Tag Archive for: navigating change

What comes next for a woman moving forward into her next chapter

What Comes Next: 5 Powerful Ways to Move Forward

What comes next is a question many women ask when life no longer looks the way it once did. A role ends, children grow up, a relationship changes, work shifts or we simply realise that the life we built no longer fits us in quite the same way. The question can feel exciting, frightening and overwhelming all at once.

I have asked it myself more than once.

I have been a daughter, wife, mother, grandmother, friend, businesswoman, restaurant owner and someone who spent years supporting young people through incredibly difficult circumstances. Each role asked something different of me, and for a long time there was always somebody who needed me or a problem waiting to be solved.

Then life changed. Businesses closed, plans altered, relationships shifted and I moved from Scotland to rural France. I did not arrive here as an empty page. I arrived carrying experience, resilience, mistakes, memories and all the parts of myself I had discovered along the way.

That is what I want us to remember when we wonder what comes next: we are not beginning with nothing. We are continuing with everything life has already taught us.

1. What comes next does not require a complete plan

We often believe we need a fully formed vision before we can move forward. We think we should know where we are going, how we will get there and what the final result will look like. When we cannot answer those questions, we assume we are stuck.

But most meaningful changes do not begin with certainty. They begin with a small sense that something needs to be different.

When I moved countries, I could not predict every challenge or opportunity ahead. When I began shaping Reclaiming Me, I did not have every page, session or future possibility mapped out. I began with what I knew: women needed somewhere to pause, hear themselves again and consider what they might want now.

You do not need the whole map. You only need enough clarity to take the next honest step.

2. You are continuing, not starting from nothing

The phrase “starting over” can make us imagine that everything before this point has been erased. It has not. Your past has given you knowledge, judgement, courage and a much clearer understanding of what you will and will not accept.

That does not mean every experience was welcome. Some lessons were painfully earned. Yet they still became part of your capacity. You know more about your needs, your boundaries and your strengths than the woman you were twenty years ago.

My earlier article, “Starting Over in Life: 5 Powerful Truths,” explores this more deeply. The important truth is that what comes next is being built by a woman with history—not by a beginner.

3. What feels right now matters

For many years, our choices may be shaped by responsibility. We organise our lives around children, work, partners, ageing parents, finances and the thousand practical things that keep a household or business moving.

When some of those responsibilities change, it can be strangely difficult to ask, “What do I want?” We may even feel guilty for asking.

But wanting something for yourself is not selfish. It is an acknowledgement that your life belongs to you too. The answer does not have to be dramatic. You might want more peace, meaningful work, creativity, friendship, better health, a different pace or simply room to think.

If you have forgotten how to hear your own voice, begin by making a little time for yourself. Quiet creates space for the answers that constant busyness tends to drown out.

4. Small choices reveal what comes next

Big life questions can make us freeze because we expect a big answer. Instead, try looking for small evidence.

What gives you energy? What leaves you feeling lighter? What idea keeps returning? What do you find yourself talking about with real enthusiasm? Where do you feel most like yourself?

These are not insignificant details. They are clues.

My own next chapter did not announce itself in one grand moment. It emerged through conversations, lived experience, supporting other women and recognising the themes that kept appearing. Clarity came through movement. Each small choice showed me a little more of what comes next.

The Mental Health Foundation also offers practical guidance on looking after your mental health and wellbeing. Support, rest and reflection all matter while you are navigating change.

5. You are allowed to change your mind

Choosing a direction does not lock you into it forever. You are allowed to try something, learn from it and decide it is not right. You are allowed to want something different from what you wanted five years ago—or even six months ago.

Sometimes we remain loyal to an old dream because we invested time in it or told other people about it. But growth changes us. A decision that once made sense may no longer suit the woman we have become.

Trust is not knowing that every decision will be perfect. Trust is knowing that you can respond, adjust and choose again. That is part of discovering what comes next.

A simple reflection for your next chapter

Take a blank page and complete these five sentences without overthinking them:

  • I no longer want to carry…
  • I want more space for…
  • I feel most like myself when…
  • Something I would like to explore is…
  • One small step I can take this week is…

Do not judge your answers or turn them immediately into another list of obligations. Let them show you what is present. Your next chapter may begin with something as simple as making a phone call, researching an idea, saying no, saying yes or giving yourself an uninterrupted hour to think.

Reclaiming the woman moving forward

This is at the heart of Reclaiming Me. It is not about returning to the woman you used to be or forcing yourself to invent an entirely new identity. It is about recognising the woman who is here now—the one shaped by everything she has lived through—and allowing her needs, hopes and desires to matter.

