You Don't Need A New You. You Need An Updated One.

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I personally noticed it properly for the first time before I made it to my 40’s

I wasn’t in a therapy room. But in a supermarket aisle.

I'd turned the corner the wrong way. I’d gone against the invisible road rules and had a head on. I stepped aside. And before I even registered what was happening, I heard myself say it.

“Sorry.”

Like I was the problem. Like existing in the wrong lane required my apology.

Now some would say that's simply a sign of respect. It's such a small one off moment it is. But small moments can also tell the truth on bigger patterns.

And that one took me straight back to the day I had a serious accident on farm.
I rolled the side by side feeding calves. Richard couldn't get the weight of the vehicle off me to pull me clear..
I wasn't saying help me. What do you think I was saying?
SORRY. Over and over. Apologising for being ME, like almost killing myself was just another inconvenience in this already busy life we had.

That's how deep these patterns run.

And even after years of doing the work, they still try to come in through the side door.

Now here’s what I've come to understand about identity. It's not who you are. It’s who you believe you need to be. You’ve shaped it. Through repetition. Through reinforcement. Through being really good at something until the role becomes the whole story.

The woman who others can totally depend on. The one people come to. The one who keeps things moving regardless.

She didn't show up one day with this job description. She just kept being needed, kept delivering, kept being the one who could handle it all, until that became the operating system she ran everything through.

And operating systems don't fail dramatically. They just get slow. They glitch over time. The battery drains faster than it used to.

Not because you need throwing out for the latest model. Because what you're asking of yourself has changed — and the system hasn't been updated to keep up.

There's also this gap that opens up when you start to notice this. And it comes during significant life stages too.

When you stop tolerating. Stop fixing. Stop stepping aside and saying sorry before you've even assessed the situation or yourself.

And that gap can feel uncomfortable because you've spent so long filling space that the absence of certain role feels strange. Hollow. Grief almost.

This is the part most women misread.

They think the discomfort means they've taken a wrong turn. That the restlessness or the flatness or this is not what I thought it would be or the I should be further along feeling is a sign to go back to what's familiar.

It's usually the opposite.

It means your old identity is no longer running the show. And your new one is still loading.

That's not a crisis. And nobody tells you it's supposed to feel like this. A bit agitating, a bit like nothingness, a bit like you've lost the plot — because growth gets sold as this clean, additive thing. Stack better habits. Think bigger. Keep going.

But real identity work isn't additive. It's a shed.

You shed the layers you wore to cope, to perform, to stay safe, to stay likeable. Not to become someone different, but to come back to the parts of you that were always there, underneath the old casing.

If you fill that gap too quickly with busyness, with fixing, with slipping back into the familiar role because at least it feels like you're doing something, you don't integrate.

You renovate the old identity and call it expansion.

Same pattern. Different fresh outfit.

And it will show up again. It always does. Until you stay with the gap long enough that your whole system starts to believe: this is safe. This is who we are now.

That's where self-trust builds. Not from a decision. From consistency. From staying in the gap without rushing back to default, long enough that choice replaces autopilot with awareness.

Fast forward to the older version of you. The one looking back. The 80 year old version in the rocking chair reflecting.

What is she saying?

I wish I hadn't spent so much time apologising for taking up space. I wish I'd trusted the version of me that was trying to show me the path that lights me up. I wish I hadn't kept going back to what was familiar just because it was familiar.

That future version is worth fighting for. Not because she has it all figured out. Because she knows the cost of living life in the wrong lane.

The work isn't about becoming someone new.

It's about updating the settings — so the version of you that loves, leads, makes impact and shows up from here is actually running on the right system for where you're going.

If this resonates and you're ready to look at what's actually driving you, I run a Women's One Day Development Workshop at my property in Milabena, North West Tasmania. One full fast day to start the process. Real work. Real insight. No supermarket apologies required.

View upcoming dates → HERE