You don’t ask five people for their opinion because you don’t know what to do.

You ask because, somewhere along the way, being accepted started feeling safer than trusting yourself.

That’s not weakness.

It’s adaptation.

You learnt to read the room.

To notice the shift in someone’s voice.

To sense disappointment before a word was spoken.

You became incredibly good at understanding everyone else.

The only person you quietly stopped including…

was yourself.

The irony is, the very thing you’ve been trying to fix is probably one of your greatest strengths.

You’re emotionally intelligent. You’re perceptive. You’re aware.

The problem isn’t your awareness.

It’s where you’ve been directing it.

Imagine what changes when that same awareness comes home to you.

When you notice your own instincts before everybody else’s opinions.

When your own voice carries the same weight as the loudest person in the room.

That’s the woman we’re becoming.

I call her self-approved.

Not because she believes she’s always right.

Because she no longer believes everyone else is more right than she is.

Authority isn’t about having all the answers.

It’s about trusting yourself enough to live your own life.

Old belief

If everyone agrees with me, I’m probably making the right decision.

New belief

If I’m aligned with myself, I’m already on the right path. Whatever happens next, I’ll handle it.

People often worry that trusting themselves will make them selfish.

I’ve found the opposite.

Self-approved people are some of the most generous people you’ll meet.

They simply include themselves in the generosity.

Here’s what I did.

For one week, every time I caught myself reaching for my phone to ask someone,

“What do you think?”

I stopped.

Not forever.

Just long enough to ask myself first:

What do I already know to be true?

Then I journaled on it for ten minutes.

Or went for a walk.

Sometimes I slept on it.

Sometimes the answer arrived immediately.

Sometimes it took twenty-four hours.

But I didn’t hand the decision to someone else until I’d heard my own voice first.

That one shift changed far more than I expected.

I stopped treating my own way of making decisions as less valid than everyone else’s.

Because I wasn’t just making decisions.

I was rebuilding trust with myself.

That’s how authority grows.

Not in one dramatic breakthrough.

But in hundreds of quiet moments where you return the decision to yourself.

I wonder if what you’re really admiring in people who seem quietly confident isn’t certainty.

It’s congruence.

They aren’t constantly negotiating with themselves.

Their inner world and outer world point in the same direction.

That’s something we can all cultivate.

By making one quiet promise to ourselves.

I’ll listen to other people’s voices.

But before I act…

I’ll always come home to my own.

Thanks for reading.

Annie x

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NOT ENOUGH isn’t about becoming your “best self.”

It’s about stopping the quiet ways you abandon yourself every day.

The overthinking.

The overwhelm.

The need to be liked.

The fear of getting it wrong.

The voice that tells you you’re not enough.

And what changes when you finally stop listening to that story.

This is where we tell the truth about that.

And more i…

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Crickets’ll do that to you.

Then a few months later, I got this message:

“I was wondering if you’re going to be doing any more writing here… You probably won’t see this, but I’m one of your subscribers.”

And I swear, I nearly cried.

Because I’d left thinking no one cared.

I had 43 subscribers, mostly friends, family, and a few loyal clients.

Yes, I was grateful. But honestly? It stung.

Why were people not reading? Commenting? Liking?

Why was I basically whispering into the void?

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And seriously, why was someone who posted a leaf, a cup of coffee, or the back of their car getting 5,000 likes and 3 million restacks,

while I was out here pouring my heart and soul into a post that got… two polite claps and a spam comment about crypto?

It messed with my head.

After all, I’d built a Facebook group to 20,000, had 15K followers on Instagram, appeared on ITV and BBC radio, been featured in the press, and had two nonfiction books traditionally published, one of them a UK bestseller for six months.

And yet here I was, having made the hardest decision of my life to step away from all that and focus on my writing career, finally saying what I actually wanted to say…

and hardly anyone seemed to notice.

So yeah.

I left.

But my intuition (the same one that helps everyone else but occasionally ghosts me) kept whispering:

“Come back. Say the thing. Say it for the 43 subscribers. Keep saying it, even if no one’s clapping.”

So… here I am.

Saying the thing.

Because I remembered who I am.

I came back home to myself.

I’m a writer.

I write.

It’s what I do.

And this, right here, feels right.

Get UNSHRUNK - stop editing yourself to be liked is my corner of the internet.

Not for hacks.

Not for quick fixes.

Not for “how to look confident in three easy steps while dying inside.”

I write about the stories we tell ourselves.

The identities we inherit, create and eventually outgrow.

The patterns that keep showing up until we finally pay attention.

The moment we stop waiting for permission.

The courage to tell the truth.

The audacity to become who we really are.

I write about what changes people.

Not just what hurts.

Not just what happened.

But what happens next.

Because awareness around your patterns is powerful.

But awareness alone doesn’t change your life.

Disrupting the patterns does.

I’ve changed my bio 74 times. My About Me page is currently on version 12.9.

At this point I should probably add “professional bio editor” to my CV.

But here’s what hasn’t changed:

This is where I say the things most people are thinking but few are willing to admit.

What you read here is drawn from lived experience, years of therapy and healing, 25 years sober in recovery, and two decades spent helping people change their lives.

This publication is where experience becomes story.

Oh, and I’m writing my first novel.

It’s gritty, satirical and female AF.

A protagonist with a lot of success, a lot of insecurity, and a slowly unravelling sense of self.

Think Nora Ephron meets a nervous breakdown.

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Since writing this, Get UNSHRUNK has grown to more than 1,500 readers.

I’ve excited to announce I’ve launched a paid tier where I share unfiltered essays, hard truths, personal stories, and my subscriber-only podcast, PLUS a weekly “ask me anything” …

I’ve also created a sister page

So if you’re done twisting yourself into someone else’s idea of lovable, you’ll feel right at home at Get UNSHRUNK in Love.

And to the Substack algorithm:

Bless me, baby, one more time. 💛

Until next time,

Annie xox