Midlife "Crisis" Is a Lie (Here's What's Actually Going On)

In this jam-packed episode, we’re replaying Day 1 of my 3-Day Live training: “The Real Reason High-Performing Women Worry They’re Having a Midlife Crisis.”

Midlife isn’t a crisis. But when you’re a high-achieving, badass woman who’s spent her life checking all the boxes, hitting every goal, and showing up for everyone else… it can feel like one.

Here’s the truth bomb: most of us weren’t taught how to ask the right questions in midlife—we were taught to just keep going. So we hit this point where we’ve built an impressive life… and suddenly find ourselves wondering:

• What’s next?
• Why doesn’t this feel better?
• Am I running out of time?
• What do I actually want now?

This episode is about waking up to that quiet “WTF is happening” voice in your head and realizing that you are not crazy, broken, or ungrateful. You’re just in the middle of the most powerful pivot of your life. And today, we’re naming it, normalizing it, and giving you tools to actually navigate it.

🧭 What You'll Learn

• Why high-performing women feel stuck in midlife—and why it’s not just hormones
• The dangerous pattern of overworking and overachieving as a coping mechanism
• How societal conditioning has set us up for this “crisis”
• The biggest mindset shift you need to avoid a full-on midlife meltdown
• Why doing nothing is actually the riskiest choice you can make right now

🎯 Who This Is For

This episode is for the high-performing midlife woman who:

• Has built a great life but still feels like something’s missing
• Is successful on the outside but craving more meaning and fulfillment
• Wonders if this is all there is—and feels guilty for even asking
• Knows it’s time for a reset, but doesn’t know where to start

Spoiler alert: You are not alone. And there’s nothing wrong with you. You’re just waking up.

🔥 Mentioned in This Episode

• The free 3-Day Live Series: How Women Are Creating Their Best Life in Midlife...and Skipping the Midlife Crisis
  If you haven’t signed up yet, what are you waiting for?! Join us LIVE for Days 2 and 3, and get the replays for any days you miss.
  👉 Sign Up Here!

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Transcript

Day 1 - Podcast

[00:00:00] 

Welcome to the School of Midlife podcast. I'm your host, Laurie Reynoldson.

This is the podcast for the midlife woman who starting to ask herself big life questions. Like, what do I want? Is it too late for me? And what's my legacy beyond my family and my work. Each week we're answering these questions and more. At the School of Midlife, we're learning all of the life lessons they didn't teach us in school and we're figuring out finally what it is we want to be when we grow up. Let's make midlife your best life. 

Well, hey friends, it's Laurie. Welcome back to another episode of The School of Midlife podcast. I am so excited to see you here today. I had been going back and forth on what we should talk about in this episode, and I couldn't shake the feeling that I should do something that is related [00:01:00] to. What we did last week for the day one live of the three day live sequence that I'm doing and, and you might remember from last week's episode that I mentioned that I am currently in the middle of a three day live program to help women figure out how to live their best life in midlife and beyond and skip the midlife crisis. Um, an hour a day. It's, it's really direct, straightforward, not a bunch of fluff, just really actionable ways that you can look at midlife and the midlife period. In the midlife transition and.

Figure out how to do it better, right? To to do it in a way that feels authentic to you with a lot of clarity so that you can skip the midlife crisis.

And last week was day one. What we talked about on day one was the real reason that high performing midlife women worry that they're having a midlife crisis. Of [00:02:00] course we all hear this idea of midlife crisis, and it's something probably that many of us. Worry about on some level, even if we don't, even if we don't verbalize it, even if we don't say it out loud.

But there's so much transition and change that we're experiencing in midlife that a lot of times we get to a point and it's like, oh, well this must be the midlife crisis that I keep hearing about. Anyway, so day one was last week. So many great reviews from the people who attended live, the people who watched the replay.

That I kept thinking, this is, this is a message that I probably should include in the podcast in some way. And so I thought, well, okay, I'm gonna rerecord it. And then I thought, no, that, that makes zero sense. Obviously, unless you're watching this on YouTube, if you're just listening to it, you're not gonna be able to see the slides.

