Everyone has heard the phrase, “just try it.” And how do we respond? We just constantly say no and how we do not want to do it. We constantly live in fear of trying new things, because we prefer what we are comfortable with. Guess what? Personal development is all about challenging yourself to grow by experimenting with the unknown. This means, when you are offered an opportunity to do something different or to try something new, why not seriously consider it and do it. To personally grow, you need to try new things and diversify yourself.
At this point in time, you might not even realize that you are stuck in pointless repetition with no diversity in your life. Your schedule probably looks like you go to school or work in the morning, then you binge watch something on Netflix when you get home, maybe read some pages from a personal development book, and then you are off to bed to repeat this cycle. Doesn’t that sound boring? Guess what, you are probably living it, so this is when you need to take the opportunity and apply to your life what this article is urging you to do. Spice up your life and diversify yourself; as in, trying something new, because this is all part of the process of personal development and you will see a lot of benefits.
It is easier to find your passion and understand more about yourself
If you are in high school or college right now, you might not know what you want to do with your life, which is completely okay. However, if you are not actively exploring different fields and opportunities that you can take, then that is a problem. You need to try new things, because then you will find out more about what you like and dislike. When you take more things on, the more opportunities you will have in finding what you are truly passionate about. I see this as if you are entering a raffle or a giveaway. When you have more entries or tickets, you have a higher chance to win (skip to the next paragraph if you already get my example). To put it really simply, if there are a total of 10 tickets for a raffle and you have 2, then you have a 20% chance to win. But if you did some extra work and was given 3 more tickets, then you have 5, which means you now have a 50% chance of winning. When you put in more work and gain more skills/knowledge (or tickets), you will have higher likelihood of developing your passion.
When you do more activities and pursue new opportunities, you discover more about what you like, dislike, and what you want to pursue in life. Also, you might pick up some new memory or learn some new skill that will help you in the future.
Not too long ago, I was given the opportunity to intern at a private wealth management firm during one of my breaks from school. I knew I was not going to do much over this break, so I was considering on accepting the internship. However, the internship did not pay much money whatsoever and I knew I could make more money by getting more hours at my job. Nonetheless, I took the internship and my life opened up to so many new opportunities.
At this internship, I met wonderful people who put me in connection with several different people who had careers that I was interested in (this gave me the chance to have informational interviews with these new connections). They also taught me new skills and knowledge about the world of finance. However, the best part is that they invited me back for the summer. Initially, I wanted to go somewhere else and try something new, but COVID-19 occurred and shut down virtually every internship that I applied for.
Thankfully, the opportunity for me to go back to the private wealth management firm was still open and they even offered me more money! If I chose the money over the opportunity in the beginning, I would have had no summer internship, significantly less money, and fewer connections. Take your opportunities when they show up, you may not know the good things that around the corner.
Diversification builds you up
I probably would not have taken that internship if I had already done something along the lines of finance. Because I had not, I saw it as an opportunity to diversify my knowledge and skills. This diversification has helped build me up, which is why I strongly urge you to do the same. With diversification of skills and knowledge, you are not limited to one thing. It is like the idea of investing your money. You do not want to invest all of your money into one company, because there is a risk that you can lose it all. By diversifying your investments, you can protect yourself from possible risks and you can gain more money from your investments as well. This concept is exactly the same for why you should diversify yourself: protect yourself and gain more.
Also, when you diversify yourself, there will be positive side effects. As in, you might aim to read more books, which means that you will most likely improve upon your vocabulary. One of the positive side effects that I have gained when trying something new was building confidence for when I started to become interested in clothing and dressing better. This topic is something that I talk about here. The possibilities of what you can gain are endless, which is why you need to start trying new things and gaining new skills/knowledge RIGHT NOW!
Do it and diversify you to personally grow
When you diversify and try new things, you can really grow and understand more about yourself. There are so many different types of activities, food, ideas, skills, etc, in the world for you to try. By exploring, you can really discover your passion, build yourself up, and find the positive side effects. Now is the time to do something. Now is the time to apply what you have been reading. Do it!
Youth to Future 