If I Had To Do It All Over Again

What if you had an opportunity to go back 10, 20, or 30 years to start your career or build your business again? What words of wisdom and lessons you have learned over the ensuing years would you hope someone would share with you as you got started?

It's the age-old question of "wouldn't it be great to be 20 or 30 again," if you could do so with the wisdom, knowledge, and perspective that you have now at 40 or 50.

What I wouldn't give to let my 25-year-old self a good kick in the pants so that I could see what my actions - or more accurately, my inaction, would cost in terms of opportunities down the road.

Would I have chosen a different path (or many paths) if, as a 25-year-old, I could see the opportunities presented to me with my half-century-old eyes and knowledge?

However, with age also comes the recognition and understanding that all of life's experiences, both good and bad, contribute to the person you are today, and set the stage for tomorrow, next week, next month, and next year.

Without going too in-depth, I would remind my younger self that education is vitally important, and opens many unexpected doors of opportunity for personal growth and the ability to positively affect the lives of others.

There are other things I would tell my younger self, but I would really like to hear from you. If you had to do it all over again, what would you tell your younger self?

Editor’s Note: This post also appears on LinkedIn.

Before founding her own consulting firm, Dawn Gannon served as a respected project management and administrative operations professional in the military, higher education, and healthcare fields for 25 years. As a Lean/Six Sigma Green Belt, Dawn’s commitment and personal mission to improve the lives of others through service to the community focuses on providing administrative and volunteer management, consumer education, public outreach, event planning, relationship-building efforts, and strategic planning. She is a contributor on LinkedIn, the author of the Management in Motion blog, and has written a number of articles for RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association on the topic of childfree living.