But my hope is that just by listening to it, you are going to get the gist of it, [00:03:00] and I promise you it will change the way that you are thinking about your midlife transition. It, it will change the way that you are thinking about what it is that you are going through right now. If you want to join us for, there's still two more days.

In fact, the. Second day is the day that this episode drops. That's day two when we're gonna talk about how to redefine success in midlife and finally find authentic purpose after years of achieving. Right? So many high performing women. We are just so focused on all of the achievements. Well, I'm gonna walk you through a process, a way that you can redefine success in midlife so that you can finally feel.

Authentic and purpose driven without the achievement that, like I said, is today at the time that this episode drops. But if you sign up for it, you will get the replay, you'll get the replays of day one [00:04:00] and day two. And then day three, I'm coaching on the four simple steps to live your best life and midlife and beyond, and skip the midlife crisis.

So three day live completely free, but you do have to get signed up. I will drop a link for you to sign up in the comments. All you gotta do is click on that, reserve your seat, you'll receive all of the links to. Watch replays and to attend live, and I hope you do because this is, this is good stuff.

Most coaches aren't talking about midlife this way, and I think it's because most of them haven't

experienced it in the way that I have. What I mean by that is I've had two different careers in high stress, male dominated fields, so I know exactly what it is to be a woman in those fields and [00:05:00] constantly feel like the only way that you can be successful is to compete and achieve and drive and push and just keep going.

But just because you are being successful at work, that doesn't give you a pass to put your feet up and not be focused and present at home too. Because there are people at home, there are people outside of work who are relying on us to be at our best as well. So we've got this perfect.

Coming together in midlife of all of our work stressors, our personal life stressors. Couple that with all of the changes in our physical hormonal body. And it's a lot. And my hope for this three day live series is that you can. Find the clarity that you're looking for so that you can authentically feel that you [00:06:00] know what I am living my best life.

This three day Live will give you the tools and the information that you need to do that. So if you haven't already signed up, click the clickable link in the show notes

and I hope to see you live.

So with that background, here is the replay from day one of the three Day live. Um, enjoy.

I am so excited to be rolling out some brand new content today. In fact, I was, um, I've never taught this before. I have been thinking about doing something along these lines for a while. Um, but it has never been. Anything that I have pulled together in this way. So very excited to share this with you today as part of the three day live where we are talking about how women are creating their best lives in midlife and skipping the midlife crisis.

So let's get into it.

[00:07:00] Three days, day one. You are going to. So that's today we're gonna learn the real reason. High performing women worry that they're having a midlife crisis. And I know sometimes women get worried that maybe they're not high performing. Trust me, you are. If this, this is something that you are even thinking about if you have made it this far in life, whether that means that you know you got straight A's in school, or you were a solid C student, it doesn't matter.

High performing is you have done. All the things up until now, and you are crushing it at life, so don't worry about that. But today we're gonna talk about the real reason that women worry they're having a midlife crisis. April 1st. For our next live, we're gonna talk about how to redefine success in midlife, and finally find authentic purpose after years of achieving.

And then our final live day on April 3rd, we're gonna talk about the four simple steps to live your best life in midlife [00:08:00] and beyond, and skip the midlife crisis. And I will say just off the top here, so we can set expectations, I will be making an offer at the end of day three. So if you're somebody who gets a little prickly about listening to three hours of my best coaching content, but it doesn't feel comfortable for you that, that I will be making an offer at the end.

No problem. You can drop off now. You don't have to stay, but I do want to set that expectation so that you know that that is coming. All right, let's get into it. For those of you who don't know me, I am Laurie Reynoldson. I am the founder of the School of Midlife, where we give women the tools and information and mindset and hacks.

All of the things that they need to make midlife and beyond their very best life. I am a recovering attorney. We'll get into that a bit more as we head on, um, through the masterclass today. I have been married to my husband Mike, coming on 22 years, [00:09:00] and I am the luckiest dog mom to the bestest boy, Theo. I call Idaho home and I split my time between Boise and the resort town of Sun Valley.

