Trust your gut and fail bravely: seven influential women on the advice they would give their 30-year-old selves

The Guardian

28-07-2025

If you could go back in time and give your younger self some advice, what would it be? (Mine: always hire a professional to do your taxes and just accept you look best with a side part.)
It's tempting to imagine what we might have done differently. Unfortunately, wisdom tends to be hard-earned, and often only arises after a series of mistakes – like parting your hair in the middle for five years even though it makes you look like a potato.
While personal wisdom takes time and patience to cultivate, we can always listen to what other astute people have learned over the years. For the final installment in our series The joys of ageing, we asked seven influential women what advice they would give their 30-year-old selves if they could go back in time.
I'd tell my 30-year-old self to write morning pages: three pages of longhand, morning writing, done daily. The pages provoke, clarify, comfort, cajole, prioritize and synchronize the day at hand. They guard – and guide – the writer.
I would have told my 30-year-old self that all the things I sought from the world – respect, safety, love, esteem – were not out there, and that experiencing those was going to be an inside job. I wasn't going to be able to achieve, own, lease, marry well enough to feel fulfilled for any length of time. That I could stop dancing as fast as I could trying to fill up on all the prizes and rewards and glitter that the world had to offer – because it was outside of me, it was not of lasting value.
I would have told myself to do everything I could do to make myself stronger, keep fit and be the best of what I could be. And we're not all going to be the same. Don't even think that you're going to look like or do the same things as everyone else. Just do what you can do.
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I would tell my 30-year-old self to trust my gut. Don't overthink.
If only we could go back and lend wisdom to our younger selves. But life doesn't work that way. We earn our wisdom, year by year. Yes, I wish I had the overwhelming gratitude for our blue jewel of a planet at age 30, as I do now, at age 75. I wish I had been more forgiving of myself and my blunders. I wish I had been more tolerant of others' blunders. We, all of us, are on an arc of personal evolution. Wisdom can't be rushed. The only goal we can strive for is to eventually arrive at becoming the person we can admire.
The understanding that would have been most helpful would have been something like: 'When a door closes, another one can open.' No, I won't go to journalism school after all – a long-held, quiet aspiration – but I've learned a lot contemplating the role of truth-telling, wise detachment and compassionate witnessing. I won't still traipse around Asia as I began doing when I was 18, but I can have a vibrant sense of adventure, a strong love of learning and an ability to not excessively rely on creature comforts. I may not have so many firsts – like I've already had with my first book, my first recording, my first public talk to crowds of people. But you know what – I just might.
What's ahead will take courage, but you are ready. Do not shrink to belong. Stand boldly, fail bravely, grow fully and move forward with peace of mind and heart. Start every day with kindness. That's your superpower.