Monthly Musing – March 2025 – the Stuff It age

I realised earlier this week that I have reached the Stuff It age, and I’ll be honest, it feels a bit like reaching the peak of a very high mountain!  Woohoo!

It’s common these days to talk about stages and seasons of life, and I think that we go through any number of these during our lives based on our experiences – and also the stories that we tell ourselves in our heads.

For me, I realised that I have lived through three particular ages:

• Ooh No, I Can’t Do That
• Just Do It
• Stuff It

I know that I will not be the only one who has squirmed away from any number of things because I was too busy thinking about what someone else might think of me or worse, the much more sinister “they”, who loom in the corners of our minds and talk us out of anything that might be a bit unusual.  It’s worse when you’re younger, I think, but it’s not exclusively for the younger generation and you can get stuck here for longer than you might expect.  Not everybody seems to have space for the “they” in their heads, but they definitely lived in mine until I reached the age of Just Do It.

Already recognised by a successful sports company, the Just Do It age is an important one where you realise that you are never going to break free of the Ooh No cycle until you just flippin’ get on with it – even if that means using two hands to make yourself press “send” on the computer, or having an accountability partner on hand to offer cheerleading support.  Once we start to Just Do It, it’s like moving onto a whole new level of a game and the world opens up with opportunities that were previously unthinkable.

I’ve been at Just Do It for a long time now and I hadn’t even thought about there being another level, but I realised earlier this week that I had officially reached Stuff It when I sent a couple of emails to people that I would have previously felt too shy to contact.  I needed some help and I knew that these people would probably have the answers – it was a fine line between Just Do It and Stuff It when it came to pressing the send button, but in a lightbulb moment I understood the difference: Just Do It still involves a bit of persuasion whereas Stuff It doesn’t.

With Just Do It, I need to talk myself into doing something, reminding myself that it will be fine, encouraging myself to get on with it even whilst slightly worried about what the outcome might be.  I realised that I had moved into the age of  Stuff It when I noticed that I had let go of the outcome even as I saw the emails leave my draft folder.  I’d get a reply, or I wouldn’t.  I’d get the help, or I wouldn’t.  I wasn’t too shy to ask any more – stuff it, I was just going to get on with it!

The Stuff It age comes with a freedom that transcends the others; it doesn’t care what “they” are going to think, it doesn’t make assumptions about the outcome of your actions (ever spent time worrying that someone was going to react in a certain way?  Me too!), it pushes your boundaries a little bit further whilst at the same time reinforcing them for you because if you don’t like something … stuff it!  You can move on!

There’s no set time span to these ages – they can last many years or hardly any time at all, and some people will jump straight in to Stuff It without the torture of the Ooh No; others will start at Stuff It but find that time and circumstances moves them back down the stages.

I like to think that they are flexible and we can choose to move from one to the other whenever we like.  Once we realise that we have the freedom to choose how we feel about doing something, there really is nothing to hold us back.  In fact, if anyone says otherwise, I’m going to tell them to Stuff It!