How to REINVENT yourself after a midlife “crisis”.
“I don’t know who I am anymore. I lost that girl I used to be.
I know I don’t want to live like this, but I don’t know where to start to change.
What is my life’s purpose? How do I reinvent myself?
How do I start a new life when I don’t know what I want?
Is there more to life than this? Is it too late to change?”
What is happening to me? Where did I go?
I, like many of you have said or heard those statements too many times to count. Even our friends & family who seem to have it “all together”…say something goes missing once you hit midlife.
A missing piece to their life or to who they have become over the decades. They want more in life, but don’t know where to even start to find it.
It’s not unlike when you were a teenager on the brink of change. You have experienced changes in your mind & body, you may have ended major life roles (like being a parent to young dependant children) and may have started a new career.
So what is the advice we give to a teen or received when we were one?
Try new things, discover who you are & what you like, travel, learn, try a few jobs, have fun…live life and see what it offers you.
It doesn’t need to be scary, depressing or overwhelming. You just need to reflect and build a plan.
A new life plan where you get to be the designer. You haven’t lost yourself…you have gained over 40 years of experience that has caused you to grow and evolve into another version of who you are meant to be.
Go with it and embrace it.
Understanding the “Midlife Crisis”
The problem that many women encounter when they turn 40 is that there are some major life changes that occur during this time and they can leave you feeling that sense of “losing yourself”.
You start questioning the need to start over, but don’t have the faintest clue where to begin. You have no idea who to turn to for guidance.
You feel alone and isolated on this journey to “failure”. You believe you are the only person going through this and are embarrassed to ask for help because you are a 40 year old and should have your life together by now…right?
Well, the thing is it is not uncommon.
Hello midlife crisis!!!! Instead of racing out and buying a super fast sports car…lets look at some helpful ways of getting off to a great start in this new season.
The first step is to stop and reflect on all the possible changes that are occurring in your life at the moment. Understand that “real stuff” is going on and causing you to feel the sense of not knowing who you are anymore.
Once you can identify the cause, then you can create the plan of action to rectify it.
Here are some of the changes that can cause this sense of upheaval:
Becoming an empty nester or your children becoming self-dependant. This phase reduces your role that you held FULL-TIME for the last 10-20 years. You are no longer needed on a daily basis and this can leave you asking ”what now”?
A change in career or starting a new one. Maybe you find your decades long career no longer fulfilling and want a new career path…but in what field?
Maybe you are starting over in the work force now that you are no longer a full-time stay-at-home mom…but how do you get back in the groove of having a career?
Some of us just want to be our own boss and have the flexibility to work from anywhere in the world and live our passions…but how do we find and build that?
All of these questions can leave you feeling greatly overwhelmed and at a loss of “how-to”?
It just seems too big, like its too late or that you don’t have the skills. Well, nothing is impossible, it is never too late…you just need to make a new life plan.
Body changes…lets not get me started on this one. I know all too well that when the clock struck 40…a welcoming committee for aging arrived with some great little goodies for me like: weight gain & the Olympic sized challenge of trying to get it back off, the beginning stages of perimenopause (hormonal changes), grey hair, wrinkles, aches & pains, increased risks of illness & injury, lower libido, vision problems…the list could go on but I am sure you get the point.
A lot changes, but it doesn’t need to reduce your quality of life.
You can make drastic changes towards improvement with continuous efforts. We need to make our health a priority to get us through the next few decades with vitality.
Changes of the mind. This one is a double sided coin. On one side you have built up more confidence, wisdom and experience. You know yourself better now, your likes, dislikes, passions and priorities. You are ready to take on the next chapter in your life.
However, the other side of the coin that we all fall into at one point or other is feeling depressed from not knowing what we want to do with the rest of our life. There are other factors that contribute to this depressed state, such as feelings of having wasted the first half of your life, that you haven’t achieved your goals, you feel like you are no longer much value to the world and that you may be too late to live & achieve your goals & dreams.
The world has changed around you. This one is hard for me to even give examples for because I am so out of the loop. I don’t know the acronyms or lingo, I don’t use social media more than the occasional glance at Facebook, I don’t know who any of the up & coming celebrities are or influencers, I don’t know the top ten music hits…just the way I talk makes me sound old.
I remember laughing at my mom who couldn’t figure out how to program the VCR when I was a teen and now I am the one who doesn’t understand how to use a cell phone half the time.