I love cooking. Um, I love entertaining, I love hosting dinner parties. I am currently training for an endurance, hiking event. Um, I, I'm very mediocre mid-pack, but it's, it's, I, it's something I enjoy to get out and, and. Get moving. And so that's great. And I also love traveling, uh, particularly to European cities.

I love sipping skinny margaritas on Mexican beaches. So travel for me is a definite must. And one of those things that as when I think about my making my midlife best life, that travel is definitely included in that. So just a level set here, what we're gonna cover [00:10:00] today, we're gonna talk about why high performing women feel stuck in midlife.

Um, I know some people feel stuck, some people feel a little angsty, some feel uncomfortable. Some feel that whatever word you use, most of it revolves around this idea of stuckness, of what's next for me. We're gonna also talk about what's really going on in midlife, and I'm gonna tell you it's deeper than just hormones.

There's, there's a lot at play here, and it all comes together at midlife. And then we will also cover the number one shift that you have to make to reclaim your life and why doing nothing, just continue to doing, living the same way is probably the most dangerous choice that you can make. So today is all about awareness and we're, I'm gonna just let you know that we're gonna go a little deep.

Um, and my. Expectation is you will leave today seeing your midlife experience in a whole new way. So if you're ready to continue, let's [00:11:00] get started. First off, I want to start just make sure that you're in the right place. So if you can take out a sheet of paper, grab a pen, something to write on. It can be the notes app on your phone, but I, I need you to

be able to tally up some statements and whether they relate to you or not. Um, I like to do it by just doing chicken scratches on a tally. Um, but you take notes however it is that feels the most comfortable for you. For this quiz and, and I love quizzes 'cause I grew up with, you know, 17 magazine and then Age Didn't Into Cosmopolitan.

So I love this idea of feedback through quizzes. What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna read a statement and then I just want you to off the cuff, think to yourself, do I agree with this or do I disagree with it? So we're gonna do a couple of. Just sample questions so that you can get in the [00:12:00] motion, feel how it feels to just make a snap decision.

The sky is blue. So if I said the sky is blue, your first response would be, do you agree or do you disagree with that? If you agree with that, then you would add a little chicken scratch. Again, we're not doing it yet. Um, I don't want you to get into thinking, well, the sky is blue during the day, unless it's cloudy and then it's gray and at night it's black.

Do you see how there's some thinking that goes along with that? And that's not what we're going for today. It's just gut reaction. What do I think? Do I agree or disagree with that? If I said, summer is my favorite season, you either think, yes it is, or no it's not. And we don't have to get into, oh, well it's great if it's not too hot or too smoky.

Again, not, let's not overthink this. It's do what is your gut reaction? If I said, Donald Trump is the best US President, I'm not getting into politics here. I just want you to be able to make a quick [00:13:00] decision. And that one of all, the three is probably the most polarizing, so it's probably the one that you knew right away.

Do I agree with that or disagree with that? So with that. Basis. We're gonna move on to the actual questions. Okay? So I wanna know how many of these describe you. I've reached a point in my life where I feel like I've accomplished a lot, but I'm not sure what's next. If that, if you think that that describes you, I want you to, um, put a chicken scratch down, make a tally mark.

However it is you're keeping track, but right now you have a one. I feel like something is missing in my life, even though I have a good career, family and friends, I've achieved a lot in my career, but now I'm craving a deeper sense of purpose and meaning. I wanna figure out what makes me truly happy and fulfilled at this stage in my life.

Again, agree, [00:14:00] disagree. Does, does this describe you? If it does, mark it down. I want to live my best. I, I wanna live my life based on what feels right for me, not the expectations of others. I've built a great life, but I still feel like something is missing

despite all I've accomplished. I find myself wondering if this is all there is. Moving on. I feel like I've reached a plateau in my career and I'm looking for new challenges that excite me.

I'm open to exploring how my current career or lifestyle may need to change in order for me to live more authentically. I constantly feel like I need to learn one more thing. Chase one more achievement, earn one more accolade to make my life feel complete.[00:15:00] 

I want my next career move to be based on joy and alignment, not just ambition.

