The Question That Shows Up Around Birthdays
This past weekend was my birthday, and there’s a question that comes up again and again around birthdays, especially the ones that feel like milestones. I was asked it more than once this year, and I started to notice how often people ask it without thinking.
Sometimes it’s said as a joke. Sometimes it’s said gently. More often than not, I’ve realized it says more about the person asking than the person celebrating. It reflects the fears so many of us carry quietly about time.
Are you scared?
Scared of getting older. Scared of not being where you thought you’d be by now. Scared that time is moving faster than you are.
I’m not scared.
When I think about who I was even five years ago, I feel a lot of tenderness for her. She was working so hard to get everything right and to feel successful. She had a plan for almost everything and very little patience for anything that didn’t follow it.
She never stopped.
She went straight from college to grad school without a break. She optimized every internship, every workout, every hour of sleep, every meal. She was ambitious, and her goals were good ones, but there was no space in her life to breathe.
The moment she reached something, she was already looking ahead. Rest felt like falling behind. Slowing down felt like losing.
Grad school is where it all caught up with me. My days started with CrossFit at 5:30 in the morning. From there, I went to work as an assistant preschool teacher for two-year-olds, which, if you’ve ever spent a day with two-year-olds, you know is its own workout. At night, I went to class. In between, I counted every macro, planned every meal, kept in touch with friends, and tried to squeeze in enough sleep to do it all again the next day.
There was so much rigidity in my life and so little room for error. I was proud of how disciplined I was. What I couldn’t see was how much damage that discipline was doing.
My body saw it before I did.
My cortisol was too high. My hormones were off. My cycles became irregular, and my skin broke out in a way it never had before. I was constantly bloated. I was doing everything “right,” and my body was clearly telling me something was wrong.
I had always believed my mind was my most powerful tool. If I was tired, I pushed through. If I was stressed, I didn’t even notice, since I’d trained myself not to. I thought that was mental strength. It turns out that was exactly the problem. I was so focused on training my mind that I completely disregarded my body, and the two were never separate to begin with. The body is one of the most powerful tools we have. It holds the stress your mind refuses to acknowledge, and eventually, it makes you listen.
That was my turning point. I couldn’t think or push my way out of it. For the first time, I had to slow down and actually listen.
Looking back, I can see what was really underneath all of it. I was trying to control everything, convinced that if I held on tightly enough, nothing could go wrong.
What I know now is that control isn’t the same thing as safety. It just looks like it from the outside.
Every year between then and now taught me something she didn’t know yet. Some lessons came through wins. More of them came through disappointment, change, and the moments I didn’t choose. All of it added up to the person writing this to you today.
That’s the reason aging doesn’t scare me.
When I look back, I don’t see time I lost. I see a woman I’ve been slowly building, and I’m genuinely curious about who she’s going to become next.
What Happened to Last Year’s Plan
Last year, on my birthday, I wrote to you about trusting the season you’re in. I told you my theme for the year was youthfulness and femininity. I remember writing it down and feeling so clear about it.
What I didn’t write about was the quieter list underneath it. The hopes I carried into the year, and the things I assumed would fall into place once I set my intentions.
Some of them happened. A lot of them didn’t.
I don’t think I’m alone in this. So many of us make a birthday wish that’s really a deadline in disguise. This is the year I get the promotion. This is the year I get engaged or married. This is the year I start the business, buy the apartment, live on my own, have the baby.
Then life happens the way life does. The company restructures. The relationship ends. You get sick. Your body asks for attention you didn’t plan to give it. The timing simply isn’t yours to control.
When that happens, there’s a very specific story many of us tell ourselves.
Well, that was a waste. I’m behind. I failed. I’m not worthy. No one wants me. I’m alone.
I understand that story. I’ve told it to myself before.
What I’ve come to understand, both in my own life and in the work I do, is that it’s rarely the truth. It’s just the loudest interpretation.
