I wasted ten years. Here's what I know now. And a gift for you.
There's something I've never said quite this directly before.
I wasted ten years.
Not dramatically. Not all at once. Just quietly, gradually one year at a time telling myself I'd get to it that I'd prioritise myself when things settled down. That it wasn't that urgent.
I had gained weight. I had lost my sense of self. I had stopped recognising the woman in the mirror.
And I did nothing about it for ten years.
Here's what makes that particularly hard to admit.
I wasn't someone without resources. I had been a ballet dancer who performed lead roles with the Rhodesian National Ballet. I had run my own ballet school for 23 years. I had performed in professional musical theatre as a teenager. I had been running my own businesses since I was 17.
I had drive. I had discipline. I had talent.
And I still spent a decade pretending everything was fine waking up every morning putting a smile on my face for my children's sake, while inside I had lost my identity, my support network and any sense of who I was outside of everyone else's needs.
Then at 50 I said: Enough.
And everything that came next happened on the other side of that decade.
After fifty I won two silver medals for Australia in international natural bodybuilding. After fifty I got back on stage and performed Cabaret with my daughter. After fifty I became a certified personal trainer, a celebrity makeup artist travelling the globe, a skincare specialist, a style expert and the Canberra Chapter Leader of Women with Altitude.
I didn't find a formula that already existed. I created one. Because what I needed wasn't available, so I built it myself.
That formula became Her Smile.
Here's what I know now that I wish I had known during those ten years.
Things don't settle down. They never do. The women who changed their lives didn't wait for the perfect moment. They chose themselves in the middle of the chaos, in the middle of the school runs and the board meetings and the late nights and the to-do lists that never end.
That's the only moment that ever exists. This one.
If you're reading this and feeling that quiet recognition, that uncomfortable sense of yes, this is me, I want you to know two things.
First: you are not alone. I hear this from women every single week.
Second: it is completely reversible. I am living proof of that at 63. And so are the women I work with.
This week's TIP, one thing you can do today.
One of the first things I noticed when I finally looked at myself honestly was my posture.
Not my weight. Not my skin. My posture.
The way I was carrying myself was communicating exhaustion and defeat before I said a single word. Rounded shoulders. Chin jutting forward. Chest caved in. The physical shape of a woman who had been carrying too much for too long.
Here is the simplest thing I teach every woman I work with and it takes 90 seconds:
Stand in front of a mirror, not to judge, just to observe.
Take one slow deep breath in through your nose.
As you breathe out, roll your shoulders back and gently down away from your ears.
Lift the crown of your head toward the ceiling as if a thread is pulling you upward.
Soften your jaw. Breathe normally.
Stand there for 30 seconds and just notice how different you feel.
That is Step 1 of the Her Smile system in its most basic form. Correct posture is not vanity, it is the physical signal that tells your brain and the world around you that you have arrived. That you are present. That you take up space by right, not by apology.
Do this every morning this week before you leave the bathroom. It costs nothing. It takes 90 seconds. And it will change how you carry yourself for the entire day.
Next week I am going to show you the exact six-step system I built and where you should start based on what matters most to you right now. It is simpler than you think. And it starts exactly where you are.
Until then, be a little kinder to yourself this week. You have earned it.
Adele Her Smile · hersmile.com.au · 0422 572 133
P.S. I have a handful of complimentary Empowerment Calls available this week for women who don't want to wait. If that's you, the link is below.