I daydream about being retired all the time, even if I don't know what I do in retirement.

I want to leave behind the pressure of shoulds and start living in alignment with what I actually want. I have a tendency to put my, to put others first, but I'm ready to prioritize my own goals and aspirations. I constantly feel like I need to learn one more thing, chase one more achievement, earn one more accolade to make my life feel complete.

I worry about what others will think of me if I do something different.

I feel a strong desire to connect with like-minded women who are also figuring out what's next for them. I'm tired of living by someone [00:16:00] else's definition of success. I wanna stop asking for permission to want what I want. Couple more. I want to build a life that's truly satisfying, not just busy or productive.

I wanna create a plan that reflects my current desires, not just what I thought I wanted years ago. I'm ready to take intentional steps to redefine success on my own terms.

I'm ready to make room for new experiences, even if it means stepping outside of my comfort zone. I'm curious what life could look like if I designed it intentionally with no apologies. I wanna stop going through the motions and start living with intention. I see that, um, someone just joined us. What we are going through right now is we [00:17:00] are keeping track of how many of these statements.

Resonate with how we're feeling right now. So if these statements resonate with you, I want you to just make a quick mark about it, a little chicken scratch, tallied up, and we will keep going.

Since I turned 40, I can't shake the feeling that I'm running out of time. I've experienced major life transitions, and now I want to intentionally shape my future rather than just let it happen to me. I feel overwhelmed by the number of options I have for what's next, and I need a clear framework to help me decide I'm healthy and active, but I'm also aware that time is passing and I want to make it count.

I don't wanna waste another year feeling stuck. I

have a clear vision of what I want my life to look like in 5, 10, 20 years. [00:18:00] I want to set clear actionable goals that align with my values and passions. I'm committed to taking the time and space to focus on myself and explore what's next. Even if that makes means making some tough decisions. I wanna find clarity around what truly brings me joy and how to incorporate more of it into my daily life.

I am ready to create a plan that leads to a more joyful, satisfying, and meaningful life in midlife and beyond. So I want you to tally up the number of statements that resonated with you, and will you drop your number in the chat for me?

And while you're telling up your your numbers, I will just say that if you had at least five of those that resonated with you, you are in exactly the right place. When we start talking about how [00:19:00] many of those statements did resonate with you. If you are between zero and five points, then you're just kind of thinking about it.

You know, you, you're ready to, something's not quite right. You've, you've kind of got that itch. This is, I will tell you, it's kind of the quiet before the clarity. It's the, it's the part where we start thinking, you know what? I feel like maybe something is. I, I need to do something different. Something more, six to 10 points.

You want more, but you're still trying to feel okay about wanting that. So you're successful, busy, deeply aware that something is missing, but you keep talking yourself out of something, wanting something more. 'cause you're like. I've got it pretty good. I'll just stay the course. 11 to 15 points. You've, you, you may have outgrown your life.

You know, you've done the career, you've raised the family, you've built the life, and now it just doesn't feel like it fits anymore. You know, you're meant for more. You just don't know what that is yet. 16 to 20 points. You are done waiting. You've been [00:20:00] marinating on this question of what's next for a while.

You're ready to let go of what's not serving you. You're ready for the tools, the strategy and accountability to create something new. And if you're more than 21 points, well, you're definitely ready for what's next. You're ready to step into that next version of you. You probably have already, you're, you're ready to make some moves in that directions and you're not afraid of work, but you are wise enough to know that.

You need some help, right? You need a map, you need a guide. It's time to focus on you. So we might as well start doing that right now so the question is, why does this all hit in midlife? Why do we start asking ourselves those questions? Uh, if you're anything like me, it's usually at about two o'clock in the morning when I wake up and I can't get back to sleep.

And my, my brain is just going crazy. So why is this coming at us in midlife? I believe that there are two reasons that this happens. One is conditioning [00:21:00] and social programming, and we'll get into that. And the other is what I wanna call the unique female experience. So let's see how this plays out.

