Five of the Best: Letters to Yourself

In celebration of International Women’s Day, YouTube has launched #DearMe, a campaign to inspire and empower girls everywhere.

The #DearMe initiative urges YouTubers across the world to think back to their teenage years and offer some advice on what they’d do differently and what they wish they’d knew.TenEighty understands how tough growing up can be – trust us, we’ve been there. That’s why we’ve decided to compile our five favourite videos where YouTubers address their younger selves.

Whether you’re looking for some advice or want to find someone who’s overcome what you’re currently going through, we can guarantee these videos will leave a lasting impression.

5. Advice To My Younger Self – Melanie Murphy

Transitioning into adulthood is never easy and that’s something Melanie Murphy understands. Melanie’s gone through a lot in life, including recovering from an eating disorder, dealing with generalized anxiety disorder and much more, and it’s really interesting to hear her take on life as someone who’s overcome all that.

She’s blunt, she’s straight-forward and she emphasizes self-love and happiness, things everyone needs to keep in mind. There’s nothing standing in your way but you, and Melanie makes damn sure both herself and her audience know that. Just like many of us, she once turned to YouTube for inspiration and advice, and we can guarantee more than one person has turned to her for the exact same thing.

If there’s one thing to take from this video, it’s this: when you’re at the bottom, the only way is up.

4. A Letter From The Past – Candice Cathers

Let’s be honest, we all hate cleaning our rooms. But have you ever stopped to think about what could possibly be hiding in that pile of junk in the corner? Who knows, like Candice Cathers, you might find a letter you wrote to yourself back when you were 18.

In this video, Candice reacts to the letter she wrote to herself while on a trip to Poland. In the letter, she detailed three things she’d hoped to accomplish by the time she turned 21 and it’s pretty interesting to see her reaction to her progress. What we learnt from this is that a) Candice isn’t necessarily the biggest fan of nostalgia and b) happiness isn’t the end all, be all of life. Take the good with the bad and you’ll be content.

What’s that Fall Out Boy lyric? “Oh, nostalgia, I don’t need you anymore.”

3. TO: 21 YEAR OLD ME! – Bethan Leadley

Along with speaking to their younger selves, YouTubers have started addressing the future and one such person to do this is Bethan Leadley. Speaking to her future self, Bethan lists a boatload of goals she hopes to accomplish before she turns 21. Ranging from moving to London to reaching 250,000 subscribers to getting a music gig, Bethan aims for the stars and doesn’t leave any stone unturned. She stays pretty light-hearted throughout the video, but you can see her drive to tick off every box on her list.

Well Bethan, considering we’re a year on and you’ve already accomplished the majority of your goals, we’d say you’re doing pretty well, and we can’t wait to see your response in 2016. Give yourself a pat on the back, you deserve it.

2. To My Sixteen Year Old Self – Carrie Hope Fletcher

Everyone knows Carrie Hope Fletcher is the go-to if you’re in need of advice, and YouTube’s self-proclaimed big sister isn’t leaving herself out of the mix. In this poetic letter to her 16-year-old self, Carrie speaks about not comparing herself to others, thinking things through and loving herself – advice we could all use. There’s so much emotion in her words and, if you’re like us, you’ll be left feeling all the feels.

Carrie, is there a class we can take to help us write like you?

1. Letter To My Thirteen Year-Old Self – Lucy Evenden

Topping our list is Lucy Evenden‘s creative and poetic take on the “Letter To…” series. Lucy’s always had an artistic flare to her, so obviously, she was going to take this video and make it her own. It’s personal, it’s deep and it’ll leave you thinking. Lucy has a way with words that keeps us entranced, so much so we kept on hitting repeat.

There isn’t one topic we can pick from this video that we didn’t take anything from, so we’ll leave you with our favourite line: “We must celebrate together what a wonderful human you have the potential to become.”

Lucy, we think you’re a pretty wonderful human being. Keep on doing you.

There you have it…

TenEighty’s Five of the Best: Letters to Yourself videos. We hope they got you thinking and helped you figure out a few things. If you’d like to learn more about YouTube’s #DearMe campaign, click here.

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