How To Curate Your Life
A Practice Of Courageous Non Conformity
This is a companion article to podcast episode 34 with Stephanie O Sullivan. Listen Below!
There's a moment in my conversation with my friend Stephanie where she's describing how she fell in love with homes that had been "added to" over the years.
Places where a burnt carpet was simply cut out and replaced with a mismatched piece, where someone's uncle made something to cover a mouldy corner instead of redecorating the whole room.
"I love that," she says. "There's just something so funny and unique and gorgeous about that."
And its Stephanie’s willingness to see beauty in what others might turn their noses up at that I love about her.
But more than that, it's her courage to claim it. To say "I find this beautiful" without needing anyone else's permission or agreement.
This is what I've come to understand as the art of curation. And it might be one of the most important skills we never learn.
The Fear of Having Standards
Curation requires discernment. It demands that we become the authority on what meets our standards and what doesn't. And for many of us, especially women raised to be endlessly accommodating, this feels dangerously close to discrimination.
But here's what I've learned: discrimination, in its truest sense, isn't about rejecting people's worth. It's about recognising what serves your life and what doesn't.
A composer discriminates between notes. A writer discriminates between words. An artist discriminates between colors.
And the alternative to discrimination isn't kindness, it's chaos.
I spent years of my younger life without my "NO." Every proposition accepted. Every opinion considered. Every person welcomed into my inner circle regardless of how they made me feel or whether our values aligned.
I told myself this made me a ‘nice’ person (or ‘sound’, as we call it in Ireland).
What I know now, is that being ‘sound’ was a way I tried to create safety, specifically in relation to my fear of reactivity.
What it actually made me was exhausted, resentful and completely disconnected from my own truth.
When "Yes" Becomes Self-Betrayal
The problem with refusing to curate your life is that someone else ends up doing it for you.
Even now, as a podcaster and coach, I have to make choices about which guests to interview, which clients to work with, which opportunities to pursue. Not because some people are inherently better than others, but because some alignments serve the work better than others.
This isn't about rejection. It's about honouring the specific contribution I’m here to make.
Stephanie learned this the hard way in her corporate design career, trying to fit her creative intelligence into structures that had no space for it.
It wasn't until she started curating her own work environment, her own clients, her own aesthetic vision that her career began to flourish.
The Responsibility of Authenticity
Here's the uncomfortable truth: if we're going to live authentically, not everyone is going to make the cut. Not every value will align with ours. Not every friendship will serve our growth. Not every opportunity will honour our gifts.
And that's not a lack of kindness, it's a matter of integrity.
When Stephanie shares photos of architectural details that others might walk past without noticing, she's not being elitist. She's being honest about what moves her.
When she chooses homes for SoScout based on their "unapologetic" authenticity rather than their ‘expensiveness’, she's discriminating in service of curating backdrops for creative storytelling.
How Do We Reject Without Wounding?
If you’re anything like me, a question that may haunt you is: How do we maintain our standards without being cruel? How do we curate our lives without it landing like rejection or unworthiness in others?
The answer, I think, lies in understanding the difference between rejecting someone's essence and recognising a lack of fit.
When I decide not to work with a potential client, I'm not declaring them unworthy of growth. I'm acknowledging that what they need and what I offer don't align right now.
When Stephanie doesn't feature a perfectly lovely home on SoScout, she's not insulting the homeowner's taste. She's recognising that it doesn't serve the specific purpose her platform exists to serve.
The key is holding two truths simultaneously: that people have inherent worth and that not everything belongs in every space.
Curating as Self-Respect
What I've come to see is that curation is actually an act of self-respect and ultimately, respect for others too.
When I'm clear about my standards, I attract people and opportunities that genuinely align with them. When I'm wishy-washy about what I want, I end up sending mixed messages and frustrating everyone, including myself.
Stephanie's homes get booked repeatedly not because she's exclusive, but because she's clear. Clients know what they're getting. They're paying for her discernment, her eye, her willingness to say "this works" or "this doesn't."
The Curator's Courage
Maybe the most radical thing we can do is trust our own taste. Not just in art or architecture, but in relationships, opportunities, values, beliefs. To stop apologising for what we find beautiful, meaningful, or worthwhile.
This doesn't mean becoming rigid or closed-minded. It means becoming honest about what serves your authentic expression and what diminishes it.
When someone laughed at Stephanie's aesthetic choices and compared her home to a car park, she didn't hide or apologise. She responded with clarity: "We actually love it. We just wouldn't have wanted a normal home."
That's the curator's courage, to stand behind your choices not because everyone will understand them, but because they're true to who you are.
Coming Home to Your Standards
Your life is not a democracy. You don't need majority approval for your aesthetic, your boundaries, your values, or your choices.
You need the courage to curate consciously, to choose what stays and what goes based on your own developing sense of what serves your authentic expression.
This isn't about becoming precious or exclusionary. It's about recognising that you have limited time, energy and space. How you fill them matters.
Every "yes" to something that doesn't fit is a "no" to something that might.
Amanda x
Journal Prompt:
What would change in your life if you trusted your own discernment?
What would you curate in or out if you stopped worrying about others' approval?
🔒 Do The Work - Inside today's paid section:
The Life Curation Audit:
What Stays, What Goes, What Transforms
If this piece stirred something in you, if you're ready to stop living by default and start curating consciously, this practice will help you:
✔️ Audit Your Current Life: A comprehensive review process to identify what's serving your authentic expression and what's diminishing it; from relationships to commitments to beliefs.
✔️ Develop Your Curation Criteria: Exercises to clarify your personal standards and values, so you can make decisions from clarity rather than guilt or obligation.
✔️ Practice Graceful Boundaries: Scripts and strategies for saying no, redirecting energy and making changes assertively; honouring both your needs and others' humanity.