What do I mean by conditioning and societal programming? Women are expected to take care of everyone and everything, right? We take care of the family. We take care of the home. That means raising up kids. We also find ourselves taking care of aging and ailing parents. We get the groceries, we get the dinners, we, we do the Amazon orders, we take care of the doctor's appointments, the travel arrangements.

This is all in addition to our work responsibilities. So we are doing the thing, we're keeping the boat afloat for everyone else, and we're doing that because we're raised to believe that focusing on ourselves is selfish. Because we were taught that many by the, what we saw our mothers doing, our grandmothers doing the other women in our lives.

But we see women sacrificing themselves for their [00:22:00] families all the time. And, and we, we were taught that it's, they're doing it for the good of the family and. Even take that one step further. What the implication is, is that when women focus on their selves, they're being selfish. They're being self-absorbed.

So early on we get this picture for women that it's all about how we show up for others, and we learned it at home and school and church, girl scouts, literally everywhere we went. Let me know if any of this is resonating with you. The other thing that's really interesting is women are are taught to associate our worth with achievement.

Here's what I mean by that. We earn good grades. Let's go out and celebrate at dinner, we win the game. There's a pizza party. We book the role in the school play, and we get a standing ovation at the end. Somebody brings us flowers, so we start learning. On some level that if we achieve, [00:23:00] then that's gonna get us noticed at school.

It's gonna get us noticed at home, which means on a subconscious level, we start equating our value and worth to achievement and success. The other reason that this starts hitting in midlife is. A woman's midlife crisis, and we're just gonna call it midlife crisis. I'll explain to you what I think about a midlife crisis as we go on, but that is an inside job.

It's very different than when men go through the midlife transition, right? They get a sports car, they dye their hair, they might have an affair. They start hitting the gym. It's, it's very outward. You can see what's going on. For women though, it's different. We keep, it's an inside job because we keep everything just bottled up inside, which means we start asking ourselves these questions usually at two o'clock in the morning.

And we feel guilty for asking them because we [00:24:00] have, we're in such a better position than so many other people. And then we feel a little shame too, because we want more. And who are we to want for more when we already have so much so, whereas for men, it's a very external transition. For women, it's very internal.

And then we're gonna couple that with the fact that our bodies are changing, right? So we no longer feel like ourselves and all of this, all of these internal questions. Then they, they collide with all of the hormonal shifts. So we literally feel different. We're not sleeping well. We're experiencing brain fog, weight gain, hot flashes. At least it's not our mother's menopausal experience because no one talked about it. I mean, at least we're starting to have these conversations, which is great. That helps normalize the experience. But like for me, I can't even meet my girlfriends for wine night [00:25:00] anymore because if I go and have a couple of glasses of wine, that means a two day headache, night sweats, terrible sleep.

So my one outlet, it's like, I don't even have that anymore.

Which just perpetuates this idea that, you know what? I feel like maybe something's wrong with me. And we are asking on the inside these questions, like, I, I have everything I always thought I ever wanted. Now what am I gonna do? I'm at the pinnacle of my career. Where do I go from here? I have the job in the house and the kids, and the 401k.

What is next for me? The kids have graduated, they've moved out. I'm feeling a little lost because who am I without being a mom? Not that I'm not gonna be a mom, but it's not what I have to do day in and day out anymore. So what do I do now? It feels like I'm just going through the motions in my marriage.

Can I get the spark back? Is it time to [00:26:00] move on? It just feels like something is missing in my life, but I don't know what it is. Why can't I just be happy with everything I have? What is wrong with me? I think all of this hits in midlife, the conditioning, the inside job. It's because all of these life shifts, they're, they're happening all at once.

They're colliding all at once. So we become empty nesters. We are working with aging and, and ailing parents we are in that sandwich generation, right? Most of us have worked our way up the, the career ladder. So we're at the top of our career. Most of our motivation in career has been the constant growing, achieving promotions, climbing the ladder, but we're already at the top.

