There comes a point in life when something rather strange happens. You stop caring quite so much about what everyone else thinks. Not completely, obviously. We’re still human. I can still spend twenty minutes wondering whether I should have worded a WhatsApp message differently, and I can still post something on Instagram and immediately wonder whether anyone will like it. But generally speaking, something has shifted. At some point in your forties or fifties, you start to realise that you have spent an enormous amount of your life worrying about things that, frankly, weren’t worth worrying about.
Was I too loud? Was that dress too young for me? Should I really be doing that? What will people think? Shouldn’t I be doing something more sensible? And then one day you think: actually, who cares?
When every little comment mattered
When we’re younger, especially in our twenties, other people’s opinions can feel enormously important. Someone says something about you and somehow it lodges itself in your brain, sometimes for years. I remember a friend once telling me that I had evil-looking eyebrows. I can’t even remember exactly what prompted her to say it, but apparently my eyebrows were memorable enough to make an impression. And here’s the ridiculous thing: I never forgot it.
Imagine carrying a completely unsolicited opinion about your eyebrows around for decades. It’s ridiculous. But that’s what we do when we’re young. Somebody makes a throwaway comment about our appearance, our clothes, our personality, our voice, our body, our laugh or our hair, and suddenly we’re wondering if there’s something wrong with us. We can spend years trying to fix things that nobody actually needed us to fix.
Now, of course, if I genuinely do have evil-looking eyebrows, I’m rather delighted about it. Evil eyebrows? Great. I’ll take them. Because why did I ever care? Why did any of us care so much? Who gives a shit, to be honest?
That’s one of the strange freedoms of getting older. You start looking back at all those things that once seemed so important and wondering why you gave them so much power in the first place. The person who made the comment has probably completely forgotten it. You haven’t. And yet here you are, decades later, realising that perhaps the eyebrows weren’t the problem after all.
And then there’s the weight thing
And while we’re talking about the ridiculous things we worry about when we’re young, let’s talk about weight. Because honestly, what the hell was all that about? So many of us spent our twenties worrying about whether we were too fat, too thin, too curvy, not curvy enough, eating too much, eating the wrong thing, needing to lose five pounds before a holiday or needing to fit into a particular pair of jeans. We could be having a perfectly lovely day and suddenly ruin it because we’d eaten a slice of cake.
And for what? Our bodies were never supposed to remain frozen at twenty-five. They’re going to change. They’re supposed to change. We grow older, our hormones change, our bodies carry us through stress, illness, life and simply through several decades of existing. And yes, obviously, being healthy matters. Looking after ourselves matters. Moving our bodies, eating reasonably well and feeling good in ourselves matters. But the number on the scales? Who gives a shit?
I wish I’d spent far less time worrying about whether my body was the right shape and far more time actually enjoying having one. Because when you get older, you start to realise that your body is not a decorative object you’re carrying around for other people’s approval. It’s the thing that’s carried you through your entire life. It has danced, walked, run, fallen over, recovered, hugged people, travelled, laughed, cried and got you here. Maybe that’s something worth appreciating rather than constantly criticising.
And if my jeans feel a little tighter these days? Well, perhaps the jeans need to calm down.
The freedom of being slightly ridiculous
One of the best things about getting older is discovering that you are allowed to be a bit ridiculous. You can dance badly, wear the strange outfit and become obsessed with something nobody else understands. You can spend an entire afternoon taking photographs of a tree because the light happens to be beautiful. You can start a YouTube channel at 49, write a book at 52, learn to paint at 61 or suddenly decide you want to make dolls, learn to sew, study astrology, collect vintage cameras or become fascinated by ghosts.
You don’t have to justify it. And perhaps that’s one of the biggest differences between being young and being older. When you’re younger, you’re often trying to work out who you are. As you get older, you finally realise you don’t have to make yourself make sense.
We’ve spent years being told how we’re supposed to behave
There’s an extraordinary amount of instruction aimed at women. We’re told how to dress, how to age, how to behave, how much make-up to wear, how much make-up not to wear, what hair colour is appropriate, what hobbies are acceptable, what is “age appropriate”, what is flattering, what is professional and what is attractive.
At some point, you can either spend the rest of your life trying to follow all of those rules, or you can quietly put them in the bin. I’m increasingly fond of the bin.
Because who actually decided that women over 40 shouldn’t wear certain things? Who decided that women over 50 should become beige? And who decided that growing older means becoming less interesting?
Certainly not me.
There is a difference between not caring and not caring at all
Of course, I don’t mean that we should suddenly become inconsiderate human beings who do whatever we want regardless of everyone around us. There is still such a thing as kindness. There is still such a thing as behaving appropriately. There are still occasions when perhaps wearing your pyjamas to a wedding isn’t the best choice. Although I’m not ruling it out.
