[Gayle]

I look at some people who are in their early twenties and I can't help but admire how driven they are with career goals and their direction in life, they have such a confidence that they will achieve it all.

As for me, I think different things hit me a different points in my life - for instance, music and clothes - from the age of about 13 I've always known my own mind and have never followed my friends 'fashions' - but in other things it was much, much later.

With relationships, I don't think I knew what I wanted until I was in my mid twenties - the defining moment was when an ex-boyfriend was dithering about me and I gave him a twenty four hour deadline, he said I couldn't do that and I told him I could do what the hell I wanted. It made me realise that I was in control of the relationship - he turned up by the way!

As for career, I don't think I'd got that worked out until about five years ago. I'm the happiest I've ever been in my working life - have some stability and some flexibility, I can choose projects that I want to work on and have freedom to do it.

I would say that I totally know my own mind now, I know how I'll react in certain situations, I know what I want from life but I don't plan too much so that I can adapt to new things. So, in short (after that very long winded answer) I'll say that I first realised that I knew my own mind at about 30 to 35ish.