38½ Years Young

There was a guy I had a crush on in university whose birthday is on February 3^rd. From the moment I became aware of that fact, I started paying attention to today’s date because:

1. I learnt to love my birthday from my mother, so birthdays, both mine and those of the people I care about, mean the world to me.
2. February 3^rd is my half birthday 🤩

I am a (proud) millennial, so my university days are well and truly behind me, which makes the fact that today is my former crush’s birthday completely irrelevant. However, February 3^rd is still my half birthday, and as of today I am 38½ years young 🥳🎉✨🎊🤩

I turned 38 on 3.8, an age that holds both my birthday and my late mother’s (August 3^rd and March 8^th) mirrored within it. That serendipitous realisation, which struck me three years ago, is the reason I am anchored in the conviction that 38 is destined to be the most monumental age of my life (so far). The second most monumental age should be 83… if I am fortunate enough to see it 😅

Just before my 36^th birthday, I came across this tweet with a TikTok explaining why you should do your manifestations for the year on August 8^th. I was immediately taken in by the idea, because I was sooo fucking sure that 36 was going to be such a fun age. Spoiler alert: it was NOT!

I sent the tweet to my sister and two of my friends, and on August 8, 2024, I wrote down my manifestations for 2024 – 2025. As I did, I noticed that they fell into five categories, which I have since named my Big Five:

1. Mental Health
2. Career
3. Writing
4. Relationships
5. Finances

At 8:08 p.m., I read my eight manifestations aloud before folding the paper in half and putting it away. But when August 2025 arrived, I did not need to open the paper to know that only one of my manifestations had come true.

So I decided to give it another go last year, this time armed with more knowledge, as what I did not know in 2024 is that August 8^th is celebrated as the Lion’s Gate Portal. This powerful astrological and numerological event is considered by many spiritual traditions to be the luckiest day of the year for manifestation and setting intentions.

Turning 38 on 3.8 brought a profound sense of renewal, marking a deep mental and emotional recovery in my life. Since then I have been carefully mapping out my approach to this era between 38 and 83, hereby crowned the second phase of my life, to align with my Big Five.

For that reason, I expanded the Health category to include Physical Health. It previously focused solely on Mental Health because so much of who we are begins and ends with mental health. However, when I started thinking seriously about what it would mean for me to live to see 83, especially given that my mum did not even see 60 and her mum did not see 80 (though her dad lived to see 89 🙏), I realized that I would need to be just as deliberate with my physical health as I am with my mental health. As a result, the category is now Physical and Mental Health, and it has remained my top category for a reason.

I know I am not the one who gets to choose how long, or how short, my life will be. But I am not powerless either. I am manifesting a long, happy and healthy life, and since manifestation is not magic, I am committed to doing everything within my control to make that long, healthy life my reality. From there, it is up to the Universe to grant me the amount of time that was always meant to be mine, because the sad fact is that I can do all the right things and still die young. And if that were the case, I would have sooo many feelings about not living to see 83, but none of them would be regret, because I did not contribute to the shortening of my life.

I started my 38^th year knowing that I was going to fucking CRUSH IT when it came to my Big Five. After all, 38 is THEE year! But here we are, exactly six months later, and part of me feels like I have wasted the first half of 38 because I do not have much to show for it. At least not in the way I had sooo much to show for 2019, which remains my best year to date.

But I had an epiphany not too long ago, and it hit me that while I do not have much to show in terms of traditional accomplishments, or should I say the accomplishments society places so much emphasis on as the gold standard—the big car, the even bigger house, the good job, the even better spouse, and the best children—my mental health has never been better.

I have been waiting for death all my life. I do not mean that I actively wish to die, just that I do not really want to be alive.

That is the opening sentence in Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman. Resonating with Eleanor’s words about waiting for death has been a constant in my life, a testament to my lifelong struggle with mental health.

On this day last year, I put up a blog post sharing that I was recently released from Chiromo Lane Medical Centre, where I had been admitted against my will. So for someone like me, who has lived their entire life with their mind as both their greatest ally and greatest adversary, having my mental health be the best it has ever been might just be my biggest win (yet!) for 38.

