A moment that changed me: I was divorced, broke and alone – but I turned my life around with a list

Since my life was no longer going to be the way I had planned – marriage, kids, a dog, a late-Victorian terrace in a country town – I was going to try something else.

I’d spent the past four years living in suburbia and felt as though I was prematurely middle-aged, going to garden centres at weekends and spending most of my time watching TV, tired from a long commute to my job as a communications officer.

‘Maintaining an adventurous attitude feels key to staying young at heart’ … McGowan sailing in 2022.

I also took a Cordon Bleu cookery course, which was fantastic, even if I did give myself pretty severe burns while taking a lamb rack out of the oven.

As a child I had always been physically timid, coming last in the school 600m, hiding on the sidelines during PE, and feeling terribly ashamed if I wasn’t good at a new activity (which I almost never was).

Maintaining an adventurous attitude feels key to staying young at heart, as is a willingness to fail.