Feeling Lost at Midlife?
The one strange question that will help you find your life’s purpose…
Midlife Transformation & Feeling Lost
Have you ever had that disorienting feeling where you have a sudden moment of clarity and ask “What the hell am I doing here?” It’s very common around the time of Midlife Transformation.
It can hit you anytime. When you first open your eyes on a morning. When you are in a busy stressful meeting at work. Just sitting in rush hour traffic trying to get home.
Midlife Transformation is a time when we particularly start to ask this question. Life circumstances may come together to force us to look at where we are in our life. Sometimes this can be reaching a milestone like a big birthday which always brings with it appraisal of achievements up to that point.
Or it may be a shocking event that happens out of the blue and brings you a soul searching moment. I recently saw on Facebook that someone I was at primary school had died. I struggled to reconcile the idea of someone my age, who I remembered as a small child, passing away. Moments like this certainly force us to look at our life through new eyes and ask ourselves the deep questions.
- Are you where you thought you would be this point in your life?
- Are you happy with your life at the moment?
- Do you know where you want to go and who you want to be in the next 5 years?
Maybe you want something to change but you don’t know what.
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Maybe you want a different life but don’t know how to get there.
If you feel lost, disorientated and directionless, casting about for the path but unsure if you are going in the right direction, don’t panic. The fact that you are questioning is wonderful and will result in positive changes. Working out what you want just takes a little time and focus to anchor yourself.
It’s time to stop and take stock and develop a roadmap.
I’m going to outline the steps which helped me gain clarity about my life and find my way back on track. I hope some of these may help you get back on track…
Create a morning routine to get some peaceful “me time”
The first thing to do is to create your own morning routine. This way you carve out a little bit of “me time” to give you the space to think and focus on where you want to go. It’s time dedicated solely to you.
Set your alarm for an hour earlier than normal. Two if you can manage it. Make yourself a coffee and relax. This time of morning is peaceful and quiet and the ideal time to think.
I like to start with 10 minutes of meditation. I then read for half an hour or so and journal for a little while. I find the answers to questions I have been wrestling with often come to me in the quiet and clarity of this peaceful time. Your morning routine will evolve to fit you but it’s a wonderful way to focus on you and what you want.
Do a Life Audit
A Life Audit is a great exercise to do in your morning time. You don’t have to do it all in one go. It can evolve.
Get your coffee and a pencil and paper or a journal and look at your life as it is now. You are trying to work out what you are happy with and what has room for improvement.
On your piece of paper list the following categories
- Your relationship with your spouse
- Your relationship with your kids
- Your work and career life
- Your financial situation
- Your work/life balance
- You house or location where you live
Go through each area and allocate it a mark out of 10 depending on how happy you feel with the situation. If the score is low, jot down 5 ideas that may help to improve it.
Make sure you date the paper. This is a great exercise to keep returning to every couple of months to view your trajectory and any improvements.
Analyse your skillset
The Life Audit may have given you food for thought, but how do you move forward with changing anything?
Often, as women, we underestimate and undervalue the skills we have. By midlife, we have acquired a vast array of talents that we maybe don’t even think of as valuable. Many of these skills may help you to attain your goals.
For example. If you discovered that your financial situation is not as you would like, do you have a skill that you could turn into a side business to make extra cash? Do you have a skill that you could use at advance at work?
Ask yourself what skills do you have. Dig deep and list absolutely everything, even the more obscure. You never know what could be useful. {for example, “I’m a good listener” could translate into further training to become a councillor}
List out…
- Skills you have acquired at work? – ie Negotiating, Bookkeeping, Designing etc
- Hobbies/interest type skills – ie Quilting, bookbinding, designing jewellery etc
- Skills you have developed over the years ie Entertaining children, Making people feel at ease in stressful situations, Listening etc
Mark each skill out of 10 as to how much you enjoy doing it.
Does anything stand out to you as something that you would enjoy doing more of? Could you combine 2 skills to create a direction you would enjoy?
Start a Journal
I am such a huge advocate of journaling. Writing longhand in a journal allows you to work through your thoughts and unscramble your brain. It’s as if the act of getting the thoughts down on paper allows your brain to relax and gain clarity.
I’m not talking about the amazing and beautiful creative journals you see on Pinterest. The thought of creating something so beautiful can be a stress in itself and get in the way of the process.
Just get a nice notebook you will enjoy writing in and start. Don’t be too precious about it. It doesn’t have to look amazing. {In fact, my old tutor at art school used to throw coffee all over everyone’s sketchbooks to stop them becoming too precious about the end result}. It’s for your eyes only.
Write down things you are grateful for. Books you want to read. Places you want to visit. Dreams, thoughts, wishes. Use it as a place to download your brain…
Gradually the way will start to become clear, arising from the pages of your thoughts.
When you have worked through these steps then you are ready to ask yourself the strange question I promised. The one that will give you clarity in your journey and direction. The one that cuts through all the brain swirling and gets right to the heart of the matter in one fell swoop.
The one strange question that will help you find your life’s purpose…
Close your eyes and imagine you have just come out of your doctor’s office. You can smell the antiseptic smell and see the stark bright lighting…
You have just been told you have exactly 5 years to live. What would you do? How would you live your life?
Your immediate gut reaction will tell you everything you need to know about the direction you want to go in now.
Time to be brave. Time to step outside of your comfort zone and take the massive action you need to get yourself on the right track to where you want to go.
“If you feel lost, disappointed, hesitant, or weak, return to yourself, to who you are, here and now and when you get there, you will discover yourself, like a lotus flower in full bloom, even in a muddy pond, beautiful and strong.”
― Masaru Emoto, Secret Life of Water
PS. To find more clarity, download my inspirational E-Book for Free below
I love this, I went through a re-finding of myself this past year and still am, journaling has been a huge help for me too. It brings so much clarity. So has writing down my skills and what I enjoy. I’m going to have to pass this article on to some sisters in need!
Thank you again Helen x
Caroline
myhealthysoul.blog
I LOVE journalling. It really does help you to get everything clear in your mind so much. It’s definitely my go to tool.
Absolutely. Hope this post can help
Helen x