School of Midlife

115. The "Me First" Movement: The Revolution for Midlife Women

• Laurie Reynoldson • Episode 115

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Welcome to the revolution you didn’t know you were waiting for — the Me First Movement.

In this episode, Laurie picks up where last week’s conversation left off — that uncomfortable place where high-achieving midlife women feel guilty for wanting more. She’s pulling no punches as she walks you through why prioritizing yourself isn’t selfish — it’s strategic, sustainable, and frankly, long overdue.

You’ll hear why “Me First” is not “Me Only,” how women are conditioned to be last on their own to-do lists, and how shifting into Me First mode can radically improve your relationships, your leadership, and your life.

From martyrdom to modeling what’s possible — this is your permission slip to finally take up space, own your desires, and stop waiting for some mythical “right time.” (Spoiler alert: it’s now.)

💡 What You’ll Learn:

  • Why midlife women struggle with putting themselves first (hint: it’s not your fault — it’s your conditioning)
  • The power of reframing "Me First" as a movement, not a mindset
  • How prioritizing your needs transforms your family, friendships, and leadership
  • Why waiting for the “right time” is the biggest risk of all
  • How to start your Me First movement this week with two simple, bold actions

✍️ Journal Prompt:

“Where have I been putting myself last — and what would shift if I made myself a priority?”


🛠️ Resources & Links:

🧭 Want More Support?

Check out the School of Midlife programs, retreats, and coaching options at www.schoolofmidlife.com.


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[00:00:00] First it was Me Too. Then it was Time's Up. Now it's time for Me First, because if you're a high achieving woman in midlife who's been told your needs can wait, I've got news for you. They cannot. Me First isn't selfish. It's strategic. It's not indulgent. It's intelligent. It's not revolutionary because it's new.

It's revolutionary because we've finally stopped apologizing for it.

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 [00:01:00] make midlife your best life. 

Well, hey friends. Welcome back to another episode of The School of Midlife podcast. I am your host, Laurie Reynoldson, and I am thrilled to have you here today. Hope you're having a great week. Uh, in the US Mother's Day was yesterday. I know that that always brings up some potentially complicated feelings and emotions.

I wrote a very long piece about that in my Sunday newsletter called The Middle. Uh, that dropped yesterday. If you are not on that list, you should absolutely get yourself on that list because there was a lot of conversation about it. Uh, a ton actually. A ton of conversation. So, uh, clickable link in the show notes to get yourself on the newsletter list.

Anyway, hopefully you have recovered from the Mother's Day hangover, and today we are going to talk about the Me First movement. Uh, before we dive in though, I wanna say if you haven't [00:02:00] listened to last week's episode, you should probably go cue that one up next. In last week's episode, I talked about a couple of takeaways from some recent coaching I did at a corporate women's retreat.

Side note, yes, I do speak and lead workshops at conferences and retreats, obviously to female focused industry groups, company groups, practice groups. Think your favorite national industry groups or your, your national company brings together all of the women together for, uh, day or a couple of days of education and networking.

I totally do that. I would love to do more of it. So if you have an event. Or retreat or a conference coming up and you're looking for speakers or workshop leaders, Send me an email there. There's actually a form on my website, but it's probably easier if you just shoot me an email and let's talk about what you're looking for.

I, I'd love to, um, see if we are a good fit. But anyway, back to last week's episode. It was a two-parter. The first part was about figuring out how close you are [00:03:00] to living your best life, and some of you were way closer than you might already think. And the second part was about. Feeling guilty for wanting more, especially when you already have so much.

If you haven't already listened to last week's episode, like I said, go queue that one up. Listen to it next. In fact, I'll drop a clickable link in the show notes, so all you have to do is check on it and you can listen to it. The reason why I think you'd get a lot of out of last week's episode if you haven't listened to it is because today's episode is in many ways.

The next chapter of that conversation, it a follow on episode, if you will. Last week in the second part, we talked about how guilt shows up when you are the woman who's done everything right? You've checked all the boxes, you've, you're surrounded by privilege and blessings. You've got this incredible life, and yet deep down you still feel this hunger for something more, but.

