The end of the school year is near and there are about 2 weeks until graduation. After that, 3 months before college starts. Most people would want to look to the future and see what changes they will make in the lives they lead, and look forward to all the new people they will meet. However, I want to take the opportunity to look back at the past and find 3 things I would have told myself going into high school.

Never put your mental stability at risk because of academic related things.

Yes. Of course grades are a huge part of high school, but high school is not your entire life. This is something I wish I told myself. I put my mental health at risk when it came to grades and though I have learned from it, it was one of the biggest mistakes I made in high school. Putting yourself down because of a bad grade is so common, but what's uncommon is getting back up again and starting fresh. I made the mistake of sulking in my failures when I couldn't get a test above a C in Biology Honors, and because of that, all my other classes started to drop. After this my confidence started to weaken and my mental health started to decline. To avoid this, just take care of yourself and know that your academic life, though important, is not as important as self-care.

Be friends with people you actually want to be friends with.

Don't force yourself to be friends with people. At that point, you're not friends. I found myself trying to be friends with people who didn't even care for me all for the sake of being accepted. I finally realized, why do I care? I shouldn't be faking my way through a friendship because I find some sort of security in being accepted. The whole issue is that you're getting that feeling of acceptance from people that really, could care less about you.

That brings me to my third piece of advice: find security in yourself.

Find security in yourself, not others.

It's important that in high school, you establish self-confidence. Confidence that's rooted in yourself rather than those around you and superficial things in your life. The biggest way to find security in yourself is by standing for what you believe rather than falling into what others around you want to believe.

I go to a conservative school while being a liberal person and my views and beliefs were questioned and at times friendships were put at risk — but I knew I needed to find the security in myself instead of making my views, which are a huge part of who I am, so flexible.

I encourage students that are starting high school or even college to try and take step back and put yourself first when needed. It's an important and mature step that anybody can take.