Thread by @AliAbdaal

If I could go back in time and talk to my 18-year-old self, this is the advice that I’d give him 👇

Thread 🧵

🎲 Think about the game you're playing - whatever you’re doing, you’re playing some type of game with certain rules and expected outcomes. Ask yourself every 3 months if you’re still playing the same game as before and whether you even want to play it.

🧍Pay attention to your posture - it’s one of those things that you don’t really think about until you’re 26. If you constantly sit in front of a monitor with your neck and back tilted in a weird way, soon you’re going to regret it. So better be proactive about that.

📸 Take more photos than you think you should - at the moment, taking photos and capturing the moment might feel inconvenient but in a couple of years, you’re going to appreciate the memories you’ve stored for your future self.

✍️ Be more of a documentarian - it’s good to consume content but it’s better if you make notes once you complete a book, podcast episode or article. Even 10 minutes of consolidating thoughts and writing them down are going to help you get more out of the thing you’ve consumed.

🖇 Try and be a connector - when going to uni, you’ll likely have a lot of anxiety about making friends (if you're anything like me lol). The best thing to realise is that nearly everyone feels the same and it’s much better to be a person that brings a group of friends together.

🎤 Make an effort to attend events - if you have a chance to go to some event and potentially make new friends, I highly recommend you skip an episode of your favourite movie series and go to that event.

🚪 Get a doorstop - create intentional distractions from constant work. Leaving your door open and allowing others to come to your room will lead to more fun conversations and group chats that you’ll surely remember (compared to long hours spent working to get a 1% better grade).

😢 Don't be mean to people - it’s one of these things that you’ll only ever regret. It’s easy to be mean at the moment and channel your anger onto other people but in almost every situation the part of guilt is on our side as well.

🪙 Buy some bitcoin and don't sell it - not financial advice lol. Buy the amount you’re comfortable losing and accept a bigger risk for a (possibly) greater return.

🌗 Nothing good happens after 2 a.m. - meetings and groups chats are awesome unless they go beyond 2 a.m. After that point, everyone starts to feel sluggish and you basically waste the next day as you fight with the urge to go back to bed.

🔁 Do a little bit of work every day - take advantage of techniques like active recall and spaced repetition and, instead of cramming as much work as you can in 24 hours, do a little bit of it every day. Learning is a marathon, not a sprint.

🤝 Seek forgiveness rather than permission - we tend to overblow the consequences of our plans and ideas. If you’re scared of a worst-case scenario, just do the thing you want to do and - if needed - seek forgiveness afterwards.

🙇 Stop worrying about what other people think of you - realise that people worry about themselves and don’t have time to judge or think about you. Anxiety and insecurities can make us miserable but the truth is people are much nicer than we think.

🤔 Ask yourself "How hard should this really be?" - it’s easy to convince yourself that the thing you’re doing is supposed to be hard. Like “studying medicine at Cambridge University should be hard.” when really, we’re only approaching it with the wrong mindset.

⏩ It's absolutely OK to skip lectures - don’t feel like you have to go to every lecture. If there are lecture notes available, make sure you go through them in your own time and at your own pace. Just remember not to try to summarise those as it’s mostly a waste of time.

🔙 It's ok to fall behind with Uni work - don’t prioritise work over the social stuff during the terms. During these 8 weeks, it’s fairly easy to fall behind with work (and 90% of people do) but you can always use holidays to go to the library with friends and study together.

🤑 Try and develop sources of passive income - trying to make something and then charging money for it is one of the best learning experiences in life. Start early as you shouldn’t expect any returns for a long time and you’ll learn priceless skills that will help you later on.

😊Try and enjoy the journey without focusing too much on the destination - uni is your best time of life and it’s going to happen only once. If you decide to focus only on achievements and the next goal, you’ll completely miss the opportunity to enjoy this awesome time.

📢 Share your work with your friends with no expectation of something in return - don’t try to compete with anyone else and treat uni as a multiplayer game. Everything becomes so much easier when you work together and openly share resources.

🎛 Internalize the serenity prayer - “God, grant me the strength to accept that which I cannot control, the courage to change what I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” Don’t worry about stuff that’s out of your control and focus on things that you can control.

📚Learn how to study efficiently for your exams - you can waste weeks using ineffective studying techniques like rereading notes, highlighting, or summarising notes. And there’s a whole bunch of scientific research and evidence showing which techniques actually work...

...and I talk more about them in my Skillshare class on How To Study for Exams. These are 5 hours of content where I share everything I learnt over the past 8 years including every evidence-based technique that’s worked for me. Check it out 👉 skl.sh/aliabdaal02211

If you want to hear about all the tips that I would share with my 18-year-old self check out the video below 👇

TL;DR

1/4

🎲 Think about the game you're playing
🧍Pay attention to your posture
📸 Take more photos than you think you should
✍️ Be more of a documentarian
🖇 Try and be a connector
🎤 Make an effort to attend events

2/4

🎛 Internalize the serenity prayer
😢 Don't be mean to people
🪙 Buy some Bitcoin and don't sell it
🌗 Nothing good happens after 2 a.m.
🔁 Do a little bit of work every day

3/4

🤝 Seek forgiveness rather than permission
🙇 Stop worrying about what other people think of you
🤔 Ask yourself "How hard should this really be?"
⏩ It's absolutely OK to skip lectures
🔙 It's ok to fall behind with University work

4/4

🤑 Develop sources of passive income
😊 Try and enjoy the journey without focusing too much on the destination
📢 Share your work and yourself with your friends with no expectation of something in return
🚪 Get a doorstop
📚 Learn how to study efficiently for your exams