by Jane Burnett: They’re not afraid to reveal their hard-won lessons…
After taking home the Best Supporting Actress award for the film A Quiet Place at the SAG Awards, actress Emily Blunt told reporters in the press room about the advice she’d give her younger self.
“Honestly, I think the main thing I’ve learned over the years is just…openness. You’ve gotta be open, you’ve gotta be curious. You have to soak up the world,” she said. “Almost, ‘don’t watch too many movies,’ get out there and experience life, ’cause you’re gonna use it one day…All of those things, really. Curiosity — and who cares what people think?”
While Blunt’s other recent role as Mary Poppins proves that she really believes in letting your imagination run wild, her words of wisdom to the person she used to be also show that she’s learned a lot over the years.
Here’s what four other powerful people revealed they would tell their younger selves.
Blake Lively would say to stick up for herself
The actress told PEOPLE about how early in her career, she always loved “standing up” on others’ behalf, but didn’t always do the same for herself due to a fear “of coming across as a diva or difficult or demanding.” Asked what she’d tell her younger self, she said, “I’d encourage myself to love myself and fight for myself, as hard as I fought for other people.”
Michelle Obama would say to break through fear and put things in perspective
Before she authored the bestselling Becoming, the former FLOTUS opened up in PEOPLE about the time she was a worried middle- and high school student. “If I could give my younger self just one piece of advice, it would be this: Stop being so afraid! That’s really what strikes me when I look back — the sheer amount of time I spent tangled up in fears and doubts that were entirely of my own creation. I was afraid of not knowing the answer in class and looking stupid, or worried about what some boy thought of me, or wondering whether the other girls liked my clothes or my hair, or angsting about some offhand comment someone made to me in the lunchroom,” she wrote. “I would love to go back in time and tell my younger self, ‘Michelle, these middle and high school years are just a tiny blip in your life, and all the slights and embarrassments and heartaches, all those times you got that one question wrong on that test — none of that is important in the scheme of things.’”
Sandra Oh would say to go easier on herself
The actress told Glamour about the advice she’d go back and give herself at the beginning of her career, saying, “Don’t worry so much. Don’t try so hard. And don’t listen to anybody.”
Kristen Bell would say to disregard society’s beauty standards, and prioritize her mental health
In a video for the Child Mind Institute, the actress shares how her battle with anxiety and depression started at age 18, and explains what she wishes she knew then.
“What I would say to my younger self is, don’t be fooled by this game of perfection that humans play. Because Instagram and magazines and TV shows, they strive for a certain aesthetic, and everything looks so beautiful, and people seem like they don’t have any problems, but everyone’s human. Everyone has problems. Everyone feels yucky on the inside sometimes,” she said. “And, you deserve to feel beautiful on the days you wear no makeup, and the days you don’t shower, and the days you feel like you’re depressed. And you have an obligation to take care of yourself from the inside out, because that’s how you can truly feel beautiful.”
