The teenage years are hard. If I think back to my teenage years, I wince a little at the thought of it all. There’s the difficulty of learning who you are, making friends and dealing with school. Plus, it’s the time in life when your hormones are going crazy, but I won’t even get started on that.

However, there are parts I miss about my teenage years too and some of those things make me wish that I appreciated those moments so much more while I had the chance.

Time is something that you can never get back. I’ll never be able to go back to my teenage years and experience those moments and things again, but that doesn’t mean I can’t take the life lessons and incorporate them into my daily life now. It also doesn’t mean that I can’t share my thoughts with current teens to read in the hopes that it helps them appreciate things now.

So, here’re some of the things I wish I didn’t take for granted in my teenage years…

Your health

When you’re young, you have better stamina and your fitness levels are so much better. This isn’t really something that you think about during your teenage years though.

As you age, your life choices relating to your health all start to add up. All the junk food, laziness and alcohol drinking will add up and start affecting your body.

The irony of the whole thing is that in your teenage years, you are probably making grand plans to travel the world, drive a fancy car and own a home with a family. having those dreams are great but if you don’t look after your health then you might not be physically or mentally able to fulfil your dreams.

Another point is that during your teenage years, you create habits that will shape the rest of your life. If you eat junk food for every meal or start smoking, these are habits that you will take into adulthood with you.

Trust me, you definitely don’t want to create bad habits in your teenage years that you can’t shake off in your adult years.

You don’t need to have everything figured out.

During my high school years, I spent a lot of time feeling anxious about the future. I just wish I could go back in time and tell myself that it’s okay to not know what I want to do with my life.

The problem with knowing what you want to do is that you are too focused on one thing and you won’t be able to explore new opportunities. Opportunities often come to us when we are open to new ideas. That’s why not knowing is good.

If you aren’t stuck to a plan you have the chance to travel, explore, develop and discover new things.

Also, there’s never a time limit on figuring your life out. You could be 70 and suddenly decide you want to become a gymnast and move to Spain, and that would be okay.

Fewer money worries, burdens and responsibilities.

When you are younger, you don’t realise just how burden-free you actually are. When you get older, you’ll find yourself tied down with many things and some of them will be good but not all of them. You might have a family to run or a job to go to.

While you’re younger, you have so many more opportunities to get out there and see the world, explore new things and meet new people. I wish I could go back in time to tell myself this so that I grabbed onto more opportunities before my life became too busy with adult life.

While you’re young and not tied down, you don’t have as much to lose by taking risks. The more risks you take, the greater the chance of getting a better reward so taking those chances while you are young is a great idea.

What would you do now if you could go back to your teenage years? What would you tell yourself not to take for granted?