You can return to this process whenever life changes. It becomes a landing place: somewhere to steady yourself, reconnect with who you are and consider what comes next without pressure to have every answer.

You are not behind. You have not missed your chance. You are not too old, too uncertain or too late. You are standing at a new point in your life with more wisdom than you had before.

You do not need to rush. Listen carefully, choose gently and take one honest step at a time.

When you think about what comes next, what is one thing you would like to make more room for?

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Time for yourself with a quiet moment. sitting relaxing n a chair with a cup of tea

Time for Yourself: 5 Powerful Reasons It Matters

When did you last take time for yourself without feeling guilty about it?

Not time spent doing the shopping alone. Not cleaning the house while listening to music. Not sitting down for ten minutes while mentally running through everything that still needs to be done.

I mean time that belonged entirely to you.

For years, time for yourself can feel like something that must be earned. First, everybody else needs to be settled. The work must be finished, the messages answered, the house sorted and the people around us cared for.

Only then might we give ourselves permission to stop.

The problem is that the list is never truly finished.

I know what it is like to be needed. I have been a mother, wife, grandmother, friend, business owner and someone other people have turned to when life became difficult. There has nearly always been another person to think about or another job that needed doing.

Like so many women, I became very good at keeping everything moving.

But when we spend years listening for what everyone else needs, our own voice can become harder to hear.

1. Time for yourself is not selfish

Many women have been taught that putting themselves first—even briefly—is selfish.

We praise women for being selfless, dependable and always available. We don’t always ask what constantly being available is costing them.

Taking time for yourself doesn’t mean you have stopped caring about the people you love. It doesn’t mean neglecting your responsibilities or refusing to help anyone else.

It means recognising that you are a person within your own life, not simply the person who keeps everybody else’s life running.

You are allowed to matter too.

2. Space allows you to hear yourself again

When life is constantly noisy, it becomes difficult to know what we actually think.

We can spend our days reacting. Somebody needs an answer. Something goes wrong. A bill arrives. An appointment needs arranging. Another message appears on the phone.

Even when we sit down, our minds can still be racing.

Making time for yourself creates a little distance from that noise. It gives your thoughts somewhere to land.

You may not have an enormous realisation. You may simply notice that you are tired, that something has been bothering you or that you miss doing something you once enjoyed.

Those small pieces of awareness matter.

They are often how we begin finding our way back to ourselves.

3. Rest is not a reward for exhaustion

How often do we wait until we are completely drained before allowing ourselves to rest?

We push through tiredness because something still needs doing. We tell ourselves we will stop later, take the weekend off next month or make more room once life becomes quieter.

Then the quieter moment never arrives.

Time for yourself should not only appear once your body and mind have forced you to stop.

Rest is not a prize awarded for reaching breaking point. It is part of what allows us to continue living, caring, creating and making decisions with some sense of ourselves still intact.

Sometimes rest looks like sleep. Sometimes it is a walk, an hour with a book, time in the garden or sitting somewhere with a cup of tea and no expectation to be productive.

It does not need to look impressive to be valuable.

4. You rediscover what brings you joy

There is a question in Reclaiming Me that asks us to consider desire again.

That can feel surprisingly difficult.

When did you last ask yourself what you enjoy—not what is useful, sensible or needed, but what brings you pleasure?

Making time for yourself gives curiosity a chance to return.

Perhaps you used to paint, dance, write, travel, grow things or spend time with friends who made you laugh. Perhaps there is something completely new that you would like to try.

You don’t need to turn it into a business. You don’t need to become brilliant at it, justify the cost or prove that it benefits anybody else.

Joy is allowed to be reason enough.

5. Looking after yourself changes what you can give

Taking care of yourself does not reduce what you can offer others. In many cases, it changes the way you are able to give.

When we are permanently exhausted or resentful, even the things we want to do can begin to feel like demands.

A little time for yourself can create patience, clarity and breathing space. It can help us notice where we need a boundary, where we genuinely want to help and where we have been saying yes simply because we are afraid of disappointing someone.

The NHS includes paying attention to the present moment among its five steps for mental wellbeing. Sometimes caring for ourselves begins with noticing how we actually feel instead of automatically carrying on.

That pause can change more than we realise.

What would you choose?

Imagine somebody handed you two completely free hours.

Nobody needed you. There was no work waiting, no housework to catch up on and no expectation to make those hours productive.