What changes is the amount of energy you spend imagining other people’s opinions. You realise that most people aren’t thinking about you nearly as much as you thought they were. They’re busy thinking about themselves.
That outfit you’re convinced everyone is judging? They probably didn’t even notice. That slightly ridiculous video you nearly didn’t post? Someone else might watch it and think, “Oh my God, I want to do that too.” That thing you’ve always wanted to try? Most people will probably shrug. And if somebody does laugh? Well, they’ve got their own stuff to deal with.
And then I started making videos
I’ve experienced this myself in another way, too. I started making YouTube videos about sixteen years ago, and if I watch some of those early videos now, I can see just how self-conscious I was. I was constantly thinking about how I looked, how I sounded, what people might think of me and whether I was doing it “right”. And it showed. I came across as timid and shy because, quite honestly, I was worrying far too much about the invisible audience judging me.
Looking back, I think that was partly a lack of confidence. And it’s funny because confidence after 40 isn’t necessarily about suddenly becoming fearless. It’s about realising that being nervous doesn’t have to stop you from doing something.
Because that’s the thing I’ve learnt over the years. If we’re constantly worrying about whether other people will approve of what we’re doing, we suck all the joy out of it. And surely that’s not why we’re creating in the first place.
Whether it’s making videos, writing, painting, sewing, photographing, dancing, designing, crafting, singing or simply sharing our thoughts online, there should be some element of “I bloody love doing this” behind it. That should come across. Not perfection. Not trying to impress people. Not desperately attempting to look like we know exactly what we’re doing. Just genuine enthusiasm.
Because people can feel that. And perhaps that’s another strange freedom that comes with getting older. You realise you don’t actually need to perform your life for other people. You can simply enjoy it.
You become less interested in being impressive
This might be my favourite part. When you’re younger, there can be a huge pressure to appear as though you’ve got everything together: the perfect job, the perfect relationship, the perfect home, the perfect body, the perfect life. Social media has only made that pressure worse.
But somewhere along the way, many of us discover that perfection is exhausting. I’d rather be interesting than impressive. I’d rather be curious than polished. I’d rather have stories than a carefully constructed image. I’d rather spend an afternoon making something than worrying about whether anybody thinks it’s worthwhile.
And I’d much rather be the slightly eccentric woman who makes people wonder what she’s going to do next than the woman who spent her whole life trying not to embarrass herself.
What confidence after 40 really looks like
When we were younger, confidence seemed to mean walking into a room and knowing exactly what you were doing. Now I think confidence after 40 looks a little different. Maybe it’s walking into the room without needing everyone to approve of you.
It’s knowing that somebody might misunderstand you and being okay with it. It’s being able to say, “Actually, that’s not for me.” It’s changing your mind. It’s admitting that you don’t know. It’s starting again. It’s wearing something because you like it. It’s creating something even when you have no idea whether anyone will like it. And perhaps most importantly, it’s understanding that you don’t need permission.
There is still plenty of time
This is something I wish more women were told. You haven’t missed your chance. You haven’t become too old. You haven’t left it too late. You are not supposed to have finished becoming yourself.
In fact, maybe this is the first time in your life when you have enough experience to actually start. You know yourself better. You’ve survived things you never thought you’d survive. You’ve learnt what matters and what doesn’t. You’ve lost people. You’ve made mistakes. You’ve changed your mind. You’ve probably disappointed a few people along the way. And you’ve probably discovered that you survived that too.
So perhaps there’s something wonderfully liberating about reaching this stage of life and thinking: right, I know who I am now. And if somebody doesn’t like it? That’s okay. They don’t have to.
Here’s to being a little bit less bothered
I don’t want to become someone who genuinely doesn’t care what anybody thinks. I still care about the people I love. I still care about being kind. I still care about doing things well. But I want to care less about the invisible audience in my head: the imaginary people judging my clothes, questioning my choices or wondering why I’m doing something at my age.
Because perhaps the strangest freedom of getting older is realising that most of those people were never actually there. They were just voices we’d collected along the way. And now we can turn the volume down.
We can wear the dress, make the video, write the book, start the business, take the photograph, learn the ridiculous hobby, change our hair, change our minds and change our lives. We can be serious when we want to be, sensible when we need to be, and still be completely, gloriously ourselves.
Perhaps that’s what confidence after 40 really is. Not suddenly becoming someone who doesn’t care about anything, but becoming someone who knows what deserves energy and what doesn’t.
Suzy Turner