Character Development: Building Myself at 45

Reflections on turning 45 and still being "under construction"

The vibes I’m bringing to turning 45.

A few days before my 45th birthday, I started to freak out a bit.

Not in the typical “oh no, I’m getting older” way—though there was some of that. It was more that I suddenly realized: I’m now just as close to 50 as I am to 40. These five years have flown by, and so much has changed. Five years ago, it was COVID, and I was still trying to build up the courage to leave Facebook. January 6th hadn’t happened yet. AI wasn’t a thing as we know it now. Elon didn’t own Twitter. My book was a glimmer in my eye. I had no newsletter.

And here’s what really got me: I know the next five years will move even faster.

I know what I want to do—become an author and speaker in addition to being a consultant. But I’m terrified it might not work. It’s different, this pivot. It feels like jumping out of a plane again. And while I know 50 isn’t old, right now it feels like a scary number I’m walking towards. Like when I hit it, I’ll be crossing a threshold into a whole different chapter of life, and I’m not entirely sure who I’m supposed to be in it.

So naturally, I did what I always do when I’m anxious: I threw myself into work.

Today, I plan to work on editing my book. I’m actually working on three books at the moment. My Disrupting Politics manuscript is the furthest along, but I’m also working on a fiction series called “Tired of the Grind” and a book centered on the “Panic Responsibly” mantra.

Deborah Froese, my writing coach for Disrupting Politics, is doing a writing challenge this month, and my goal is to flesh out four of the main characters for Tired of the Grind. I’m making mood boards, personality profiles and answering backstory questions for the people I’m creating. I was deep into developing the main character, Sarah, who opens a coffee shop called Tired of the Grind, when it hit me:

When’s the last time I did this exercise for myself?

When did I give myself permission to be a character in development rather than a finished product?

We spend so much time building our brands, carefully crafting the narratives of who we are, what we stand for, and how we want to be perceived. But what about unbranding? What about giving ourselves permission to evolve past the container we’ve built? To become someone slightly different, slightly unrecognizable, slightly more?

So I decided to actually do it. To treat my 45th birthday as a character development exercise.

Four Impossible Tradeoffs That Rewrote My Character Arc

If I’m being honest, the woman I am at 45 exists because of tradeoffs I made—some intentional, some forced. Here are four that fundamentally reshaped my story:

1. The Facebook Exit → The Anchor Change Launch

What I traded: Security. Prestige. A clear, recognizable identity. Being “Katie from Facebook” meant something. People knew what it meant. I knew what it meant.

What I gained: My own voice. Autonomy. The ability to build something that’s mine, that reflects my values, that creates the kind of legacy I actually want to leave.

The panic-responsibly moment: Trusting that leaving a defined role wouldn’t mean losing my relevance. That I could be more than one company’s version of me. That building something from scratch at 41 wasn’t reckless—it was necessary.

2. The Personal Rebrand → The Unbranding

What I traded: The comfort of being “the Facebook elections person.” The ease of a tidy elevator pitch. The safety of people knowing exactly who I was and what I did.

What I gained: Permission to evolve. To expand. To contradict past versions of myself without apology. To be interested in things that don’t fit neatly into my old LinkedIn bio.

The panic-responsibly moment: Accepting that some people will always see me as who I was five years ago, and that’s their work, not mine. I can’t control how people perceive me. I can only control who I’m becoming.

3. Private Struggle → Public Transformation

What I traded: The safety of hiding. The armor of staying the same. The protection of never letting people see me change, physically or otherwise.

What I gained: Fifty pounds of literal and metaphorical weight lifted. Boudoir photos that feel like reclaiming something I’d forgotten. Better sleep. Better skin. The kind of self-care that isn’t indulgent—it’s foundational.

The panic-responsibly moment: Showing up differently. Hanging the photos in my home. Letting people see that I’d changed in visible, undeniable ways. Risking their judgment, their commentary, their outdated versions of who they thought I was.

