What if Your 13-Year-Old Self Had the Answers?

What if your 13-year-old self had the answers you’ve been avoiding?

I watched a movie called The Life List recently and it really got me thinking. Here’s the premise: a woman’s mom is dying. The daughter works for her mom, and one day her mom looks at her and says, “You’re not happy here.” The daughter brushes it off — I get a paycheck, all is good. But her mom sees through it.

When her mom passes, she leaves behind tapes. And inside those tapes is a list her daughter had made when she was just 13 years old — full of dreams, adventures, things that felt big and a little terrifying.

The catch? She couldn’t inherit anything until she completed most of the things on that list. One of the items: do something that scares you every single day for a week.

I love that. Because here’s what I know to be true — how many things are we not doing just because we’re scared?

It might be having a serious conversation with someone we care about. It might be asking for a raise we’ve deserved for years. Maybe it’s going into town alone, walking into a restaurant by ourselves, or starting something we’ve been putting off forever.

So I’m asking you and myself — how are we playing small? We don’t grow in our comfort zone. We just repeat the same day to day on a loop. Real growth happens in the uncomfortable moments. The scary ones. The ones where our heart beats a little faster and we do it anyway.

Let’s do the scary thing. Today.