I am a happy version of the grumpy old man who refused to get up to date with the world. I am content living in the 90’s still…it was a time that didn’t make my brain hurt.
Financial stress. Not having the means that you need to live the life of your dreams causes financial stress. If you are like a lot of people in our age group maybe you have not had the disposable income to save for retirement yet, which probably hasn’t even been a thought until now.
The majority of your money has gone to your kids, house, car, retirement, inflation, household bills and maybe if you are lucky some fun. You feel behind and it can cause a real sense of panic for the future.
Marital changes. For parents whos kids have all grown maybe your lost as to how to get back in the swing of being a couple. Both spouses or one has changed over time and there is a lack of connection. Divorce. Never being married. Struggling with different life goals than your partner now that you are older. Starting over and dating in your 40’s.
Roles change, people change & our priorities change, which can leave us struggling in our marriage if we are unable to adapt and sort it out.
Remember, nothing is impossible to work through with communication and love.
Evaluate your Wheel of Life. You are here!
In order to make any changes you first need to reflect and evaluate yourself and your life at this moment in time.
You need to know where you are starting before you can make any progress.
In the following graphic take a look at the priority wheel and rate all the areas in your life at this current moment. This will highlight the areas to work on to create more balance in your life.
Bring balance back to your life. Reinvent yourself!
Now that you know where you are starting and have an idea of the areas you need to focus on, it’s time to start redesigning your life.
This is where you “reinvent” yourself.
Instead of focusing on the deficiencies we will be looking at your dreams & goals for each category.
All of the stuff you had on the back burner for the last 20 years now gets to come forth and get your attention.
Here are the steps to take to rebalance your Priority Wheel:
If you haven’t already, rate each category in the above graphic from 1-10 of where you currently feel you are. (1 being low and 10 being high)
Make a few notes as to what you believe is causing a score lower than an 8 in any of the categories if you are aware of the root cause.
Pick the category with the lowest score or the one that is your biggest struggle causing the most strife and circle it.
Brainstorm any and all possible solutions that you feel can raise the score in that category. Write them all down on a piece of paper.
Choose one item on the list to start working on this week. One that seems to be the most realistic for you to accomplish in the next 7 days that will not overwhelm you.
Now that you have your 7-day goal we need to break it down into actionable steps to ensure maximum success at achieving it.
You will create an action plan. An action plan is a tool used to tackle goals that seem so far out of reach that they become overwhelming and leave us not knowing where to even start.
The secret to achieving any goal is to not try and do everything all at once. An action plan breaks the goal down into manageable steps.
To create a successful action plan you need to be very action specific…I will do this…at this time…on these days…for this period of time. Be sure when setting the goal that it is something that you are confident that you can achieve.
Make it simple and easy. Do not over estimate what can be done in that time period. You want to build momentum & confidence and be able to continue to work towards your goal.
Here is an example:
In your Health category you may have written “getting to a healthy weight” as a goal. This goal is not very action specific…it is more results driven. There could be soooo many ways to get to this result that you may not know where to start or may keep switching from option to option with no real results.
Here is how we would break that down into an action plan.
The first step is to break it down into an achievable goal for the week. Getting to a “healthy weight” is not achievable in one week, it is overwhelming. However, doing a workout video is very action specific and definitely achievable for the week timeframe.
Next is to clarify the parameters. I will do the workout video for 30 minutes, from 9-930 am, on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Bam! There you go. You now have an achievable action specific goal that will move you towards a “healthy weight”.
Work on your goal for 1 week. If at the end of that time you are comfortable with your results then add more to the goal. (i.e. add an extra day…make it a 40 minute video…move on to adding a healthy meal to your day as the next action plan).
If you are not confident in the action plan continue on with the same one until you are.
This process is a slow building up of a habit to get you taking constant steps towards rebuilding this life category.
Reinforce the behaviour and repeat it in other life categories that need a score improvement as well.
In no time you will be reinventing yourself and your life…one action step at a time.
Entering your 40’s should not feel like a death sentence and that life as you know it is over.
It is a time of change, wisdom, confidence and adventure.
It is time to take on a new chapter/season.
Don’t view it as a midlife crisis, view it as a blessing of being able to redesign the life of your dreams and having the wisdom and courage to live it.
Please share your life changes that occurred in your 40’s in the comments. If you have a great success story that you would like to share send me an email and I will see about creating a featured blog about your journey.
If we share our success with others they will be inspired to make changes in their own lives.
Thanks for taking the time to read and have fun reinventing yourself!