So what do we do now? We've, we're, by and large, many of us are facing marital changes, which is, wow. We've been married a long time and I, I've grown in one [00:27:00] direction. He's grown in the other. We, we haven't, we've spent so much time raising small humans that it's like we forgot who we were. And with these changes, right, we've gotta change to our primary roles, which are mom and daughter.

That's going on. We've the, we've got a hit to our primary identity because our identity is tied so much to our career. And even if you, I have just been a stay at home mom and I, I don't mean just like flippantly, but that when your kids leave, your primary identity is a stay at home mom.

That changes too. Your, one of your most important relationships is your marriage. So we've got changing in these primary roles, our identity, our relationships, and that all leads us to question, who am I? And beyond that, there's something [00:28:00] about midlife where you start feeling like I'm running out of time.

How? How am I going to do all the things I wanna do in my life? I'm running out of time. Is it too late for me? I have figured out the midlife experience, the transition, all the things that we're talking about, not only because I have coached hundreds of midlife women, but because I've been there myself.

I was on the verge of joining the partnership of a large super regional firm, and this is literally the job that I've been, I had worked my entire career for, I was a commercial real estate attorney for 20 years. During that time, I had been, I'd owned my own firm. I had worked in corporate law. I. Um, was a partner in a small boutique firm, but this was the cherry on top the thing that I had worked my entire career for, and that was to be a partner in a big [00:29:00] firm.

And I. One of the very last things that you do before joining a partnership is you go to a partnership admission interview, and I, I swear they, they know so much about you at that point. I think they just wanna make sure that you can speak a simple sentence, and here I am at my partnership admission.

Interview and it's exactly how you would imagine it is. In a corner conference room, in a high rise building in a big city floor to ceiling windows, big mahogany table in the middle, 16 of those high Leatherback chairs around it, 15 partners and me, and at. The end of the interview, they asked me the question that it, it literally has changed everything for me.

And that was, how will your job change if you are lucky enough to be invited to join the partnership? [00:30:00] And I'm a verbal processor, so I, I was a, I was thinking to myself as I was explaining to them, my job isn't gonna change that much. I already mentor new associates. I'm already working as a partner. I am, I'm leading your real estate section for the, the Boise office.

So really the only things that are gonna change are my title I'm gonna go from of counsel, which just means I'm a senior attorney, um, who isn't a partner. So I'll go from of council to partner, which is gonna make it easier to bring in money and, and clients because everyone wants to work with a partner.

And the way I'm compensated is gonna change and I'd be making more money. Those were the only two changes and I thought about it for weeks after that. How was, how did I want this job that I thought I had worked my entire life for? How did I want it if the only two things that were gonna [00:31:00] change for me.

Were my job title and how I was compensated by all outward appearances, I had the perfect life, right? I was, I was great. Career award-winning career. I. Handsome husband, nice cars. We had a, beautiful home. We had a, a vacation home in a resort town. I had a bunch of stamps on my passport, so from the outside, everything looked great On the inside, though, I was ready to press the restart button on my entire life because I had everything that I thought I had always wanted.

All those things by by if. If we're gonna look at a success checklist, I had it and I was happy, but I wasn't fulfilled, and it didn't matter how hard I worked or how impressive my achievements were, it felt like it [00:32:00] was never enough. Like I could never get to the point of really feeling successful or really feeling fulfilled.

And the more I researched, the more I realized that it wasn't just me as high performing women. Most of us have followed the adulting checklist. You can call it the good girl checklist. You can call it the success checklist, whatever you wanna call it. But we had followed it to a T. It looked something like, go to school, get a job, buy a house, get married, raise a family.

Check, check, check, check, check, right? We've done all those things. So then the question becomes, if we've done everything that we're supposed to do, why don't we feel like we expected to feel? I don't know about you, but I kind of felt like, okay, I'm willing to put in the work here. I'm willing to work my ass off with this idea that I get to midlife and it's this [00:33:00] cherry it, like everything that I've ever worked for, I will finally feel a different way when I get there.

I didn't

as midlife women. Most of us, we just keep repeating the same patterns that lead to the overwork and the overwhelm, but do not actually get us any closer to the fulfillment and the satisfaction that we're looking for. We are raised to believe that women can have it all. Do you remember that? Enjoli commercial, I can bring home the bacon, fry it up in the pan, and never let you forget.