The story feels like a fact because it sounds like your own voice. It isn’t a fact. It’s a narrative your mind built out of disappointment, and it will keep running for as long as you let it. The work is learning to catch it while it’s happening, to notice the thought and name it for what it is: That’s the story I tell myself when things don’t go my way.
The story only becomes your truth if you never interrupt it. The moment you notice it, you get to choose a different one.
A Year Isn’t a Report Card
If you’re someone who is used to achieving, you probably measure your years the way you’d measure a project. What did I set out to do, what did I complete, and where did I fall short?
That approach works beautifully for quarterly goals. It works terribly for a life.
A year isn’t a report card. It’s an experience you lived through, and it almost always gave you something, even if it wasn’t what you asked for.
So instead of asking whether this was a good year or a bad year, I’ve started asking different questions.
- What did this year teach me?
- Where did I stretch?
- What did I find out I could handle?
- Who showed up for me, and who did I show up for?
- Who can I become because of this year?
When I sat with those questions, I realized the year I didn’t plan for gave me more than the one I had in mind.
It asked me to slow down in ways I wouldn’t have chosen. It showed me where I was still gripping for control. It made me softer, and in a lot of ways, it made me braver.
None of that would have made my birthday wish list. All of it matters more to me now.
Where I’m Growing Now
The woman doing CrossFit at 5:30 in the morning and counting every macro believed growth meant more discipline, more control, and more pushing. These days, I’m growing in the opposite direction.
I’m learning to listen to my body before it has to shout. I’m letting myself slow down without needing to earn it first. I’m taking risks that come from what I want, not from fear of falling behind.
Underneath all of it is something I’m letting go of on purpose: the idea that I should have certain things by a certain age.
That timeline has never helped me. It has only kept me measuring my life against someone else’s calendar instead of living my own.
Before Your Next Birthday
Whether your birthday is next week or eight months away, I want to invite you to try this.
- Look back without a scoreboard. Think about the past year and resist the urge to grade it. Just notice what happened, what changed, and what surprised you.
- Ask what it gave you instead. For every plan that didn’t work out, ask yourself what showed up in its place. Maybe it was a lesson, a relationship, a boundary, or a part of yourself you hadn’t met yet.
- Choose who you want to become, not what you need to have. Instead of deciding what you need to accomplish by next year, decide who you want to be while you move through it. That gives you direction without handing your worth over to outcomes you can’t fully control.
This isn’t about letting go of ambition. I’m still ambitious, and I hope you are too. It’s about letting your ambition live alongside your life instead of racing ahead of it.
Final Thought
I don’t know exactly what this next year holds. I’ve learned that I’m not supposed to.
What I can do is trust.
I trust myself to adapt to whatever comes next, and that trust didn’t appear out of nowhere. I built it. Every hard season I moved through, every plan that fell apart, and every time I found my footing again became evidence.
Over the years, I’ve formed a reputation with myself: I know I can handle what life hands me, and I know I’ll show up in whatever shape or form that moment needs. I love myself fully through all of it, because I trust her.
That’s what self-trust and self-love really are. It isn’t confidence that everything will go your way. It’s knowing you’ll be okay when it doesn’t.
So I’m walking into this year with more trust and self-love than I’ve ever had before- trust in the process, in the people around me, and in myself. That feels like the best birthday gift I could give myself.
If your last year didn’t go the way you hoped, I want you to know it still counted. You still grew. You’re still becoming.
I’d love to hear from you. What did this past year teach you that you never asked to learn? Who do you want to become in your next one?
Let’s Keep Growing: What’s Next For You
Thank you for being here. Really. Every time you open one of these emails, it means something and I don’t take that lightly.
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Mentally Fit With Ellin is a community of thousands like-minded people committed to growth, resilience, and mental performance. As a licensed therapist and performance coach, Ellin Gurvitch, started this to give everyone access to the tools needed to develop sustainable habits and enhance mental well-being. For more Mentally Fit With Ellin, make sure you’re subscribed so that each week you’ll receive practical mindset tools and performance strategies delivered to your inbox.
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– Ellin