Hey, I’m Natasza and I’m writing this blog during my work experience at Youth Voice in Swindon. This is my first ever time doing something of this sort since I'm 15 and this is my opportunity to witness the working world first-hand. Work experience can be beneficial to know what to anticipate in the future when getting a job; it’s preparation for a professional environment so it’s important to get a meaningful placement, which I was lucky to find.
I chose to do my work at Youth Voice to find out more about how they help young people gain confidence in themselves and provide support to those who need it. My encounters with all the people working at Youth Voice, VAS, Mind etc. have been super positive and I really appreciated all the guidance and knowledge everyone I have spoken to shared with me. I’m especially grateful for all the help from Lisa organizing so much of this for me, overall being a pleasure to work with and this wouldn’t have been made possible without her, so I very much value all the effort she dedicated to doing this for me.
I wanted to share some advice I found that may be useful to anyone reading this (at maybe a similar age to me) in case you want some direction or generally anything to boost your spirit and motivate you to keep going. This isn’t solely aimed at young people because I believe that you’re never too old to keep learning about yourself and developing who you are as a person; you’ve still got time!
When I went to the Penhill Community Cafe I had a meeting with some changemakers working for VAS and really connected with one of them specifically, as I found we shared some common ground in our interests and beliefs. I think she had some very worthwhile advice. We agreed it’s important to always be willing to improve yourself as a person and develop who you want to be since you never stop growing and you never gain from being stuck in your old ways.
Remember that you should be yourself and that you don't need to follow the crowd; individuality is so key to embracing who you are, and you don’t have to be like everyone else. Know that you are the only person that you will constantly be spending time with, so you might as well like this person! This is why you need to love who you are: it will also be so much easier to spread love to others when you love and are at peace with yourself.
When you are trying to become better, never fall into the mindset of competing with the people you’re surrounded by because it will never benefit you and you’ll be stuck in a negative way of thinking. Your only competition is you. Your life reflects your choices and where you are today is the result of your past decisions so if you change your choices, you change your future. Take control of your life, it doesn't matter if you do something big or small because everything has an impact. Consider the consequence of your actions, does it enable you to be that enhanced version of yourself that you are capable of becoming? If you want to improve, reflect on yourself and simply wish the best on others because we want all of us to succeed.
We are always working to reach our full potential, so you need to let yourself do that. Don’t listen to any negativity because you should have your best interest in mind and even when times are difficult, you will overcome your struggles and the difficulties will pass. Life is always throwing something new at you, but you are strong enough to handle it. You’ve come this far! You should be proud of all that you have accomplished because times do get hard but you’re doing so well. If you’re finding it difficult to ignore people that put you down, consider that if you wouldn’t go to that person for advice, why should you listen to their negativity either? This won’t always be the case but sometimes it can be helpful to remember.
Being the best that you can be also means helping others and it doesn’t always have to be to benefit you directly for you to do it. Think of others. Be compassionate. A lot of people I spoke to mentioned volunteering to be a great thing to do because it helps your community- this, however, isn’t something that goes unnoticed and alongside being a lovely thing to do for other people, can be a massive help to you. Sometimes volunteering is the thing that separates you from other people when applying for a job because it makes you stand out to an employer. It demonstrates your dedication and that you are caring enough to put extra effort into your work.
I hope you found reading this somewhat interesting and that anything I said may help you in any way. I really enjoyed my time doing this work experience and found it very valuable, so I'll remember this for the future since it has further encouraged me to do work in a similar field one day, working with people and trying to make our world the best place it can be. Thanks for reading!
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