YOUR YOUNGER SELF DIDN'T KNOW EVERYTHING...
...And neither does anyone else!
Hello, my lovely 45 Not Out-ers!
I hope this edition finds you well. How’s your week been?
Recently I’ve been thinking about my younger years. And, if I’m honest, I’ve had a bit of regret about it. Not the massive, life-altering kind - but the quieter variety that creeps in when you’re least expecting it.
You know the one I mean. That voice that whispers: Why didn’t I leave that job sooner? Why did I put up with that for so long? Why didn’t I speak up? Why didn’t I just... know better?
If you’re anything like me, you’ve had that conversation with yourself more times than you’d care to admit. We look back at our younger selves and cringe a bit, don’t we? We think about the opportunities we missed, the boundaries we didn’t set, the confidence we didn’t have.
And here’s what I’ve realised recently: your younger self was doing the absolute best she could with what she knew at the time. And that’s not just true for you - it’s true for everyone.
Let me explain...
The Wisdom That Simply Wasn’t Available Yet
When I was in my twenties and thirties, I genuinely thought I had to have it all figured out. It was the 80’s and 90’s and there were plenty of successful people I looked up to. Those who I considered successful I assumed they’d planned everything and success came easy to them. If I was struggling or uncertain, I thought it meant I was somehow failing.
What a load of rubbish that turned out to be.
The wisdom we have now - about ourselves, about what actually matters, about how the world really works - simply wasn’t available to us back then. It couldn’t be. Some knowledge only comes through living it. You can’t skip to the end of the book and expect to understand the story.
Your younger self didn’t know:
That saying no wouldn’t end your career or your relationships (in fact, it might save both)
That being liked by everyone is impossible and utterly exhausting
That the people who seemed to have it all together were often just better at hiding their struggles
That your body would change, and that’s completely normal, not a personal failure
That your priorities would shift dramatically, and that’s growth, not weakness
She didn’t know these things because she hadn’t lived them yet. And that’s perfectly, completely normal.
We’re Particularly Hard On Ourselves
We’re brutal with ourselves, aren’t we? Society has spent our entire lives telling us we should be better - thinner, quieter, more accommodating, more ambitious, better organised, more grateful. By the time we hit midlife, we’ve internalised this so deeply that we beat ourselves up for not having beaten the system earlier.
But here’s what I want you to consider: maybe the system was designed to be unbeatable. Maybe the game was rigged from the start, and your younger self wasn’t failing - she was navigating an impossible maze while being told it was a straight path.
The Freedom In Letting Go
There’s enormous freedom in accepting that you simply didn’t know then what you know now. It releases you from the tyranny of retroactive perfection. It allows you to look at your younger self with compassion instead of criticism.
More importantly, it frees you to make different choices now, without the weight of regret holding you back. You’re not “starting over” or “making up for lost time” - you’re simply continuing your journey with more information than you had before.
And blimey - what a difference that makes.
Nobody Else Has It Figured Out Either
And while we’re at it, let’s explode another myth: nobody else has it all figured out either. Not now, not ever.
That colleague who seems to glide through life? She’s winging it too. That friend who appears to have made all the right choices? She’s probably looking at your life and thinking the same thing about you. The people who write advice columns and self-help books? They’re still learning as they go.
We’re all just doing our best with what we know at any given moment. The difference is that now, at 45, 55, 65, or beyond, you have the self-knowledge and the hard-won wisdom to do it with more intention, more clarity, and frankly, less tolerance for nonsense.
What Your Future Self Will Know
Here’s the beautiful part: your future self - the woman you’ll be in five, ten, or twenty years - will know things you don’t know now. She’ll look back at this moment with even more wisdom, more perspective, and hopefully, the same compassion you’re learning to extend to your younger self.
She won’t judge you for what you didn’t know today. She’ll thank you for what you did with what you had.
So maybe the question isn’t “Why didn’t I know better?” but rather “What am I learning now that will serve me going forward?”
Because you’re not done yet. Not even close.
I could go on, but I think you get my drift.
PS - A request from me
As some of you may know, I’ve been producing this newsletter fortnightly for free since 2020. And I absolutely love doing it - deciding what subjects you might need to know about, researching things related to that subject and physically writing the newsletter and sending it out to you lovely lot.
And, I’m delighted to say that the number of subscribers has grown steadily and organically through the years and is now at 200. Which is wonderful - I never could have envisaged that when I first started.
I’m delighted to announce that I’m extending the newsletter to offer more editions during the month. These editions will be more in depth and will cover subjects that will differ from the regular fortnightly editions I produce for everyone. And they will be more highly researched with inputs from experts in that subject, occasionally.
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I know from conversations that many of you enjoy reading my newsletters and tell me how much it resonates with them. So, I’d hope that those of you who do value what I write, will become one of my paid for subscribers. The cost will be:
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So that’ll be a wrap from me. I hope this resonated with you. If you have any comments, I’d love to hear them - good or bad. Just reply to this newsletter and it will find me.
Meanwhile stay safe, warm & well
Till next week
Una x