You also feel guilty about it, right? You want [00:04:00] a little bit more freedom. You want a little bit more joy. You want a little bit more space just to be you and how do you work through the guilt associated with wanting more when you already have more than a lot of other people, like you should just be grateful for the life that you are living now.

Any of you feel like that? Like everything is great. I have a fantastic life. I kind of want a little bit more though, and I feel a little guilty about that. So this week we're actually building on that because once you admit to yourself that you want more, the next question is, will you actually allow yourself to have it?

Will you actually give yourself the opportunity to have more? 

That's what we're talking about today in this episode. I call it the Me First movement. Obviously you've heard of the Me Too movement. You've seen the Lean In Movement. I personally, I had a visceral reaction to that book when I read it. I [00:05:00] don't think that we've talked about that here before.

I'm gonna actually make a note. To talk about that on a future episode. So, um, get ready for the, a future Lean in episode, but we've got Me Too. We've got Lean In. Maybe you've even toyed with the Quiet Quitting or the Soft Life movement. Those are movements too. But now, now I think it's time for something new, something bold.

Something a little more personal. And drum roll please. Yes, that's me banging on the desk. Introducing the Me First movement, not me, instead of you. Not me. Above all. But me finally, the Me First movement because after years, decades, even of playing a supportive role in your life, uh, even really when you were [00:06:00] running the whole damn show, it's time to stop putting yourself last like everyone else eats first, and you get to survive on the scraps.

It's time to stop being the last name on your own to-do list. Anybody understand that it's time to stop waiting for permission or for this idea of the right time to want more. 

What we're gonna talk about in this episode, this is for the woman who has spent her life holding it all together and knows deep down that she's overdue for her own breakthrough.

But let's get real for a second. This does not come naturally, right? Not because we're broken or we're lazy, or we lack discipline, but because we've been trained to not put ourselves first. I've got one word for you. Conditioning. Yeah. We've talked a lot about conditioning in the past, but let's just talk about it a little bit more because from day one.

We were taught to be nice and [00:07:00] be kind, and be helpful, and be accommodating. All great things, all great things. But what we actually learned by being kind and nice and, and helpful, and accommodating. We learned to be small. We learned to be selfless. We learned to not take up too much space. Don't be loud.

Use your inside voice, but that also meant we learned to be

deferential. We learned to keep our divisive or strong opinions to ourselves. 'cause we didn't wanna make other people uncomfortable. We didn't wanna rock the boat. Right? But with all of this conditioning, this decades of conditioning, then we add midlife into the mix and it's almost like the conditioning goes to the next level, like conditioning on steroids because we've always been the default caregiver for.

, our grown but still needy kids. We're [00:08:00] squarely in our sandwich generation, right? We're squarely within the sandwich era because we've got our, our grown kids who need our help and we're also caring for our aging parents. And side note, no one talks about how parenting someone else's kids, AKA, your parents kids, that somebody else raised up.

That is so much tougher than raising your own kids, right? I mean, they've got different standards and boundaries and experiences and anyway, we've, we've been the default caregiver and then of course we're taking care of our colleagues at work. We're helping them to, you know, we're mentoring them to succeed in their own careers.

We're given our tenure and our years of experience we're oftentimes the lead on projects and initiatives. So we're trying to keep everything moving along at work too, in addition to all of the things that we're doing at at home. 

And even our friends need caregiving as they continue to move through big life changes of their [00:09:00] own.

So divorce or loss of a loved one, or even maybe a bad diagnosis or they're struggling with their kids or you, you know what I'm talking about. You are the default caregiver for home work friends. It's a lot, right? What that means is, is you've essentially become the default shock absorber for everybody.

Like you can handle it, you can take care of it,

which leads to this unspoken truth that if I put myself first. Everything else will fall apart because who will do the thing if I don't do it? And some of us have been burned by that before, right? We delegate, we let go. We hand off something to someone important who assures us they can handle it. And then what happens?

It turns to shit. It's a complete failure. It doesn't go as planned, which then [00:10:00] underscores and reinforces this idea that if I need something done, I've gotta fucking do it myself. Can anybody relate to what I'm talking about? Right? So yeah, we, this idea of putting ourselves first, it feels foreign. It might even feel wrong.

It, it makes us maybe feel a little guilty, but. That's not your intuition talking, that's your programming. That's, that's conditioning. 