You're a man, right? It's this super woman idea of what we can do as women. Women can have it all. But for most of us, we took that as a challenge and we, instead of thinking we can have it all, we thought it, we must do it all. Which means we became a generation of box checkers and people pleasers and achievement [00:34:00] junkies.

And what's really interesting is we're all arriving in midlife with the, with virtually the same experience regardless of where you live and what your career is. And we're, we're wondering is there something more? But in the meantime, we're also worried that we're having a midlife crisis. It's almost as if we believe that if we just worked harder or did more or chase bigger goals, then we will finally feel how we expect to feel in midlife.

We'll finally feel satisfied. We'll finally feel fulfilled. We'll finally feel happy. These words are the most common words that my coaching clients use to explain. What it is they are searching for in midlife. Which of these resonates the most with you? 

One of the biggest mistakes that high [00:35:00] performing women make is we're trying to figure out how to make the second half of our lives happier. More fulfilling. We keep repeating the same patterns of overwork and overwhelm. We keep adding more to our to-do list. We're filling our plates with all the things for all the other people in our lives, whether that's family, work, friends, community, but we keep hitting the same roadblocks and plateaus, don't we?

We tend to receive another accolade or hit another career milestone or achieve the next big thing and celebrate for a hot minute. Then we're onto the next. It's this constant cycle of state, a bigger, better goal, work damn hard to achieve it, actually achieve it, and then immediately move on to something bigger and better.

Why do we do that? It's because we expect to feel a certain way when we reach whatever goal or milestone we're working [00:36:00] on. It's that it, it goes back to when we were young and we tied achievement and success to being seen. So we're trying to fill a feeling that we don't fill. Feel. It's a lot of fills to fill a spot in our heart, in our, in our body, in our mind that we can't by achieving.

So. When we don't feel the way we thought we would feel, then it's just this constant, we need to do more. It's always, always, always more,

But think about it this way, if this secret to success was working harder and doing more, wouldn't we already be living the life we always wanted? Like we wouldn't be thinking. I can do the things I wanna do someday, we would already be having [00:37:00] them because we are, we're hard workers. We, we are not a stranger to hard work.

We, we will roll up our sleeves and put in the time and the effort. So if the secret was working harder, doing more, we'd already have the life that we wanted right now. That could look like the next promotion or the next company. Uh, maybe, maybe we try and do that by earning more degrees or more credentials.

We think we're gonna feel differently after we lose the last 15 pounds or once the kids are grown or after we retire. But the truth is most of us are living our lives on autopilot. What I mean by that is we're going to the same job. We're doing the same work, we're eating at the same restaurants. We're binging the same TV shows we're having, or not having the same sex.

We're letting the same thing slide. So we get back to this whole [00:38:00] idea that we're worried about midlife being a crisis. You might remember this slide with the emptiness, the aging parent, the career questions, the material questions, the primary roles, the primary identity, the important relationship on our life.

So. The midlife equation to me, the reason why I believe we think we're having a midlife crisis is we take those identity shifts and our physical changes, right? Because we've got all the hormone menopause, perimenopause stuff going on, and we're gonna take those identity shifts and the physical changes, and we're gonna multiply that by time because we feel like we're running out of it, and then we feel like we're having a midlife crisis.

Which begs the question, is midlife really a crisis? The word crisis means a period of intense difficulty, trouble, or danger. There are ways that we can change the term [00:39:00] crisis. We can reframe the experience to something like more like an opportunity, which is a set of circumstances that makes it possible to do something.

A turning point, a point in an action or a situation where an important change occurs. I mean, I feel like that definitely explains or describes midlife, a sweet spot, an optimum point, or combination of factors or qualities. Midlife could also be a reset, and that just means to set again differently, to do something different.

Or an inflection point, a time of significant change in a situation, a turning point for me, I feel like midlife should be looked at, not as a crisis, but as an opportunity or a turning point. Those are the ones that I resonate the most with. I, but I will say that, you know, I've studied midlife experience for years.

