A paediatrician once said to me: “It doesn’t matter how your daughter’s behavioural issues came to be, all that matters is what you do for her NOW”. Those words have stayed with me for the past 2 years.

I’ve always been someone who tackles problems head on. I like to seek out the cause of things only because it might bring me closer to finding a solution. But sometimes, in life, we focus too much on the cause that we find it difficult to look beyond the past.

I’ve written previously about a mother’s group that I’ve been attending. Today, one of the mothers spoke about her daughter’s attachment issues. She wondered whether anything she had done previously had contributed to the way her daughter behaved. She felt incredibly guilty that it had.

And it made me think about parenting and how the role we play is so important. We spend our lives wondering if we’ve done the right things for our children; if we’ve disciplined them enough, played with them enough, if WE are the sole reason why they are the way they are.

But I believe that regardless of what we have or haven’t done, it is NEVER too late. Nothing we do as parents is irreversible. We still have that chance to play a massive part in their lives. We just need to try our best to set aside the past and OWN the future.

And I think this way of thinking can be applied to any aspect of life. It is never too late for anything. It is never too late for that career path you’ve dreamed of all your life, it is never too late to repair the relationship that you have with your father. It is never too late to do the things that you want to do with your life.

You need to just believe in yourself and realise that the best way to forget the past is to focus on the future. Because nothing in life is ever too late.

Thuy Le (formerly known as Thuy Yau) is a freelance writer and Youth Work graduate living in Perth, Australia. She loves to share her own personal experiences about overcoming adversity, as she believes that human beings are more capable than they realise. She writes to make a positive difference in the world and to inspire others to learn from themselves and their own experiences. Her writing has been discussed on radio, won writing contests, appeared on The Huffington Post UK and major Australian sites such as news.com.au, SMH, Kidspot and Essential Kids. She has just completed her first book – a memoir - and is on the search for a publisher.