And before we move on, I wanna pause here and clear something up because I can already hear you, some of you out there saying, yeah, but Laurie if I put Me First, doesn't that mean I'm putting everyone else last?

Bless, bless her heart. No. Not even close. Not absolutely not, because let's. L, let's get this straight. Me First is not me. Only let's all say that again, right? Me [00:11:00] First is not me only. This movement that I'm talking about, this Me First movement. It's not about the pendulum swinging from selflessness to selfishness.

It's about balance. It's about intention, it's about truth, because here's what we've been taught. That we either give everything to others or we become some cold, self-absorbed monster who only thinks about herself. I know some of us might have some voices that we hear when those words are said.

Yeah, you, you're so selfish. You only think about yourself. Um, might be a parent. It is in My, certainly is in my house, but that's not reality though. That's just more conditioning. That's the patriarchy and the people pleasing, rearing their ugly heads. Again, what we're actually doing here though is choosing to include ourselves in the grand scheme of things.

In, in [00:12:00] the equation. It is time to stop making our dreams optional. It's time to stop putting our needs at the bottom of the damn grocery list and the damn to-do list and all the damn lists. Can I get an amen on a Tuesday? And here's the radical part. When you put yourself first, you're, you're not neglecting others.

And I know that that sounds counterintuitive, but. Instead of neglecting them, you're actually giving them your best, not your best leftovers, but your actual best because you show up differently. You show up to your relationships with more energy and more presence and a and hell of a lot less resentment.

You lead by example. You are intentionally leading by example, not by default or depletion. You teach your daughters, your friends, your parents, your [00:13:00] coworkers, that it's safe to prioritize yourself, that you don't have to disappear to be worthy of love or respect or success. So let's, let's, I want you to hear this one more time before we move on, before we really get into it.

That Me First is not me only, it's me finally. Included, I finally have a seat at the table. I'm, I'm finally enough I can finally focus on myself.

So here's the truth bomb that most of us have never heard. When you prioritize yourself, everyone around you, when you are rested. And nourished and fulfilled, you actually show up differently.

You show up as your most vibrant, generous self. On the other hand, when you're depleted. Or resentful or [00:14:00] bone ass tired, that energy leaks into everything. I know you think that you can put on this game face and no one will know. Trust me, they see right through it and, and you don't feel good about it either because you have given, maybe you've said yes to something and the time comes around and it's time to do the thing that you said yes to, and you completely resent having that obligation.

When you start thinking about yourself first, instead of moving through life with resentfulness, feeling resentment or depleted or completely exhausted, you start showing up as your best self. So let's stop glamorizing the martyrdom. Let's stop feeling like.

Using up all of our resources for other people is the only way that we can live and be our best selves, because that that's not true. Absolutely [00:15:00] not. 

Putting yourself first doesn't mean you're abandoning your people. It means you're showing up for them as a whole. As the best version of you. I know we've all heard the idea that you can't pour from an empty cup, but for most of us, for a lot of us, for many women in midlife, we're out there trying to serve multi-course meals from a teeny tiny little teacup that's got a, it's got a crack in it.

Enough of that, right? 

Enough of that. 

Let's talk about what really happens when you shift into the Me First mode. What this could look like in your family, your kids see a version of womanhood that doesn't involve burnout. As a badge of honor. your kids learn boundaries and balance and resilience and discernment from watching you do what you [00:16:00] do.

Your daughters learn that women aren't just there to do all of the things for everyone around them. They understand that women need time to pursue their own passions and chase their own dreams. They need downtime for physical and mental wellbeing. They learn to advocate for themselves, to speak up for themselves in future relationships and partnerships. That sounds pretty great, doesn't it? 

And your sons, they learn the same things too. And in doing so, you are creating better spouses and partners for whomever they end up partnering with. They learn that it's not the woman's job at home to keep the family and the house afloat, that it's a partnership that they have to show up to because they need to be supportive of the dreams and the pursuits of the women in their lives.

Speaking of growing up young men to be great partners, think about the relationship with your own [00:17:00] partner, with your own, with your own spouse. You can model a true equitable relationship. Not one where you are silently resentful. Not one where you know that you are carrying the weight of all of the household stuff, almost squarely on your own shoulders, but you can show up in a way that you are showing up for yourself, you're speaking up for yourself, and you're getting rid of that.