4. Expert → Student

What I traded: The ease of staying in my established expertise lane. The comfort of only doing things I’m already good at. The safety of never being a beginner.

What I gained: Creative territory. A book that’s teaching me how to write while I’m writing it. New frameworks, like “Panic Responsibly,” that started as a throwaway phrase and evolved into a philosophy. Permission to be bad at something new.

The panic-responsibly moment: Realizing that growth requires being uncomfortable. That if I want to be an author and speaker, I have to be willing to be an amateur at both before I’m a professional at either. That the next five years require different skills than the last five, and I don’t have them yet, and that’s okay.

The Character Profile: Who Am I Building for 45 to 50?

After I wrote out those four tradeoffs, I stared at my character development worksheet and thought, ‘What if I actually filled this out for myself?’

Not for who I am now, but for who I’m building toward. The character I want to become between 45 and 50.

Here’s what I came up with:

Mood Board:
Sleep. Morning pages. The book, published, on someone’s nightstand. Stages where I’m still learning. Dinner tables with meaningful conversations. White space in my calendar that isn’t a failure, it’s a choice.

Core Traits:
Still grounded and insightful, but less apologetic about it. Comfortable with visibility without performing. Willing to be both the expert and the student, often in the same conversation.

What She Values:
Sleep and skin care—not as vanity, but as infrastructure. Finishing what she starts. Saying “no” to protect the important “yes.” Evolution over consistency. Being surprising, even to herself.

Her Conflicts:
The tension between building a recognizable brand and refusing to be trapped by it. Wanting to mentor others while still figuring herself out. The pull between ambitious goals and protective rest. The fear that 50 is a deadline instead of a doorway.

What She’s Learning:
That unbranding isn’t a rejection of the past. It’s making room for the future. That “panic responsibly” applies to personal transformation, too. That you can honor who you’ve been while refusing to be limited by it. That character development never ends. That we’re all works in progress, and that’s not a bug—it’s the whole point.

Five Lessons from 40 to 45 (That I’m Taking With Me)

If these four tradeoffs taught me anything, it’s these five things:

1. People will always be catching up to who you are now.
That’s not your problem to solve. You can’t pause your own evolution to wait for everyone else’s perception of you to update. Keep moving. They’ll catch up or they won’t.

2. Transformation requires tradeoffs.
Every version of yourself you become means releasing an old one. There’s grief in that. Honor it. Feel it. And then move on anyway.

3. Your body keeps the score, but it also keeps the wins.
Physical changes aren’t separate from professional or personal evolution—they’re all the same story of taking up space differently. Of deciding you matter enough to invest in. Of refusing to disappear.

4. “Panic Responsibly” works for personal evolution, too.
Yes, turning 45 is scary. Yes, the next five years will fly by faster than the last five. Yes, you should build the thing anyway. You can acknowledge the fear and do it scared. That’s the whole point.

5. Character development is never finished.
The best characters are the ones who surprise themselves. Who discover new depths, new desires, new directions they didn’t see coming. If you knew exactly who you’d be at 50, what would be the point of the journey? Give yourself permission to be surprising.

Permission to Be Under Construction

So here’s what I’m giving myself for my 45th birthday: permission to be under construction.

Permission to build a character I don’t fully know yet. Permission to make different tradeoffs at 45 than I did at 40, 35, or 30. Permission to be terrified of 50 and excited about it in the same breath. Permission to want things I’ve never wanted before and release things I used to think defined me.

The truth is, I don’t know exactly who I’ll be at 50. But I know I’m not done becoming her yet.

And here’s what I’m curious about: What character are you building right now?

What tradeoffs are you making—or avoiding? What old version are you giving yourself permission to outgrow? What does your character profile look like for your next chapter, and are you brave enough to actually write it down?

Because if there’s anything these five years have taught me, it’s that we’re all doing character development whether we admit it or not. The question isn’t whether you’ll change—it’s whether you’ll do it intentionally.