'Not everyone will like you.' The 3 things Leigh Campbell would tell her younger self.

Each month, we ask some of our favourite Australian women about the three things they would tell their younger selves. Sometimes they want to tell their younger selves about work, sometimes it's about family, sometimes it's about love - and sometimes, like for Mamamia’s You Beauty and This Glorious Mess co-host Leigh Campbell, it's about finding happiness your way, living in the moment, and learning to love yourself... eventually.

Here are three things Leigh Campbell would tell her younger self.

1. Happy is not your default setting.

You're complex. You feel things deeply, though you put on a pretty nonchalant exterior. You already know all of this, because your parents took you to a child psychologist when you were six because you said you were 'worried'... All. The. Time. 

In your 20s and 30s you'll work with various therapists, wading through the weeds of your mind to figure out that happiness just isn't your default setting. It's not how you're wired. 

You'll resent that and feel intense jealousy of everyone around you who seems to feel joy so subconsciously while your mind runs through every worst-case scenario. 

But you'll get there... your best therapist, being yourself, and the grace you give to your mind for how it naturally functions. It's messy, fragmented, ruminating thoughts. 

You'll work hard on happiness, and when you work out how to get there, even if it's not every day, your whole being will come alive.

2. You can't go back.

Life has no rewind button. For a long time, you'll let the pain of the past and the fear of the future push so hard on either side of you that you'll only be present in body, not in mind.

But you can't go back. You can't finish high school. You can't undo the mean things you said to people in your teens that were born from insecurity. You can't re-do your regrets with new endings.

Similarly, you can't savour moments once they're behind you. Sitting on your dad's lap when you were little. Playing board games and drinking games with your family, laughing until you are crying. You can re-play them in your mind with a bittersweet melancholy, but you can't have those days back again.  

Leigh and her dad. Image: Instagram.

Instead, with the wisdom granted as you age, you'll learn to identify them as they're happening. In the moment. Amongst the messy days. The mundane days. The unexpected days. And you'll savour them right then and there. 

3. Others won't like you, but you'll grow to like yourself.

You're loud. You're opinionated. You sometimes speak before you think. 

Not everyone will like you, not when they first meet you, anyway. 

And some, even after they get to know you. 

This will hurt. 

You might even try changing how you are. Shrinking down. Condensing. 

But you're funny, and you're smart, and you love those close to you so fiercely that you'll give them all of you. 

And with the love and acceptance of only those who matter, you'll learn to like yourself. All of yourself. Even the loud, bossy, broken bits.

Not only will you like yourself, you'll love yourself... eventually. 

Being liked by everyone is impossible anyway - you're not ice cream. 

Related link: 'Stop dating sh*t people.' The 3 things Jessie Stephens would tell her younger self.

Feature Image: Instagram.