Some Seasons Ask Us to Build. Others Ask Us to Become.

I used to be part of the 5 a.m. club.

Not because it was popular, but because it genuinely worked for me.

I loved everything about those mornings: waking before sunrise, exercising, journaling, meditating.

Beginning the day feeling grounded before the world demanded anything of me.

I also went to bed early because that rhythm worked for me. At the time, I couldn't explain why. I simply knew I felt my best living that way. It was only years later that I understood what my body had been telling me all along.

For years, that routine became part of my identity.

It wasn't simply something I did.

It was who I was.

Then life changed.

Marriage.

Motherhood.

Leadership.

Retrenchment.

Grief.

Rebuilding.

Somewhere along the way, I kept trying to squeeze my new life into an old version of myself.

And I started wondering...

How many of us keep chasing routines, goals, or identities simply because they once worked?

How often do we stop long enough to ask whether they still fit the season we're in?

Or do we wait until life forces us to?

For the longest time, I felt like I was failing every morning I didn't wake up at 5 a.m.

I couldn't recreate the rhythm that had once come so naturally.

Then one day, I realised something.

I wasn't failing.

I was becoming.

I've learned to see what once felt like failure as information. Feedback. A lesson.

Every attempt, every adjustment, and every experiment has taught me something about the person I am today.

What wasn't fair was expecting my 40-year-old self to live like my 20-year-old self.

My twenties were about building.

• Building a career.

• Building confidence.

• Building identity and purpose.

My thirties became about balancing.

Balancing work, children, responsibility, and seasons of survival I never imagined.

Looking back, I realise how easy it is during that stage to lose yourself while taking care of everyone else.

Now my forties feel different.

Not because life is easier.

In many ways, it feels more complicated.

Sometimes it feels as though I'm in conversation with every previous version of myself: my ambitious 20-year-old self, my resilient 30-year-old self, each with different expectations of who I should be.

Perhaps that's why this season has felt harder than I expected.

But it has also given me permission to stop chasing a version of myself that no longer fits.

I'm redesigning instead of recreating.

I'm asking different questions now.

• What gives me energy today?

• What kind of recovery do I actually need?

• What excites me now that never interested me ten years ago?

• What do I need to let go of so I can become who I'm meant to be?

• Where do I feel most alive?

• What does thriving look like in this season, not in my twenties, not in my thirties, but now?

I don't have all the answers.

I may never have them.

And I'm no longer uncomfortable with that.

What excites me is the curiosity. The awareness.

The freedom to explore without trying to prove anything.

No expectations. No pressure.

Just an openness to meet the woman I'm becoming.

Maybe wisdom isn't becoming who we once were.

Maybe wisdom is having the courage to become who this season is asking us to be.

Perhaps the greatest act of self-compassion is releasing the pressure to return to who you were, so you can make space for who you're becoming.

P.S. If you're wondering... no, I don't wake up at 5 a.m. anymore.

I've stopped trying to recreate a routine that belonged to a different version of me. I no longer measure my success by the clock.