What would you do?

If you struggle to answer, don’t judge yourself. It may simply mean you have been focused on everybody else for such a long time that you need space to become curious about yourself again.

Begin small.

Choose fifteen minutes. Put the phone down. Step outside, listen to music, write something, sit quietly or do whatever helps you feel more like yourself.

Time for yourself does not need to be dramatic to make a difference. It simply needs to belong to you.

This is part of the journey within Reclaiming Me: learning that your needs, desires and dreams deserve space alongside all the roles you carry.

You are still a mother, wife, grandmother, friend, colleague or carer.

But you are also you.

And making time for yourself may be one of the ways you begin hearing that woman again.

If you were given two completely free hours today, how would you choose to spend them?

 

The NHS shares 5 simple steps to support our mental wellbeing

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Starting Over In Life: 5 Powerful Truths

 

 

Starting over in life with experience carried into a new beginning

 

 

Starting over in life can feel as though somebody has taken the map from your hands and placed you on a road you have never travelled before.

Even when the change is something we have chosen, it can still feel frightening. We may know that the old life no longer fits, but that doesn’t mean we can clearly see what should come next.

I have started again more than once. For me, starting over in life has never meant forgetting the woman I was before.

I have built businesses, closed businesses and watched plans change completely. I have worked with young people, run a busy restaurant, owned a shop and built a gin company. Each chapter asked something different of me, and each ending left me wondering who I would be without the role I had carried.

Then I moved from Scotland to rural France.

Moving country sounds exciting—and it was—but it also meant leaving behind everything familiar. A different language, a different culture, different systems and a completely different way of life. Even the simplest tasks could suddenly feel complicated.

There were moments when I wondered whether I had lost everything I already knew.

But I hadn’t.

I had brought it all with me.

That is the first thing I want any woman standing at a new beginning to understand: you are not starting from nothing.

1. Starting over in life doesn’t erase what came before

When one chapter ends, it is easy to believe that everything connected to it has been wasted.

A business closes, so we focus on what went wrong. A relationship ends, so we question the years we gave to it. The children grow up, and we wonder what our purpose is now that they no longer need us in the same way.

But an ending cannot remove what you learned while you were living through it.

Running a restaurant taught me how to lead people, solve problems and make decisions under pressure. Supporting vulnerable young people taught me how to listen beneath the words somebody was saying. Building businesses taught me that ideas are only the beginning—you also need courage, determination and the willingness to adapt.

I may not use those skills in exactly the same way today, but they are still part of me.

Nothing meaningful is completely wasted.

2. You arrive carrying experience

Imagine standing at a junction with several roads stretching out in front of you.

You might not know which one to take. You may feel confused, overwhelmed or frightened of making the wrong choice. But you did not arrive at that junction empty-handed.

You brought every lesson, every mistake, every success and every difficult day you survived.

Starting over in life often feels like returning to the beginning, but you are beginning with more knowledge than you had before. You understand yourself differently. You recognise warning signs sooner. You know what drains you, what matters to you and what you are no longer prepared to tolerate.

That experience is not baggage holding you back.

It is wisdom helping you choose your next road.

3. You don’t need the complete plan

I have always been someone who gets things done. If there is a problem, I want to find the answer. If there is a new idea, I want to know how we are going to make it happen.

But life doesn’t always hand us the complete plan.

Sometimes we are only shown the next small step.

When Raymond and I moved to France, we couldn’t possibly know everything the new life would bring. We had to learn as we went along. Some things worked beautifully; other things were much harder than expected.

We didn’t need every answer before beginning. We simply needed enough courage to take the next step and then respond to what came after it.

Perhaps that is where you are now.

You don’t need to know what the next five years will look like. You only need to ask what feels possible today.

4. Beginning again is not failure

There is a belief that by a certain age we should have everything sorted.

We should know who we are, where we belong and what the rest of our life will look like. If we change direction, other people may assume something has gone wrong.

But changing direction is not the same as failing.

Sometimes it takes more courage to admit that something no longer fits than it does to remain where we are comfortable.

Starting over in life can be an act of self-respect. It can mean that you have listened to yourself closely enough to recognise that you need something different.

That doesn’t mean the previous chapter was a mistake. It means that chapter has given you everything it was meant to give you, and you are ready to carry those lessons forward.

5. You are allowed to want another chapter

Women are often expected to be grateful for what they already have.

And we can be grateful. We can appreciate the people we love, the lives we have built and everything we have experienced.

