I’m not a fan of the phrase mid-life crisis. It sounds like it’s a situation where I don’t have control and I need someone else to fix it for me. On the contrary, I believe this chaotic time in our life where we have the most control if we chose to take it.
Definition of a Mid-Life Crisis
Wikipedia says a Mid-Life Crisis is a transition of identity and self-confidence that can occur in middle-aged individuals, typically 45–55 years old. The phenomenon is described as a psychological crisis brought about by events that highlight a person's growing age, inevitable mortality, and possibly lack of accomplishments in life. Heavy, but true, right?
Mid-life is often when we realize that our career or relationships drain us more than they sustain us. Mid-life is often when our bodies change in frightening stressful ways. Mid-life is often when our family dynamics change as our kids grow up and don’t depend on us as much anymore. Mid-life is usually when we are stopped dead in our tracks, afraid of what’s in front of us and disappointed in what’s behind us. It might be a hard pill to swallow, but this chaos is a result of the decisions we’ve made thus far.
A Time for Reinvention
What if we saw this chaos as fuel to propel us forward instead of mud to slow our progress? I’m here to tell you that mid-life is a great time to reinvent ourselves!
My reinvention started when I realized I was almost 50. I felt trapped in an unfulfilling career, my only child getting ready for to graduate HS, and my body was going through horrifying changes thanks to menopause. I was consumed with questions and fear. The worst of it was that I saw age 50 not as a new chapter, but as the end of the story for the first half of my life. It was a huge door slamming shut. But I am a resilient learner and I was determined to get control. I read books, watched webinars, listened to podcasts, attended trainings…I was consuming anything I could find.
One of the most important lessons I learned was that the power of reinvention lies in leveraging everything we’ve done and everything we know about ourselves. It hit me that reinventing ourselves is the gift that mid-life provides us!
Take Action
Reinventing yourself happens when you embrace your past, celebrate your uniqueness, and identify what’s missing from your life. Reinventing yourself happens when you disrupt the behaviors, the thought patterns that are holding you back from transforming your mindset. After all…your mindset, your beliefs, are the hidden script that run your life.
Make a list of the good and the bad from your past, a list of what makes you unique, and a list of what's missing from your life. What trend do you see? What is the action step that is screaming to be taken?
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