There are the big choices in life.

The ones we recognise as turning points.

Whether to take the job. Leave the relationship. Move house. Start the business. Say yes to the opportunity. Say no to something that no longer feels right.

We know those decisions matter.

But I wonder if it’s actually the much smaller choices that shape who we become.

The ones we make almost without noticing.

Choosing to stay quiet rather than say what we really think.

Saying yes because it’s easier than explaining why we’d rather say no.

Putting something we want to do off until everyone else has been taken care of.

Wearing the thing that won’t attract attention.

Not making the phone call.

Not applying.

Not going.

Not asking.

Each decision seems insignificant on its own.

But gradually, those tiny choices can take us further and further away from ourselves.

When did I stop choosing me?

Most of us don’t deliberately decide to lose ourselves.

There probably wasn’t a morning when you woke up and thought, From today onwards, I’m going to ignore what I need and concentrate entirely on being the person everyone else expects me to be.

It happens much more quietly than that.

Life fills up.

We become partners, parents, carers, employees, employers, daughters, friends.

We become responsible.

We learn what keeps the peace.

We discover what other people need from us.

And sometimes, somewhere amongst all of that, we stop asking what we need from us.

That’s why finding our way back doesn’t necessarily require one enormous, life-changing decision.

Perhaps it begins in exactly the same way we drifted away.

One small choice at a time.

The choices nobody else can make

There is something wonderfully reassuring about asking other people what they think.

We do it all the time.

What would you do?

Do you think I should?

Am I being silly?

What if I get it wrong?

Other people’s perspectives can be valuable. Sometimes somebody standing outside our situation can see something we’ve missed.

But there comes a point when the decision has to come back to us.

Because nobody else has to live inside the life created by our choices.

We do.

And that means there are times when the question isn’t:

What’s the right thing to do?

It’s:

What’s the right thing for me?

Those are not always the same question.

Choice doesn’t mean certainty

Perhaps one of the reasons decisions can feel so difficult is that we want certainty before we make them.

We want to know that if we choose A instead of B, everything will work out.

Unfortunately, life rarely offers that guarantee.

Sometimes we can research, plan, make lists and weigh up every possible outcome and still not know.

Eventually we have to choose without knowing exactly where the choice will lead.

That doesn’t make the decision reckless.

It makes it human.

There is also a strange freedom in recognising that we don’t have to make the perfect choice.

We simply have to make the best choice we can with who we are, what we know and what matters to us now.

And if things change?

We get to choose again.

Start smaller

If you’ve spent years putting yourself last, “change your life” is a fairly terrifying instruction.

So don’t.

Start much smaller.

Notice your choices.

Notice the automatic yes when you’d rather say no.

Notice the apology you give when you’ve done nothing wrong.

Notice the thing you keep telling yourself you’ll do “one day”.

Notice when your first instinct is immediately followed by all the reasons you shouldn’t trust it.

And perhaps, occasionally, choose differently.

Say what you actually think.

Take the afternoon.

Wear the thing.

Ask the question.

Try something you’re not sure you’ll be good at.

Say no without writing an essay explaining why.

Say yes to something simply because it makes you happy.

None of those choices may look particularly important from the outside.

But they have something in common.

They remind you that you have a say in your own life.

Finding your way back

The Return to You was never intended to tell women who they should become.

I don’t believe anybody else can do that.

It’s about creating the space to rediscover the person underneath all those years of roles, responsibilities, expectations and adaptations ~ and beginning to hear her voice again.

Because finding your way back to yourself doesn’t necessarily happen through one extraordinary moment of revelation.

Sometimes it happens on an entirely ordinary Tuesday.

You notice that familiar moment when you would usually choose what keeps everybody else comfortable.

And this time, quietly, deliberately, you choose something different.

You choose you.

Not selfishly.

Not dramatically.

Just consciously.

And perhaps that’s how we return.

One choice at a time.

A question to take with you:

What is one small choice you could make this week that would feel more like you?