But gratitude does not mean we must stop wanting.

You are allowed to feel that there is still more of you to discover. You are allowed to create, learn, travel, change direction or simply make more space for yourself.

Wanting another chapter doesn’t mean rejecting your current life. It means recognising that you are still living it.

There are still dreams you are allowed to have simply because they matter to you.

What are you bringing with you?

Take a quiet moment and think about one chapter of your life that has ended or changed.

What did it teach you?

What strength did you discover while living through it?

What experience from that chapter could help you now?

If you would like some practical support while taking stock, the NHS guide to five steps for mental wellbeing offers simple ways to care for yourself and feel more connected to the life around you.

You do not need to dismiss the past to move forward. You can honour it, learn from it and decide what deserves to come with you.

Starting over in life is not about returning to the person you once were. It is about moving forward as the woman you have become.

That is part of the heart behind Reclaiming Me. It offers a place to pause, recognise everything you have carried and gently explore what you want from your next chapter.

You are not beginning empty-handed.

You are beginning with a lifetime of experience.

If you could carry one lesson from your past into your next chapter, what would it be?

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Finding Yourself When Life Changes

Who Am I Now? Finding Yourself When Life Changes

 

REACHING A CROSSROAD IN LIFE . CHOOSING A PATH WITH PURPOSE

reaching a crossroads in your life. finding new purpose

There comes a point in many women’s lives when we stop and ask, “Who am I now?” Finding yourself when life changes is not about going backwards. It is about understanding where you are now and what you might need.

It doesn’t always happen because of one enormous event. Sometimes it creeps up on us quietly. The children grow up. A relationship changes. A job ends. We move house, move country or reach a stage in life when the roles that once defined us no longer fit in quite the same way. One day, we look at the life around us and realise we are not quite sure where we fit within it anymore.

That question came to me because I have worn so many different hats throughout my life. I have been a daughter, a wife, a mother, a grandmother, a friend, a businesswoman, a restaurant owner and someone who spent years supporting young people through incredibly difficult circumstances.

I was always needed.

There was always somebody to look after, something to organise, a business to run or another problem waiting to be solved. Like so many women, I became very good at keeping everything moving. You do what needs to be done, often without stopping to ask yourself how you are feeling or what you might need.

Then life changes.

The children grow up and begin building lives of their own. Families shift. Relationships change. Businesses close or careers come to an end. People we love are no longer here. Our bodies change, our priorities change, and sometimes the life we thought we would have looks very different from the one we are actually living.

For me, life has included enormous changes. I have built businesses, closed businesses and begun again. I moved from Scotland and created a new life in rural France. I have experienced love, loss, family changes, uncertainty and those moments when you wonder what on earth comes next.

I have also reached an age where 60 is appearing on the horizon.

That doesn’t frighten me, but it does make me reflect. I can look back at the woman I was in my twenties, thirties and forties and recognise her, but I am not exactly the same woman now. Nor should I be.

Every stage of life has added something to me.

Still, somewhere between everything I had been and everything I might still become, I found myself standing at a junction.

That is often where the question appears:

Who am I now?

FINDING YOURSELF WHEN LIFE CHANGES

When we arrive at one of life’s junctions, it can feel as though we are being asked to start again from nothing.

We look ahead and cannot quite see the road. The familiar signs have disappeared. What worked for us before may no longer feel right, but we don’t yet know what should replace it.

It can feel uncomfortable and, at times, very lonely.

But here is what I began to understand: we do not arrive at that junction empty-handed.

We arrive carrying every lesson we have learned, every difficult day we have survived, every skill we have developed and every piece of strength we didn’t even realise we possessed.

We bring the mistakes as well as the successes. We bring the times we got it right and the times we had to pick ourselves up and try again. We bring years of loving, caring, working, adapting, coping and growing. We are not beginning from nothing. We are beginning with life experience. Finding yourself when life changes often begins with recognising the experience you already carry. That realisation changed something for me. Instead of looking at the junction as proof that I was lost, I began to see it as an opportunity to stop and take stock.

Where am I now?

What have I carried to get here?

What am I ready to put down?

And what might I finally allow myself to want?

WHEN DID YOU LAST ASK WHAT YOU WANTED?

Women spend so much of their lives thinking about everybody else. What do the children need? What does my partner need? What needs doing at work? Who needs help? Who might be upset? What will keep everything peaceful? Even our dreams can become shaped around other people. Then, when we finally have an opportunity to ask, “What do I want?”, we may discover that we have forgotten how to answer. That doesn’t mean there is something wrong with us. It simply means we have been listening to everybody else for such a long time that our own voice has become quieter.

