Three Pages A Day Made Me The Badass I Was Always Meant To Be
It didn't take gym sessions, nor get rich quick schemes. All it took was re-introducing me to myself.
When I was growing up, my heroes were the ones who didn’t ask for permission to exist.
Ally McBeal with her bizarre internal world. Sherlock Holmes with his magnificent, inconvenient brilliance. Cat woman, doing exactly as she pleased and looking extraordinary doing it. I drew my inspiration from weirdos who never conformed to societal norms, yet somehow controlled their reality. They carved their own path, loved and were loved, had a vision — and absolutely always acted in ways that most people found contradictory.
And then I grew up…
It started slowly, with little things. The eye rolls of family members when I ran barefoot. The well-meaning comments from relatives that I should get my nose out of the books, or else one of the letters was going to hit it.
It then grew into more fundamental things. The way I laugh. The way I sneeze. How I dress, how I tell people off, how I choose my hobbies, or drift without warning into the magical world of my imagination and ignore my surroundings.
With every single comment, demand, or request, I became less me and more some weird hybrid creature that rubbed the edges of her soul smooth; just enough to stay put, just enough not to fall apart.
But the comments never stopped.
Every time I adjusted yet another aspect of my personality, I expected the world to finally say: “Now you’re perfect.”
It didn’t.
Instead, it asked for more, day after day, insatiable in its need to see me think more, do more, be more.
And the demands were often contradictory.
To be a better leader, let your feminine side guide you. No, no — to be a better leader you must be tough, demanding, and never settle.
Join the 5am club.
Sleep. Sleep is the most important medicine.
Exercise.
Cardio is useless.
Be slim.
Don’t dare body-shame anyone, even yourself.
And these contradictory rules were only the major waves. Beneath them, the smaller things of everyday life. This boss can’t focus for more than 30 seconds, so I learn to summarise everything and speak really fast. That other person likes detail, so I learn to tell stories. This person has sensitivities, so I learn to avoid specific words and phrases. An area of town becomes dangerous, so I avoid it, making my route to work twice as long. Marketing shifts to digital, so I learn to write code.
The requirements for change are endless. Life is nothing but constantly adapting, shifting, shrinking or expanding ourselves.
Those who do it fast, thrive.
Those who can’t — well. We never hear about them.
The more I adapted, the less like my childhood heroes I became.
Having made so many shifts to satisfy the demands of the surrounding world, I began questioning my own default settings. Is fraud really that bad a thing? And if I could make more money in 2 hours of exotic dancing than in 10 hours of demanding mental work that left me a shell of a human — was I making the right choices?
As I approached 40, my moral baseline had begun to crack.
Not visibly. On the surface I moved the same, did all the same things, played my part and spoke my lines. But I did not know what I actually thought about pretty much anything — because I hadn’t thought for myself in a very long time.
Then I stumbled upon The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron, in audiobook form. Like every great book I’ve ever encountered, this one made me feel. Deeply, without holding back, each emotion taking full control of my body and soul until everything else disappeared.
It was divine. I urge you to read it, especially if you’re ready to face yourself.
Being the good girl I had become, I followed Julia’s advice and started writing my morning pages: 3 pages of longhand writing, first thing in the morning, before anything else.
And yet — that was one more instruction that was foreign to my life. One more practice that was someone else’s best times and my worst “have to”.
See, my life is hectic. Some mornings I sleep till 9. Other days I’m up at 5. Some evenings I have hours to unwind. Other times I walk straight from the front door to the bed — with a quick bathroom pit stop on the way.
Morning pages were not the thing for me. They reminded me that I quite enjoy sharing my day with a pen and a piece of paper. But mornings? Absurd.
And then my inner weirdo finally made an appearance.
It started small. I changed when I wrote my 3 pages. Then I allowed myself to break the pattern when a day proved too challenging to add yet another task to it.
Slowly but surely, I started letting more of my inner weirdo back through.
I chose my clothes in bolder colours. Read what I actually wanted to read. Watched the shows I actually wanted to watch. Drank the wine. Shared what I really thought. Said “no” fearlessly — but also said “yes” a lot more often.
My daily writing worked a weird little magic. It let my thoughts onto the paper — no judgement, no questions, no rolled eyes or lifted eyebrows.
My journal justified my personality. And weirdly, that was enough.
I loved it. The more I wrote, the more I thought. The freer I became, the more I loved my life. The little mishaps stopped making me bitter — they just were. But there was more.
As I wrote, day after day, I saw the problems I hadn’t even realised existed. I named the things that weren’t working because they kept showing up — dressed in ink, day after day — mocking me for not having cleared them up yet.
So I did. I slowly removed everything I couldn’t change, changed what I could, and made peace with the parts I wasn’t ready to do anything about yet.
My badass personality reappeared. My strengths — finally acknowledged on paper — began working in my favour. My shortcomings became quirks I’m no longer ashamed of.
My life hasn’t changed all that much.
But I have.
And the best part? This time, I changed by design. Not by disaster.
I am now the badass I always wanted to be as a kid. And every day I become a little more like myself. Unapologetic yet loving. Caring and fun. Brutally honest, yet there to catch you when you fall.
Three pages a day did that.
Not every morning.
Not perfectly.
Just honestly.
If any of this sounds familiar — if you recognise yourself somewhere in these words — subscribe to the newsletter. At the Daily Pages, I organise regular journaling “challenges”, a.k.a. 30 days of writing together. Free places are open to everyone. Come as you are.