I Became Everything I Wanted to Be as a Little Girl — And Almost Didn’t Notice!
There’s a trend on TikTok right now where women post videos with the text: “I became everything I wanted to be as a little girl and almost didn’t notice.” Every time I watch one, I understand why it hits so many women so deeply. It’s because somewhere along the way, we stopped noticing ourselves. We stopped recognizing our own becoming.
We grew up, got jobs, healed things we never thought we’d heal, carried more than we ever expected to carry, and yet we rarely pause long enough to see that the life we’re living today is one our younger selves would’ve been amazed by.
And the wildest part is that so many of us don’t notice it because society has trained women to shift the goalposts constantly. Be prettier. Be more successful. Be more put-together. Be more “that girl.” Keep striving. Keep improving. Keep pushing. Never enough. And yes, striving is part of who we are. Wanting more, dreaming bigger, becoming better, that’s not the problem. The problem is forgetting to honor the woman we fought so hard to become. Growth means nothing if we never stop to see it.
We are so conditioned to seek the next milestone that we forget to enjoy the moments we once prayed for.
But becoming everything you needed as a little girl doesn’t always look like a big breakthrough. Sometimes it looks like waking up in a home you built for yourself. Sometimes it looks like speaking up in a meeting without shaking. Sometimes it looks like choosing rest. Sometimes it looks like walking away from people or patterns you once thought you couldn’t live without. Sometimes it looks like the soft confidence in your voice that you didn’t have at seventeen.
That’s the emotional truth behind this whole trend: You don’t wake up one day feeling like the woman you wished you’d become; you realize she’s been forming quietly, slowly, through every decision, boundary, lesson, experience, and moment of self-respect.
As someone who studies emotion, embodiment, and identity, I think this resonates because becoming isn’t something you see in the mirror. You feel it in your nervous system, your posture, your energy, the way you treat yourself. And when women online are finally saying, “I became her,” they’re really saying, “I’m finally noticing myself.”
It’s a reminder that self-love doesn’t come from perfection. It comes from recognition, from seeing the girl you once were and realizing she would look at you today with pride, relief, and awe.
Sometimes the healing happens so gradually that you miss it. Sometimes the dreams become reality so quietly that you forget you once thought they were impossible. And sometimes the woman you are today is living a life your younger self couldn’t even imagine.
So if you’re reading this, think of the little girl you once were. Then look at the woman you’ve become. Maybe you’re not where you want to be yet, but you’ve already become someone she would admire.
- Dania Khalife
