91: 36 Lessons I’ve Learned in 36 Years
36 Lessons I've Learned in 36 Years: On Strength, Self-Love, and Taking Up Space
Tara shares 36 life lessons on turning 36, from why shrinking yourself doesn't keep you safe to how lifting weights builds more than muscle. Real talk on discipline, boundaries, body image, and becoming who you really are.
Ever feel like you should have it all figured out by now, but you secretly don't?
Same. And honestly? That's kind of the point.
In this deeply personal episode, Tara celebrates turning 36 by sharing 36 lessons she's learned over the years. These aren't polished platitudes or Instagram-worthy quotes. They're hard-earned truths about training, showing up, setting boundaries, and learning to love your body before it hits some arbitrary "goal weight."
If you've ever felt stuck, behind, or like everyone else has life figured out while you're still fumbling through, this one's for you. Because aging isn't the end of anything. It's the beginning of becoming who you really are.
Why Turning 36 Feels Weird (And Exciting)
There's something about birthdays in your mid-to-late 30s that hits different. You're not young enough to still be "figuring it out," but you're not old enough to have it all together. You're in this weird middle space where you've accumulated enough experience to know what matters, but you're still learning, evolving, and sometimes falling on your face.
Tara opens up about the conflicting emotions that come with another birthday. There's gratitude for making it another year, excitement about what's ahead, and also this low-key anxiety about whether you're where you "should be" by now. Have you accomplished enough? Are you doing enough? Are you enough?
But here's what 36 years has taught her: those questions are traps. There is no "should be." There's only where you are and what you do with it.
The pressure to have everything figured out by a certain age is manufactured BS designed to keep you small, insecure, and constantly chasing some impossible standard. Real growth happens when you let go of the timeline and focus on becoming the person you want to be, at whatever pace that takes.
Shrinking Yourself Doesn't Keep You Safe
One of the most powerful lessons Tara shares is this: making yourself smaller, physically, emotionally, professionally, doesn't protect you. It just makes you smaller.
For years, the messaging has been clear: take up less space. Be quieter. Don't be too much. Lose weight. Tone it down. Make yourself more palatable, more acceptable, less threatening.
And for years, that's what so many of us tried to do. We dieted ourselves into smaller bodies. We kept our opinions to ourselves. We dimmed our light so other people wouldn't feel uncomfortable. We played small because we thought that's what would keep us safe, from judgment, from rejection, from being "too much."
But here's the truth: shrinking yourself doesn't keep you safe. It keeps you stuck.
When you're constantly trying to be less, less loud, less visible, less in the way, you're not protecting yourself. You're limiting yourself. You're denying the world (and yourself) the full version of who you are.
The real safety comes from taking up space unapologetically. From being too much for some people and exactly right for others. From building physical strength that makes you feel powerful. From speaking up even when your voice shakes. From letting yourself be big, in body, in personality, in ambition.
Your Body Is Not Your Resume
This lesson hits hard in a culture that constantly treats bodies as proof of worth, discipline, and success.
Your body is not evidence of how hard you work. It's not a billboard advertising your dedication or your value as a person. It's not something you need to perfect before you're allowed to feel confident, take up space, or live your life fully.
For too long, we've been conditioned to believe that our bodies are the most interesting thing about us. That our primary value lies in how we look. That if we just get lean enough, toned enough, small enough, then we'll finally be worthy of love, success, and happiness.
It's all bullshit.
Your body is the vessel that carries you through life. It's the tool that allows you to do the things you love. It's not your identity, your worth, or your resume.
The shift from seeing your body as a project to be fixed to seeing it as an incredible machine deserving of respect changes everything. When you stop treating your body like it needs to prove something and start treating it like it deserves care and fuel and rest, that's when real transformation happens, and not just physical transformation.
You realize that you were always worthy. Your body was always good enough. You just needed to stop looking at it through the lens of what's wrong and start appreciating what's right.
Rest Is Productive, Period
This is the lesson that high-achieving, type-A women struggle with most: rest isn't lazy. It's necessary.
We live in a culture that glorifies the grind. That celebrates burnout as a badge of honor. That makes you feel guilty for taking a day off, sleeping in, or choosing Netflix over the gym. But pushing constantly without adequate recovery isn't strong, it's self-destructive.