I have been working on getting my shit together, one day at a time, ever since turning 38 on 3.8. I am elated to tell you that, by every meaningful measure, I have moved from identifying as a person in crisis to one in recovery.

My favourite thing? Every now and then my joy is childlike, a sign that my inner child is healing as I learn to feel safe in this second phase of my life. I have a prevailing sense of peace that does not feel like it can be uprooted by the slightest turbulence in my life.This does not mean my life is all rainbows and butterflies. It is far from that. Faaar from that. But I have gotten infinitely better about stressing over things I cannot control because I am choosing to believe that everything will work out in my favour in the end. Anything not working out right now simply means it is not the end. This is much easier said than done, as I have always been a control freak, but I came across this quote during a pivotal moment last year and it has quietly guided me ever since:

That is what I am working on now: cultivating real peace, not control.

It also helps that I came to the realisation that people often assume a monumental age means something dramatic must happen. In reality, ages that feel monumental are often those where identity consolidates, personal narrative becomes coherent and past experiences finally arrange themselves into meaning. That can occur quietly, internally, and still be genuinely monumental. I am choosing to see 38 as an anchoring age, not necessarily a peak event age, meaning whether or not anything extraordinary happens at 38 is secondary. The fact that I experience it as monumental is what gives it weight.

So if I do nothing but thrive mentally in my 38^th year, for someone like me that will be more than enough. Especially because I fucked up most of 36 and all of 37, and my therapist warned me that if I fuck 38 up, a year that has my mum woven intrinsically into its fabric, it will shatter me in ways I may never piece together.

That said, in December I took the time to evaluate what success would look like for me in 2026. I set several goals for the year, and given that I will be 38 for most of it, I am aiming to accomplish a good number of them before I turn 39 on August 3^rd. To boost my chances of success, I listened to Andrew Huberman’s Goals Toolkit: How to Set & Achieve Your Goals podcast episode.

I started listening to podcasts in earnest in July last year. I was doing Dry July and wanted to immerse myself in sober content to really get me into it. One of the first podcasts I listened to was Huberman’s What Alcohol Does to Your Body, Brain & Health. To say that podcast was life-changing would be underselling it.

I was not much of a podcast person before then, and when I saw it was just over two hours long, I fully expected to listen in chunks. If I struggle to sit through movies of that length, a podcast seemed even less likely to hold my attention for two full hours. Two hours?? Bruh!! I assumed I would get through it in 20 – 30 minute stretches over a few days. Instead, I pressed play and never stopped. Within minutes I was hooked, and before I knew it two hours had flown by and the episode was over.

I found myself stunned every few minutes as I was mostly unaware of the physiological effects that drinking alcohol has on the brain and body at different levels of consumption and over time. Learning how alcohol consumption of different amounts impacts inflammation, stress, neurodegeneration, and cancer risk and negatively impacts the gut microbiome, brain thickness, hormone balance, mood and feelings of motivation was a great motivator for Dry July 😅

I have listened to a number of Huberman Lab podcasts since then, and in December I listened to his Goals Toolkit episode (not sure why it is not on YouTube, but here are the Apple and Spotify links in case anyone is interested) in preparation for setting my 2026 goals. One thing that stood out to me was the importance of choosing a priority goal, as pursuing too many goals simultaneously often leads to the failure of all goals.

The first question you need to ask yourself is what goal do I want to pursue? And the first protocol for deciding what goal you want to pursue is actually a quite simple one in terms of how it’s stated, but it’s fairly complex for a lot of people to answer. And that is which specific goal are you going to try and pursue because guess what, folks? Most people who are trying to achieve many goals simultaneously fail at all of them. This is what I call the overhaul approach when people think, okay, you know, on January 1 or next month or next week, or perhaps even today, I’m going to start exercising, I’m going to start meditating, I’m going to learn a language, I’m going to learn to dance, I’m going to do all these different things. And that’s just too many goals.

I think here is an appropriate place to highlight the word priority. A priority literally means one thing that you place ahead of all others. These days, we hear a lot about priorities, plural, but we really should be thinking about priority and defining our priority for learning in a given phase.