I gotta carry all of this by myself. Right. You're actually dividing the labor together. You're running the household together. Just think about that. How would that feel for you to show up for your family in those ways to model excellent action for your kids to model beautiful partnership for them?

 Think about what this Me First movement could look like in your friendships and your [00:18:00] community. When you model what it looks like to rest and to dream and to chase joy, and you do it unapologetically, you model what's possible. You become a living permission slip and, and hear me here, I don't mean that you have to be the one who has to go first, but someone does.

You don't have to be the one who does all of the things. We're not doing that anymore, but we are going first to model this idea of what is possible when we are true to ourselves, when we step into our best life, when we intentionally, authentically and we live it in alignment with our best self, you become the friend who took a sabbatical.

You become the friend who took a gap year. You become the friend who started painting again because she needed a new way to express how she was feeling and relax. [00:19:00] And you might be the friend who quit her soul sucking job or quit the relationships that were no longer serving you.

You are the one who set some healthy boundaries. You become this role model for what is possible. 

I, I get so excited about the ripple effects of the Me First movement. Can you even, uh, think about that? Can you imagine them in your own life? How, how you showing up differently at home and with your friends and in your community, how that could just

impact everyone and I, and I know that everyone sounds like a lot, but like you could literally change the world just by starting to do things for you. I know that sounds dramatic, but it's true. I mean, that's the whole like one pebble, it's the small spark. It's that ripple effect and. I mean, let's think about it.

High [00:20:00] achieving midlife women. We are change makers, right? We're system challengers. We're culture shapers, we're legacy builders. So ripple effect, yeah, we got that dialed in. We do that all the time. We are making big dents in this universe, in the world that we live in. So. Wouldn't it be better if those big dents didn't come at the expense of our own personal health and wellbeing?

I think so. I mean, what happens when we start putting ourselves first? Then we stop asking, what do I have to give up? We start asking what becomes possible. That's when we inspire collective change. This is legacy level shit here, y'all. This isn't just lead by example. This is creating a better place for you to live, for you, your [00:21:00] family, your community, for everyone.

The real risk in your life is waiting . Waiting for the future. Waiting for the right time, waiting for some day, waiting until the time is perfect. It's the real risk is waiting and this is where it gets serious. This is serious because many of the women I coach, many of the women I work with.

Many of you out there listening to this podcast, you know you're not living into your full truth. You know you're not done yet. You know that there is something more out there for you, but you're waiting. You're patiently waiting. You're waiting for the kids to leave the house. You're waiting for your partner to change.

You are waiting for work to calm down. You're waiting for the right time or the perfect time, or someday. Hear me someday it's a seductive lie. We've talked about this on the [00:22:00] podcast before a lot, that there is no right time. There's no perfect time. There is nothing about someday that magically shows up with a sign that says, Hey, it's someday.

The time is now. If you've been waiting for a sign, this is it. That doesn't happen. You know it, and I know it. It doesn't happen. I will tell you though, the longer you wait, the more you teach your brain that your needs are negotiable, that everyone else's needs are more important to yours,

and it's time we stop doing that because midlife isn't a holding pattern. It's, it's our opportunity to actually launch into the second half of our life and live it in a way that is more intentional and more authentic and more aligned than we lived the first half. Now, we're not gonna throw everything away and start over.

Absolutely not. We have decades of incredible experience. We just have to work on the conditioning and the programming a little bit. [00:23:00] We just, we have to take the skills that we've learned. Apply them to some new programming and some new conditioning, and which will help us stop saying, if not now, when? Because we, we've talked about it before.

 We get one shot at this life. None of us know how long we have, right? We can't keep waiting until the time is right or someday, or the time is perfect. The kids are gone. I've retired. What, whatever your excuse is for putting off what it is that you really wanna do, what it is that you actually want in life, what it is that is, it's causing you to step back and not to step more fully and completely into the person who.

Who lives your best life? Best life? You. It's time to stop that. It's time to put. You first. It's time for the Me First movement. It's 2025. It's time for the Me [00:24:00] First movement. Are you coming with me? Yes, I hope so. 