Your body doesn't get stronger during workouts. It gets stronger during rest. Your muscles don't grow when you're in the gym breaking them down, they grow when you're sleeping, eating, recovering.
The same is true for your mind and your life. You don't get better ideas when you're exhausted. You don't make better decisions when you're running on empty. You don't show up as your best self when you're constantly depleted.
Rest is not the enemy of progress. It's the foundation of sustainable progress.
Tara talks about learning to give herself permission to rest without guilt. To take a rest day from the gym without feeling like she's losing progress. To say no to social commitments when she needs time alone. To prioritize sleep even when there are a million other things she "should" be doing.
This isn't about being lazy or unmotivated. It's about understanding that rest is productive. It's recovery. It's repair. It's preparation for the next challenge. And if you never rest, you'll never be fully ready for what's ahead.
Lifting Weights Changed Everything
Of all the lessons Tara shares, this one might be the most transformative: lifting weights doesn't just change your body, it changes how you see yourself and move through the world.
When you start lifting, the initial goal is usually aesthetic. You want to "tone up" or "lean out" or look a certain way. But somewhere along the way, something shifts. You stop caring so much about how your legs look and start caring about how much you can squat. You stop obsessing over your arms and start getting excited about hitting a new deadlift PR.
The focus moves from appearance to performance. From what you look like to what you can do. And that shift is powerful.
Because when you're chasing strength, you need to eat more, not less. You need to rest, not punish yourself with extra cardio. You need to take up space in the gym and lift heavy things and take yourself seriously. You can't shrink yourself and get stronger at the same time.
Lifting weights builds physical strength, yes. But it also builds confidence. It teaches you that you're capable of hard things. It shows you that you can set a goal and work toward it consistently. It proves that your body is powerful, not something to be ashamed of or constantly trying to make smaller.
For Tara, lifting weights transformed her relationship with her body more than any diet, cardio program, or aesthetic-focused approach ever did. Because it gave her a reason to train that had nothing to do with appearance and everything to do with capability.
The Lessons Keep Coming
The episode is packed with dozens more insights, on discipline versus motivation, on setting boundaries even when it's uncomfortable, on the importance of surrounding yourself with people who challenge and support you, on learning to trust yourself, on choosing consistency over perfection.
Each lesson is a piece of wisdom earned through experience, through fucking up, trying again, learning the hard way, and figuring things out slowly over time.
Some highlights:
Discipline beats motivation every single time. Motivation is fleeting. Discipline is what keeps you showing up when you don't feel like it. Build systems, not reliance on feeling "inspired."
You can't love your body after you reach your goal, you have to love it now. Waiting to love yourself until you're lean enough or strong enough means you'll never love yourself, because the goalpost always moves. Start now.
Boundaries aren't mean, they're necessary. Protecting your time, energy, and peace isn't selfish. It's self-preservation. And people who are upset by your boundaries are usually the ones who benefited from you not having any.
Everyone is figuring it out as they go. The people who look like they have it all together are also winging it. The difference is they've stopped waiting for permission to start.
The Bottom Line
Thirty-six years has taught Tara that there's no perfect age, no perfect body, no perfect moment when everything falls into place. There's just you, right now, with the choice to keep evolving, keep growing, and keep taking up space.
Aging isn't something to fear or fight against. It's the process of becoming more yourself, shedding the bullshit, setting better boundaries, understanding what actually matters, and giving less of a fuck about what doesn't.
If you're in your 30s feeling behind, you're not. If you're in your 20s feeling lost, that's normal. If you're in your 40s, 50s, or beyond and still figuring shit out, welcome to the club. None of us have it all figured out, and that's exactly as it should be.
The lessons will keep coming. You'll keep growing. And that's the whole point.
Ready to get stronger, in every sense of the word? Whether you need structured programming or personalized coaching, Broads has options. Apply for BroadsCOACH or BroadsCHAMPION at broads.app/application and start building the strength and confidence you deserve.
What's one lesson you've learned the hard way that changed how you approach fitness or life? Share with us on Instagram @broads.podcast, we'd love to hear what wisdom you're carrying with you.
