I’m Giving Myself 365 Days to Become More Me
A quiet restart in my thirties, and a reminder that you do not have to change your whole life overnight to begin again.
Turning 30 has made me think about time differently. Not in a panicked, “I must immediately have everything figured out” kind of way. Although, obviously, there has been a bit of that too, but I feel like that happened a lot more when I turned twenty. I am still me. Instead, it’s been in a more quiet, honest way. The kind of realisation that arrives when you look at your life and think: I am grateful for parts of this, but I also know there are parts of me I have left waiting for too long.
The ideas I keep putting off, places I say I want to go, but never quite plan, hobbies I start in my head before I convince myself I will be bad at them, or I pay all the components for that hobby, try it, I’m not perfect right away, so I stop.
It’s the version of me who wants more from life, but keeps waiting for the perfect time to begin, and I think that is what this year is really about. Not becoming someone completely new or dramatically reinventing myself. Not waking up one morning as a fearless, highly organised woman with clear skin, perfect routines, matching storage containers and no unread emails.
Lovely thought. Very unlikely. I also wouldn’t turn it down if that happened. Just saying.
What it is about, however, is about becoming more me with a little less fear that has stopped me from living more.
Why I’m giving myself a year
A year feels like enough time to change gently, and I love setting a time sensitive goal, as it adds that motivation I need. That is what I like about it. It’s long enough that everything does not have to happen immediately, but short enough to remind me that I do actually have to start, because I am very good at turning “one day” into a personality trait. One day I will….
write more
travel more
feel more confident
try that hobby
stop caring so much about what people think
build a life that feels more like mine
The problem with “one day” is that it sounds hopeful, but it can also become a very comfortable hiding place, it did for me. That one day turned into never, and it transformed into seeking the perfect time to start. Which, spoiler, is never.
So I am giving myself 365 days. Not as a strict challenge where every day has to be productive, impressive or worth documenting beautifully online. That sounds exhausting, and I would like to remain at least partially alive, while remaining honest. Instead, I mean 365 days as a container. A way to pay attention, to ask myself, again and again: is this helping me become more myself, or is it helping me stay hidden?
What becoming more me actually means
I do not think becoming more yourself is always a big, dramatic process. Although, I am imagining a fun movie montage. Sometimes it is much smaller than that. For me, this challenge will be about noticing what I actually enjoy, instead of what I think I should enjoy, it’s about choosing a plan that feels good for not, and not the one that just looks good on paper. This challenge will be about letting my younger self live freely, and letting her be interested in things without needing to be excellent at them.
I want to use this year to go to new places, even if it’s to the park I walk past instead of through, not wanting to waste time, or visiting a local café by myself, or a market, museum, festival, well you get the idea. It’s about wearing that item of clothing I’ve tried on in front of the mirror time and time again, only to put something else on to go out in, fearing people’s reactions to something slightly different.
I feel like I’ve let myself get carried away there, but instead of going through and picking the above a part, and making it sound more formal, I’m just going to leave the stream of thoughts for you to read.
This bit will be more formal though, I can’t help it, I need to organise.
This year will be about:
Writing something before I know whether it is any good
Taking the photo
Booking the thing
Saying no without preparing a full courtroom defence
Saying yes before my brain has produced a 47-part risk assessment
It is the tiny, ordinary moments where I want to stop abandoning myself. That is what I want more of this year.
More honesty
More creativity
More little adventures
More courage
More trying
More living
And yes, probably more spreadsheets too, and bullet point lists, because apparently personal growth also includes budgeting, forms, appointments and remembering passwords, sprinkled with a clear summary for me to look back at. Nobody warns you about the admin side of becoming your best self, but if that’s what you need (or don’t need), then you do you.
The areas I want to challenge myself in
I do not want this year to be vague. I know myself, and if I just say “I want to grow”, I will somehow turn that into buying a notebook, writing one dramatic page in it, and then never opening it again until I have the perfect addition, So I want to challenge myself in the areas that actually matter to me, and then see where they lead.
I want to create more. Writing, photography, crafts, journalling, blogging, making things for no reason other than they make me feel like a person with a pulse and an imagination.
I want to go on more little adventures. Not necessarily huge, expensive, life-changing trips, although I will absolutely accept those if the universe is offering. But also small adventures, new places, day trips. local events, walks, train journeys, trying new food and seeing more than the same routines on repeat.
I want to build more confidence. Not loud confidence. Not “walk into a room and own it” confidence, because honestly, I would rather walk into a room and quietly locate the nearest exit. I mean the kind of confidence where I trust myself a little more. Where I do not need everyone else to understand my choices before I allow myself to make them.
I want to get better at life admin and future-building. Saving, planning, learning, sorting the things I avoid because they feel overwhelming. The deeply unglamorous tasks that somehow make life feel safer and more possible. And I want to understand myself better. My anxiety, my energy, my quietness, my limits, my patterns, my needs. Not so I can fix every part of myself, but so I can stop treating myself like a problem I have to solve before I am allowed to live properly.
A gentle way to start again
I think starting again can sound bigger than it needs to. It makes you imagine leaving everything behind, changing your entire identity, becoming unrecognisable, waking up at 5am, drinking green things and suddenly having opinions about linen trousers. Which if that is you, totally go for it, but that isn’t the vibe for me.
For me, maybe starting again can be quieter, maybe it can begin with choosing one thing you have been putting off.
One place you want to go
One hobby you want to try
One habit that would make your days feel less chaotic
One boundary you know you need
One small decision that feels more like you
That feels much more possible to me. Not change your whole life by Monday. Instead, just choose one small thing that makes your life feel a little bit wider.
Then choose another, and another, and another.
That is the kind of restart I can believe in.
This is not about becoming perfect
I know there will be days when I do not feel brave. There will be days when I overthink everything, compare myself to other people, convince myself I am behind, and wonder whether this whole thing is a bit ridiculous. There will be weeks where I do not post enough, create enough, walk enough, save enough, write enough, or do enough of whatever imaginary standard I have invented for myself that day. But I do not want this challenge to become another way to measure myself and find myself lacking.
That would defeat the entire point. I want this year not to be about perfection for once. I want it to be about participation, about being in my own life instead of watching it from the side and waiting until I feel more prepared, about building proof that I can try things and survive the discomfort.
It is about showing myself that anxious does not have to mean stuck.
Quiet does not have to mean invisible, imperfect does not have to mean unworthy, and starting small does not mean nothing is changing.
An invitation to start with me
I am writing this partly to hold myself accountable, but also because I know I am probably not the only person who feels this way.
Maybe you are in your thirties and feel like everyone else got a clearer map, or you are anxious, overwhelmed, quietly restless, or tired of waiting to become the kind of person who is finally allowed to begin. Maybe you want more from your life, but you do not want to burn everything down and start again dramatically, or you just want to feel a little more like yourself.
I think that counts. I think wanting more counts, even before you know exactly what more looks like.
So this is my plan: for the next 365 days, I am going to try to make my life bigger in small, honest ways.
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And when I inevitably lose momentum, overthink it, panic, retreat, restart and wonder what on earth I am doing, I will try to come back to the point.
I am not doing this to become someone else. I am doing this to become more me.
Quietly ~ Nervously ~ Imperfectly
But hopefully, by this time next year, a little less afraid of my own life.