So if you are somebody who wants to get more physically fit or you want to learn something cognitively, that’s terrific. You are allowed to have multiple goals, but I highly recommend that you first select just one goal. Of course, you don’t let go of other aspects of your mental health and physical health, that you don’t throw your life away in service to this one goal. We’ve all seen how that goes and it’s not a pretty picture. But rather that you continue to engage in healthy ways with the other aspects of your life that you’re proficient at or mostly proficient at, but that you select one goal that you’re going to try and attain.

How you select that one goal, of course, is going to reflect your values, your motivation, your resources, but it’s very important that you spend some serious time defining that one priority, that one goal for this initial goal setting and pursuit period. And in a moment, I’ll tell you how long that goal pursuit period ought to be.

For some people, the best way to define which goal they’re going to pursue is to write out the different things that they want, and then essentially cross off the various things that they’re willing to put on hold for the time being and circle the thing that they’re really going to focus on and only that thing. And again, this is highly individual. It’s going to depend on you, your past, your present, your future, your resources, all of that. But having that one priority is going to really increase the probability that you’re going to achieve your goal.

INTERESTING, right? I just love me some Dr. Andrew Huberman 😍 That said, I did not take his advice and choose just one of my Big Five goals to pursue 🙈 Instead, I modified it to suit me by distilling each Big Five category down to no more than three goals. Some categories, like Finances, are very simple. Others, like Relationships, are more complex, as that category encompasses my romantic, familial and platonic relationships. The most intense is probably Writing, simply because there is so much I want to do on that front this year.

I am not going to share all my Big Five goals today. I may share them at the end of the year, as I recap what I managed to accomplish and what I did not. For now, I will share my three Physical Health goals, along with one aspect of my Writing goal, as I am comfortable with those being public at this stage. This is especially relevant because another thing Huberman cautions against in the podcast is what he calls the Accountability Myth, “Don’t Tell the World” rule:

However, the scientific data tell us that if we inform people around us that, for instance, we are going to write a book or that we’re going to start a podcast or that we are going to run a marathon or whatever it happens to be, more often than not, we get feedback that is generally positive in form. I think that’s good.

And yet the data tell us that the positive feedback that we get from others, when we announce that we’re going after a goal, activate certain reward systems and motivation systems within our brain that then quickly dissipate and then diminish the probability that we will engage in the type of behaviors that actually lead us to achieve that goal.

I of course am not saying that accountability is bad. To the contrary, accountability is a great thing, both to ourselves and to others. It’s something that we should all cultivate throughout life.

I’m merely talking about the myth of accountability in the context of goal pursuit. And I’m actually being more specific than that. I’m saying don’t tell people that you’re going to go out and achieve something prior to initiating action toward that goal because in fact, the positive feedback that we get will diminish the probability that we will continually pursue that goal in a way that allows us to achieve it.

With that said, I have started taking steps (pun intended 😎) toward reaching my Physical Health goals, and I am comfortable sharing those steps, along with the aspect of my Writing goal that speaks directly to my current mental health. My Physical Health goals are divided into three areas: Lower Body, Upper Body, and Running.

My Lower Body goal is to beat my 2020 squat personal record of 80 kg (not including ~20 kg from the bar) by two reps. When I set this goal, I was absolutely certain I had done two reps in 2020, so the plan was to beat it by one. Imagine my shock when I rewatched the video on Instagram and realised I had only done one rep 😵 That means I now need to hit three reps. Because 38, duh.

My Upper Body goal is to nail three clap push-ups. Any man reading this may be thinking, “That’s it?!” because men seem to do push-ups as easily as they breathe. But while I have some POWERFUL 😙💪 Luhya legs, my upper body strength is basically that of a twig. Ten push-ups is already a huge accomplishment, so even one clap push-up—let alone three—will be a massive win. If When I achieve that, I might move on to an eight-second handstand (because a three-second handstand would be a fluke, not a goal) as I think handstands are just so fucking cool. If I succeed at both, my final goal will be to crank out three pull-ups. Again, men, with your ability to do weighted pull-ups with ease, please leave me alone.

