Getting truer, not newer
“Yes Mummy, it needs to go to a book binder.”
Five minutes later, again showing me her well-aged and beloved book: “Yes Mummy, it needs to go to a book binder.”
Thirty minutes later: “Yes Mummy, it needs to go to a book binder.”
Spending the last few days with my mum has taught me more about the circle of life, and how foolish we can be as a species, than I expected.
Mum has progressively worsening dementia. Short-term memories slip away, while longer-term memories sometimes blur into the present. Yesterday, she was apparently visiting her mum - my grandma, who would have been 109 had she still been with us - when, in fact, it was her sister she was seeing.
But the lesson I’ve taken hasn’t come from the memory loss itself. It’s come from the loss of filters.
As the masks fall away, we’re seeing more of my real mum now - in her mid-80s - than we perhaps did in her 50s or 60s. The polite editing. The social smoothing. The careful consideration of what should be said… all of that is disappearing.
And what’s left?
Honesty. Rawness. Truth.
My siblings and I have joked about how similar Mum’s unfiltered observations are to my seven-year-old’s. Just plain, unvarnished truth.
“Mummy… we don’t say those kinds of things out loud.”
It’s amusing - until it isn’t.
Because beneath the humour is something deeply revealing. This unfiltered version of my mum offers us a glimpse of her truest self. Call it authenticity. Call it being unapologetically you. Whatever the label, it’s real.
And it raises an uncomfortable question.
How many New Year’s resolutions, over how many decades, have we spent trying to become a new person? Transformed. Reinvented. Fixed.
And how many times have we ended up… largely the same person - just older, a little more weathered, carrying a few more wrinkles, bruises and memories?
Crossing multiple time zones this past week reinforced something else for me too: It doesn’t matter where in the world you land - you take yourself with you. We are who we are, wherever we are.
Last week, I wrote about understanding our values and how we use them to make decisions. Taking that a step further, many of us simply don’t know ourselves deeply enough. And when we don’t know ourselves, it becomes incredibly difficult to know where we should be heading.
Yet, with another New Year upon us, many of us will once again set goals, declare resolutions and commit to becoming someone “better” - without first understanding who we already are.
For many people, this is the quiet season of unease. Not a crisis, just a sense of being stuck. Of knowing there’s more in you, but not quite knowing how to access it. You may be functioning well on the outside, yet feel oddly disconnected from yourself on the inside.
My Becoming Unapologetically You framework was born from this very tension. It doesn’t start with fixing or striving. It starts by creating space - space to understand who you are beneath the roles, expectations and masks you’ve accumulated over time.
Because perhaps the work of life isn’t about becoming newer. Perhaps it’s about becoming truer.
Final thoughts
As we step into 2026, perhaps the question isn’t “Who do I need to become?”
But rather, “Who am I, really? And what would it look like to live from that place?”
If you’re feeling stuck, uncertain or quietly restless - and you’d like a thinking partner to help you reconnect with yourself and move forward with intention - you’re welcome to reach out.
There’s no pressure. Just a conversation.
Go on, take the Next Step.