I've coached hundreds of high performing women through it, and I don't believe that [00:40:00] midlife is a crisis per se. But it can become a crisis, just going back to the definition, a period of intense difficulty or trouble if we don't figure out things for ourselves. So it's almost like a warning when we start thinking, is this a midlife crisis?

That should be a warning to us that if we don't change up, do things differently. Then we may actually fall. We, we might find ourselves in the middle of a crisis, and that's because our life cycle up to now, we went back to the conditioning that we talked about in the, in the beginning. That has led to achievement, which has led to burnout.

Which has led to doing it all again and expecting a different result. So what that looks like, if we keep that same exact lifecycle, conditioning, achievement, burnout, repeat, we don't do [00:41:00] anything different, then I promise you, I almost guarantee that you are going to find yourself in a midlife crisis, and I don't want that for you.

 In addition to saying that midlife is only a crisis and it's all downhill from here, I think you can live your life, your best life in midlife and beyond. So midlife being a crisis, it's all downhill from here. I think that's a lie that society keeps feeding to high performing women. I also think that there is a better way. 

I believe that life you want is not on the other side of another checklist or to-do list. Like you don't have to keep doing. You don't have to keep searching for more. You just have to figure out what you want. And I know that that's sounds and simple, but the truth is knowing what you genuinely want in your life is the [00:42:00] only way.

That you can create and live your best life and skip the midlife crisis. It's the only way for you to get the satisfaction and fulfillment and happiness that you are looking for. It's the only way when I'm talking about what you genuinely want. So if we go back to that, knowing what you genuinely want in your life is the only way to create and live your best life.

When I talk about what you genuinely want, I'm not talking about what our parents told us to want, because a lot of us got a lot of messages from our parents growing up. They told us what we should want. In fact, a lot of us went into careers because we thought we were doing what our parents wanted us to do, so.

Not that what you genuinely want also does not mean what society tells you to want. So if you are spending a lot of time scrolling, social media and an influencer tells you that this is what you need to make your best life, your best [00:43:00] life, and at some product, yeah, I mean, maybe it'll make you feel better for a couple of hours or a couple of days, but it doesn't really get to the root problem, which is you gotta figure out what you want.

And it's certainly not what we've been conditioned to want. We've, we've talked about that a lot, that there is so much programming and conditioning that we have received our entire lives, that it's, it's really difficult for most of us to actually weed through the noise, to figure out what is it that I genuinely want?

Let's approach it this other way. The only way to live your best life is to get crystal clear on what you actually want. Once you do that, you can live with more purpose, greater impact, enjoy stronger and deeper relationships, and finally, experience that fulfillment and satisfaction that you've been chasing.

How [00:44:00] does that sound? That sounds kind of like making midlife your best life, doesn't it? And certainly skipping the midlife crisis. We worry about midlife crisis because of these primary struggles. We don't know what we want. We don't know what success means to us, and we don't know where we're heading. So now that we know that the only way to live your best life is to know what it is you actually want, you're probably wondering, well, how do we do that?

How do we figure this out for ourselves? And that's exactly what we're gonna do in the next training. So on April 1st, we are going to talk about how to redefine success in midlife and finally, find authentic purpose after years of achieving. We're gonna go through those three foundational questions. You're not gonna wanna miss it.

It, it just adds to what we have talked about today. 

Thank you so much for listening to the School of Midlife podcast. It means so much to have you here each week. [00:45:00] If you enjoyed this episode, could you do me the biggest favor and help us spread the word to other midlife women? There are a couple of easy ways for you to do that first. And most importantly, if you're not already following the show, would you please subscribe? That helps you because you'll never miss an episode. And it helps us because you'll never miss an episode. Second, if you'd be so kind to leave us a five-star rating, that would be absolutely incredible. And finally, I personally read each and every one of your reviews. 

So if you take a minute and say some nice things about the podcast, well, that's just good karma. Thanks again for listening. I'll see you right back here. Next week when the School of Midlife is back in session until then take good care.