Last but not least, I want to run a half marathon in 138 minutes. When I first set this goal, I aimed for sub 2 hours 30 minutes, but a couple of weeks ago I narrowed it down to 138 minutes—duh! For any non-runners, you may be doing the math and thinking, “It’s only 12 minutes, what’s the difference?” But anyone who runs, whether for fun or for real, knows just how brutal it is to shave 12 minutes off your goal, where every second counts and 720 seconds can feel like an eternity with each step.

To prepare, I have completely overhauled my workout program. I used to hit the gym four times a week: Monday was Lower Body; Tuesday was Upper Body followed by a treadmill run, where I worked up from 2 km to 5 km, aiming to beat my previous week’s pace so I could push my outdoor runs faster. Wednesday was Cardio and Abs; Thursday was a Full-body circuit followed by Arms, then a 2 km incline run at level 8, again racing my own time. After turning 38, I resumed outdoor running for the first time since before COVID. In August and September I was running 4.20 (😎) km, before taking it up a notch to 5 km in October and then 7 km in November and December.

Now, my new program has me strength training three times a week at the gym (Cardio and Abs were dropped), running 11 km on Wednesdays by myself, and 10 km on Saturdays with We Run Nairobi. I had planned for 10 km on both days, but I overshot on my first Wednesday run and ended up running 11 km. And, given my personality, there was no way I could drop it back to 10 km the following week 🥲

I joined WRN to make new friends and be part of a running community that can help me refine my form and technique. But yooo!!! There are just sooo many people that it is hard to see anyone you know, let alone meet someone new. Still, I am determined to find kindred running spirits for moral (and pace) support, and I will 🙂‍↕️

I had initially aimed for the Standard Chartered Nairobi Marathon, which is the only other half marathon I have run, but it happens in Q4 and I will already be 39 by then. I want to hit all my Physical Health goals while I am still 38, so I am currently training for the Nairobi City Marathon on June 7^th. Last year’s edition was in July and I thought this year’s would follow suit, but alas! It is in June, meaning I have one less month to prepare.

All of this to say, if you follow me on Instagram or have my number and have been seeing my WhatsApp stories, you may have thought my running was some New Year, New Me thing. Now you know it is not. I am just steadily working on a goal I want to achieve four months from now.

The Writing goals are the most intimidating, especially one I call “get it done, then get it good.” I currently have five major stories to tell, and I want to spend the next six months writing them. Once they are done, I can use my 39^th year and beyond to get them good and see what the Universe has in store for me when I put them out into the world. “Get it done, then get it good” might sound super simple, but for a perfectionist like me, it is anything but.

In the months I have been listening to podcasts, I have since learned that perfectionism is widely considered a form of self-sabotage because it sets unattainable standards that hinder progress, stifle creativity and fuel procrastination. Driven by fear of failure or judgment, it transforms the desire for excellence into a restrictive, anxiety-inducing loop that prevents task completion and causes individuals to miss opportunities. I have been a procrastinator my whole life, and before I considered being a deadline monster as some sort of flex.

I am most likely the biggest procrastinator alive. The fact that I procrastinate and still get shit done is probably why I cannot seem to break the habit.

Those were the first words I ever wrote for Lwile the Leo in my inaugural blog post on August 22, 2018. I have always been a deadline monster, but turns out procrastination is linked to self-sabotage as the fear of not doing something perfectly leads to delaying tasks or never starting them at all. Which also explains my analysis-paralysis, as overfocusing on minute details prevents projects from being completed or launched. When I went for my annual wellness checkup, I discussed this pattern with my GP and she shared this with me:

Closer to the beginning of this post I said that part of me feels like I have wasted the first half of 38 because I do not have much to show for it. And now, closer to the end of it, I can say with certainty that no part of me feels like that anymore 🥳 and a major reason why is… another Huberman Lab podcast 😅

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That Instagram snippet from the podcast episode Master the Creative Process | Twyla Tharp was instrumental in reframing my mindset from “I have wasted six months” to “I have been centering myself for six months.” While centering myself will definitely be a lifelong commitment—because life changes, and my center will change with it—I am confident AF in my center right now. At 38½ years young, I am more than ready to finally “throw things off” and really fucking go for it with my Big Five.

Here’s to fucking shit up, doing epic shit, and having a shitload of fun while at it 🍸