It is still there.

Sometimes it just needs a little space, patience and permission to be heard again.

RECLAIMING THE WOMAN WITHIN

This is where Reclaiming Me began.

It didn’t come from a textbook or from a belief that I have every answer. It came from lived experience and from recognising how many women reach a stage where they feel overwhelmed, uncertain or disconnected from the person they once were.

Reclaiming yourself doesn’t mean rejecting all the roles you have carried.

I am still a wife, a mother, a grandmother, a friend and a businesswoman. Those parts of me matter. They have shaped me and will always belong to my story.

But I am also Jane.

There are still things I want to create, experience and discover. There are still parts of myself I am getting to know. There are dreams I am allowed to have simply because they matter to me.

Finding yourself when life changes is not about becoming somebody completely different. It is about recognising the woman who has been there all along beneath the responsibilities, expectations and noise.

You do not need to have it all worked out today.

You do not need a perfect five-year plan. Finding yourself when life changes takes time, patience and honesty. Sometimes the first step is simply admitting that something is changing and giving yourself permission to pause before rushing towards the next answer.

A MOMENT FOR YOU

Take a quiet moment and think about all the roles you have carried throughout your life.

Which ones still feel like you?

Which ones have changed?

Is there a part of yourself that has been pushed aside while you cared for everybody and everything else?

You don’t have to solve it immediately. Just notice what comes up.

The question “Who am I now?” is not evidence that you have lost yourself. It may be an invitation to meet yourself again—with all the wisdom, strength and experience you have gathered along the way.

You are not starting over.

You are starting from where you are, with everything life has taught you. Finding yourself when life changes does not mean returning to the woman you once were. And perhaps that junction is not the end of the road after all.

Perhaps it is the beginning of your next chapter.

If this feels familiar, Reclaiming Me is a six-week guided journey created to help you explore where you are, what you have carried and what you want to take forward. It is a place to return to whenever life changes—a landing place where you can pause, reflect and feel grounded again. Finding yourself when life changes is not a one-off exercise; it is something you can return to whenever life shifts again.

Have you ever reached a point in your life when you found yourself asking, “Who am I now?”

 

The NHS shares 5 simple steps to support our mental wellbeing

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your-empowerment-hub-header

When Parenting Changes Shape

I didn’t set out to write about parenting. I thought those years — the intense, hands-on, all-consuming ones — were behind me. Children grow. Life moves on. You adjust. That’s the story we’re told, anyway.

But over the past while, something has been stirring. I’ve found myself sitting with women — good mothers, thoughtful mothers who are struggling with a quieter kind of pain. Not crisis. Not catastrophe. Just the slow ache of watching a young adult pull away, disengage, lose momentum, or stop sharing the parts of themselves they once did.Children leaving for college and drifting instead.

Hobbies abandoned.

Motivation dulled.

Conversations shortened.

Doors gently but firmly closed. And underneath it all sits a truth we rarely name: No one tells you how to parent — and no one tells you how to un-parent. We’re given guidance for the early years.

Advice for the teenage years.

Warnings about letting go. But very little prepares you for the emotional recalibration required when you are still deeply invested, still loving fiercely. Yet no longer central to your child’s world.  This is a phase of parenting that isn’t spoken about honestly enough. There’s plenty of language around independence and freedom, but far less about the grief that can quietly sit alongside them. The identity shift. The helplessness. The uncertainty about where you fit now. I recognise this territory. I’m a mother to adult children and step-children, spanning decades. I’ve worn the t-shirt. I’ve sat with pride, fear, heartbreak, hope, and the long quiet stretches where you realise your role has changed… but no one tells you what it’s changing into. Increasingly, there’s another layer mothers carry — often silently: If I say the wrong thing, I could lose them. That fear shapes behaviour.

It silences questions.

It asks mothers, especially, to make themselves smaller in the name of “doing the right thing”.This writing isn’t about blame.

It isn’t about criticising adult children.

And it isn’t about clinging to the past. It’s about naming a transition that hurts — even when love is still present. I’m writing this as a place to reflect, to think out loud, and to offer language for something many women feel but struggle to articulate. Not advice. Not answers. Just truth, gently held. If you’re here because you’re navigating this season too, you’re not failing.

You’re not weak.

And you’re not alone. This is simply what happens when parenting changes shape.

and no one gives you a map. 

More soon.

One step at a time.

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