I've heard from a lot of you that you like it when I throw out a challenge or give you some pointers on small shifts that you can make in your life that will have big impact.

So here's your challenge this week. Say no to one obligation that drains the life out of you. One, that's it. It can be something at work. It can be something at home, one obligation, something that you feel obligated to do, um, whether you've actually been tasked with it or not. Because a lot of us, we just assume the burden of things.

If other people don't step up and say that they're going to take care of something, we just do it. We just do it. In fact, I don't have the book with me right now because it is on my, I'm still reading. It's on my nightstand. The book club book [00:25:00] for this month is called Too Much by Terri Cole, and it is about high functioning codependency.

Most of us think codependency, we think. Being enablers for addicts or alcoholics. We don't think of ourselves as codependents. What codependency, according to Terri Cole, is it's inserting ourselves into the lives of others and doing things that we're not tasked with, but we just assume that we're gonna step up and take care of it.

That book Club discussion free to join. I would love to have you join us. It is

the last Tuesday of the month, May 27th. I will drop a clickable link in the show notes. All you gotta do is sign up free to join. Grab the book, listen to the audio book, read it however you want. Come join us for that discussion. I think most high performing women, most high achieving women have [00:26:00] at least a little bit of codependency and.

In them. In fact, a lot the, the more I get into this book, the more it's, it, it completely resonates with me. So in the spirit of that, grab the book, get yourself signed up. Join us for the book club discussion. 

But your task, say no to one obligation that drains life out of you. That's number one.

Number two, say yes to one tiny thing that lights you up, even if it's just reading a book without guilt or canceling a meeting that you didn't wanna go to in the first place. How often do we do that? Someone comes up to us and says, Hey, can I just pick your brain for a minute? Do you have time for coffee?

And what, what that actually means is they, they want to either pass off something on their to-do list to you or they want to use your brain power to help them complete the tasks that they have [00:27:00] been tasked with.

Cancel that meeting. You don't have to go. You don't. Maybe, maybe you said yes in the first place 'cause you felt like you needed to, but you can cancel that. That's okay. I will say moving forward. Back to number one. If you said no to that meeting to begin with, then you wouldn't be in this position where you're feeling resentful and like you don't actually wanna go to the meeting.

So maybe say no to the meeting request next time before you say yes. 

But what we're going to do this week is we're gonna say no to one obligation that drains a life out of us. And we're gonna say yes to one tiny thing that lights you up. 

And if you're someone who journals you like to journal here is journal prompt that I think will open up some insights and some clarity for you. The journal prompt is where have I been putting myself last, and what would shift if I made myself a [00:28:00] priority?

Where have I been putting myself last, and what would shift if I made myself a priority? That could be in life in general, that could be in relationships, that could be at work. It, it's an open-ended journal prompt. You use it how you need it. 

And then whatever you do this week, tell me about it. DM me on Instagram, tag me.

Hell email me. I don't care. I just wanna hear from you. I want to know what your Me First move is this week. I wanna know the thing that you said no to. I wanna know the thing you said yes to. I wanna know what came up to you when you were journaling. So tell me about it. This podcasting thing, I love it because I get to speak to you every week, but it's also a little lonely because for the most part, I mean, I, I hear from a couple of people each week, but for the most part, I don't hear from anybody.

Um, so do me a favor. [00:29:00] Just reach out. Let me know that you're listening. Tell me what you are doing in your Me First movement. Tell me what your first Me First movement is. I would love to know. I'm gonna finish by just saying that this Me First movement, it's not selfish. Putting yourself first is not selfish.

It's, it's not a phase, it's not a crisis. It's a movement. We're actually gaining momentum. That's what a movement is. So if we get enough high achieving midlife women to say enough with all the things for all the people, I'm putting myself first, I'm joining the Me First movement. Think about that dent in the universe.

So come along with us. Join the Me First movement because it's your time right now and we are getting ready to change not only our lives for [00:30:00] the better. We're we're changing everything for the better. 

Thank you so much for being here today on this episode of the School of Midlife Podcast. I will look forward to seeing you next week when the school is back in session.

And until then, take good care.

 Thank you so much for listening to the School of Midlife podcast. It means so much to have you here each week. 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 [00:31:00] 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.

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Laurie Reynoldson

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