Create Your Life 💫Values🩷 Identity🩷Confidence

Something I learned in my late 30s and early 40s that I really wish I’d understood in my late teens and 20s…

Get the nose piercing.
Get the tattoo you’ve always wanted.
Travel.

Stop waiting for everyone else to approve of the person you want to be.

And stop listening to the dream squashers.

The people who tell you, “You can’t do that.”

Sometimes they mean well. Sometimes it comes from their own fears, experiences or ideas about what life is supposed to look like.

But you don't have to make their limits yours.

Looking back, there are things I wish I’d done differently. I wish I’d travelled more. There are opportunities I didn't take because I listened to family, friends and other people's opinions about what I should or shouldn't do.

There are regrets.

There are sliding-door moments when I wonder, what if?

But I've also realised I can't go back and rewrite those chapters.

What I can do is draw a line in the sand.

For me, particularly in the years since my separation and divorce, that has meant learning that I am enough.

Seeking less approval.

Understanding my values and choosing people and experiences that align with them.

Being willing to change my mind.

Having a growth mindset instead of believing who I was yesterday has to be who I am tomorrow.

And trusting myself enough to create the life I actually want.

I can't change the choices I made at 20.

But I can choose how I live at 45.

And I choose a life by design, not default.

Especially not someone else's default.

Always Andrea x