#18 - Midlife - Let's Make It The New Prime

Midlife is a topic many of us would rather not think about - but I'm on a mission to make midlife the new "prime!" Today, I'm sharing why you should be excited about whatever's next for you and how you can make your life more the way you want it to be.  

The biggest takeaways from this episode:

• Why holding on to the past doesn't work.
• How changing how you think of midlife is powerful.
• The idea that your second half might be your best years yet.
• How the truest "you" is the best gift you can gift you can give.

  Hey there - I'm so glad you're here today! In today’s episode, I'm talking about a topic a lot of us would rather avoid - midlife. I've been thinking about what I thought midlife would be like and what it actually IS like, now that I'm solidly here in my 50's. It isn't as bad as I thought it would be - and in fact, I'm kind of excited about it! In this episode, I'm encouraging you to get excited about whatever's next for you as well.  We all have a choice - to step into midlife with fear or with the expectation that these will be our best years yet. The Bonus Content for today's episode will give you even more ways to think about your future and what you want for yourself. Today, I'm sharing some of the good things that come with midlife, how to change your perspective on midlife, and how I'm on a mission to make midlife the new "prime"! Enjoy the show!       Today’s FREE BONUS CONTENT is a list of "10 Great Books To Read At Midlife" that I have put together from my personal collection. These books are non-fiction - some might be considered "self-help" and others are just insightful. They've helped me through the years and I turn to them again and again for guidance and perspective. If you'd like to find a new way of looking at the second half of your life, I think you'll find some encouragement and new ways of seeing in these old favorites of mine.  

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If you’d rather read, than listen, here’s the

FULL TRANSCRIPT OF EPISODE #18

Midlife - Let's Make It The New Prime

Welcome to the Style With Intention podcast, where we talk about how to use your personal style choices as a tool to create a life you love.   We believe choice is empowering, complacency is boring, and happy looks really, really good!   I’m your host, Annie Kip, and  today we’re stepping into the perspective of our future self - and looking at our past and deciding if we lived the way we wanted to live. Time goes by so quickly. Often we don’t want to look at the reality that our days are whizzing by and adding up to years.   We don’t see ourselves as in “midlife.” It just doesn’t feel that way.  

Midlife? Shhh - no one wants to hear talk like that.

  I used to feel sorry for the people whose kids had all gone off to college. What did they do all day? They just seemed kind of sad to me. Without purpose now. Drifting. With their wrinkly knees. I wondered - are they depressed? How could they let their hair go gray and gain weight like that?   Age is just a number, right?

Well, the numbers don’t lie - 50 is halfway to 100.

  I resisted this fact a while. I put in a lot of time, effort, and money to hold onto the appearance of youth. And I was losing the battle.   One day, I was commiserating with a friend about coloring our hair. There were reasons we felt we had to keep doing it:   So other women wouldn’t think we looked old. So random men would think we were pretty. So our kids wouldn’t be embarrassed of us.   It was ridiculous. This wasn’t who I wanted to be. So I stopped.   It was my birthday present to myself when I was 50.  

We all do things that make us feel the way we used to feel.

  Everyone has their own strategy. Hair color. Exercise. Flirtations. Fast cars. Clothes. Competition. Wine. There are lots of perfectly acceptable ways to cope. It’s all good until it doesn’t feel right anymore.   At this point, we have a sense that we might be losing our chance to make our lives good. Sometimes, there’s a sense of urgency to making decisions and making changes. People do all kinds of crazy (and not so crazy) things at midlife - like quitting jobs, leaving relationships, buying stuff that makes them feel good.   Or they hold on tight. Not wanting any change. They resist what the “young-people” are into, they don’t want to get involved in new technology, they stick to routines more than ever and are angry at the world changing around them. They’re hoping they can maintain the status quo - which can end up feeling restrictive and controlling to the people around them - and sometime bring about the changes in relationships and jobs and friends they are trying so hard to avoid.   This is a time of clarification for all of us.

No one wants to look back with regrets.

We are standing in a unique place where we can look at the past and see how we didn’t appreciate how young we were 10 years ago - and look forward to see that, someday, we might wish for the way we feel right now, in spite of the aches and pains.   I’d like to suggest that age is a privilege - it gives us the unique ability and perspective to choose our battles and figure out what really matters. We don’t have to resign ourselves to becoming irrelevant and invisible.

Time is going by - that doesn’t have to be a bad thing.

We have lived long enough to know that, however hard things might seem, we will get through them. And good things sometimes show up out of nowhere.  

It has taken this many years to become

who we are.

  Now is the time to really zero in on it. Refine your vision. Finally be who you want to be. Own it. When the kids were really little, we had to put our needs aside. We couldn’t even lift our heads up to look around at times - the days were long.   It’s okay to think about what we want now. We’ve paid our dues.   Sure, the kids still need us - they always will - but the endless Little League games, school concerts, and driving to activities are almost behind us.   We can start to pick our heads up and look around to take stock. What will be next? For us. Who do we want to be in our kids’ lives? What is the trajectory we are on - because we’ll probably become more of the way we already unless we intentionally choose to do something different.

The next half of our lives could be the best half.

  What if we genuinely believed that our best years are ahead of us. How would that change how you live everyday? What do you think that would do for your mind- and opening it up to new possibilities, different opportunities, and solutions you’d never considered before. What would that do for your moments? Would you appreciate them more?   This podcast is about creating a life that’s based on feeling great - and all the benefits that naturally come from that - confident style, deep connections, self-awareness, and feeling happy everyday. . It is about living the truth, choosing what you do and think intentionally, and owning your brilliance. I have plenty of insights, tips, interviews, and real life stories coming up - but this is an evolving project and I always want to hear from you - what you like and don’t like - I want to know what serves you best.  

I'm on a mission to make midlife the new “prime.”  

  If you aren’t happy with your life, this is the time to make it better. Figure out what your vision for yourself is and work out how you are going to make it real. Starting with yourself and how you feel inside. Not how you wished you felt - how you genuinely feel. That is the sweet spot.   Become the person who lives that life you see for yourself - and possibilities will open up. It’s never too late.

The truest “you” is the best gift you can give your family and friends.

  We’ll keep strategizing about what would move the needle toward happier. We’ll tease out what’s weighing you down? How to get the gumption to do you do that thing you think you cannot do?   Together, we’ll look at what requires you to dig deep. What you need to let go of. We’ll look are where you shine and what you can do to shine more.   What would it be like to stop pushing so hard and let your enthusiasm sweep you along? The things you have been putting off might be the most rewarding. The solutions may surprise you with their elegant simplicity.

Whatever it is, do it for yourself.

  In the end, there is only you. You are solely accountable for your one, small life. Any age can be your prime. Let’s walk away from all the years of striving and start to enjoy and embrace who we have become and get excited about where we are headed.

It’s about time.

  When your “past” is all that you have left, will you smile at yourself? Let’s make sure you do!  

___

  This week’s Bonus Content is my list of “10 Great Books To Read At 50” - I’m  well into my 50's now and I’m re-reading a lot of these. They’re gems and full of attitude adjustment kinds of lessons. They have been just what I've needed over the years, to refocus my thoughts onto the positive feelings I want to live with everyday.   We’re stepping into our prime with style around here - and bringing our friends along for the ride makes it all the better. Please forward this to a friend who needs to hear this message - or maybe a little encouragement right now - they will thank you!   Until next week -  keep makin’ things look the way you want to feel, because happy looks really, really good!   Bye, bye for now!

Be sure to download the Bonus Content!

CLICK HERE

"10 Great Books To Read At Midlife"