What could happen in our lives if we could steer our mindset to focus on what could go right instead of what might go wrong? Even those of us who consider ourselves eternal optimists (yours truly included) can still have boat-loads of fear crippling us and preventing us from personal growth and from achieving our goals. Growth happens when we have the courage to push through our fears and worries to get to the other side. What gets presented to us on the news is an stream of mostly the…
It’s called midlife because there is a second half of life to live. In years, our second half may not end up being equal to our first, but in terms of personal growth and satisfaction, it can be. In fact, it can be more. It’s up to us to make that happen. Our second half of life might include pursuing new (or old) dreams, interests, passions or perhaps even newfound purpose helping others. No one can give us a map for our journey, it’s our path and it’s unique to…
Having good friends in midlife is so important. Even though many of us have spouses or significant others, nothing takes the place of good friends. You know who they are – the ones who make us feel that we’re not alone in whatever we’re going through. The friends who have our back (literally, they’ll tell us if there’s a hole in our pants) – our peeps, our tribe, our squad. The ones who reach out when it seems we’ve gone M.I.A. I especially mean the few friends who know us…
The hallways of elementary schools are wall papered with samples of their young students’ creative expression. Adorable self-portraits, popsicle stick crafts, clay animal blobs and even finger paintings can be seen on display in every typical grade school. Why is it that as we get older we’re far less likely to find the time or to feel encouraged to express ourselves creatively? Most of us need those expressive outlets in midlife more than we did in our younger years. Yet, we find a million reasons why we shouldn’t, or can’t,…
I’m just back from spending a rainy vacation week with my family in our camper at the beach and I have come away with a new mantra (and revelation!) that I’m hoping stays with me and speaks to you: Stop overthinking. At the beginning of the week I was obsessively preoccupied with the weather forecast. All I could think about was how I’d been waiting an entire year for this week of sunshine and sand to arrive and how much it was going to suck starfish if it rained. I…
If you’re like me, you have plenty of moments (sometimes entire days) when you’re feeling like poop about yourself and the possibility of ever reaching your goals seems slim. Lately, I’ve been reading more and more about the power of positive affirmations. Affirmations are simply a supportive way to speak to ourselves. With all the challenges and changes that come with midlife, we sure could use someone speaking nicely to us, right? Well, it might as well be ourselves! I believe that our language and thoughts can strengthen our belief…