and see what you find there.
I hope I have at least captured your attention and will provide more detail and information in the coming days...stay tuned!
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