141. What If This Isn’t All There Is? The Real Talk You’ve Been Avoiding

In this episode, host Laurie Reynoldson dives into a truth many high-achieving women avoid admitting: the discomfort, guilt, and conditioning around prioritizing ourselves.

We’re in midlife—when everyone wants us to believe we should be winding down, focusing on others, or finally feeling “settled.” But what if this is actually the season when you’re supposed to become more of yourself? What if the life you've built isn't the life you truly want?

Laurie unpacks:

• Why we wait for a crisis to finally make a change
• The cultural conditioning that tells women they should be grateful, not hungry for more
• The mindset shift that turns midlife from a “meh” season into the main event
• Why "I should be happy" is not the same as I am fulfilled
• The power of asking: What do I want now?—without apology or explanation

If you’ve been feeling the quiet nudge (or loud scream) that something needs to shift, this is your reminder: You don’t need permission to want more. You just need to stop pretending you don’t.

LINKS + MENTIONS:

Email Laurie with Retreat Yes!

Essentialism, by Greg McKeown

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Transcript

[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. Welcome back to another episode of The School of Midlife podcast. I'm your host, Laurie Reynoldson. Thrilled to have you here today. In today's episode, I want to, I, I just got back from a, a hike it, and it's so interesting what I think about on my hikes. I get [00:01:00] some of my deepest learning, some of my most incredible insights, downloads, breakthroughs, aha moments on the hike. When I'm not really expecting, you know, I, I, I'm, I'm just out getting some movement in. Sometimes I'm listening to podcasts and that it inspires me to take out my phone and leave myself some voice notes. In fact, one of the things I've been thinking about lately is I actually need to go through all of those voice notes on my phone because there's so many of them there.

But today's episode is going to be about really something that I was thinking about pretty much the entire two hours that I was on the trail today, and that is: the need, the imperative to focus on yourself in midlife. So we'll unpack what I mean by that, [00:02:00] but suffice it to say , this is gonna be an episode that you're gonna want to download for sure, because you're gonna wanna come back to it over and over again. I know it's gonna be that juicy, uh, this is, this is one where, I mean, I, I, I never script out what it is I wanna say, but this is really off the top of my head, just following up from what I was experiencing on the trial today. What was going through my head, and I think you need to hear it.

So let's get into it.

I've had a lot of conversations lately with women who cannot believe it is the end of the year. I mean, the, we are in Q4. That it's the middle of October, so where the hell did the year go? And I think a lot of us feel that way. I know I do. I cannot believe that there are less than 90 days left in the year.

It just feels like crazy.

[00:03:00] And I feel like this every single year. I'm sure you can relate because I know, I, I feel like everyone I've talked to feels exactly the same way, which is where did the year go and why do I feel this way every year?

Several years ago I was listening to a package on NPR and there was a doctor on there, probably a PhD, might have been an md, but , the substance feels very PhD ish to me, and he was talking about how we experience time is directly related to what new things we're learning and what new adventures and experiences we're having.

Let me break that down for you. He talked about, and, and apologies to the doctor, because I know I'm probably butchering the research, but this has always struck with me [00:04:00] because the metaphor, the example that he used was going to college, and how you have very vivid memories of your first year in college.

When maybe you were moving to a new town, you had moved out on your own. You had to learn how to probably budget some money. One was doing your laundry. So if, you know, if, if you didn't have any clean underwear, that was kind of your fault and you either needed to figure out how to do some laundry or go buy some new ones. You were meeting new people, you were having new experiences. For me, I went to a very large university and I went through recruitment and I joined a sorority and we competed for the national championship in football that year. I mean, it was all of these really incredible experiences in a much bigger city than I grew up in it, everything about it.

And I have very, very vivid memories, including, you know, dressing up in a Simpsons [00:05:00] sheet for a toga party with beer sliding on the floor. I woke up the next morning, terrible bruises on my hips because it turns out if you run and slide on a wooden floor into, I mean, it's, it's like a slip and side, remember, slip and side, except instead of being put out on a grassy hill, a nice soft grassy hill. It's a hard wooden hardwood floor in a fraternity that probably hasn't been clean in a while. And instead of having s the slide, you know, water going down the slide. It's just black plastic bags with beer poured on top of it. Anyway, I'm explaining all this because I remember the details so, so well of that first year.

It's [00:06:00] also the same reason why you remember so much about your last year in college because you are starting to apply for jobs. Maybe you are moving to a different area, maybe you are taking a relationship to the next level or ending a relationship. You're probably putting the finishing touches on any of the research projects that you've been working on. It's a big year because you are starting to move towards what happens after school. Maybe you're applying for grad school. Maybe if you're like me, , I didn't do super well on my law school admission test, so I decided to take a year off and retake it, thinking, you know, of course that I would study more and I didn't.

I, I pretty much ended up with like a, a score that was maybe two points higher than what I had before. I mean, it was kind of a wasted year, but

in the end, having different experiences, experiencing [00:07:00] things in a different way. That's what I remember about my last year in college. But those middle years, the second, third, maybe fourth, depending on how long it took you to get through college, they all kinda run together because you are in, in the thick of it, you're in the work. You are just going to class and studying, and if you're like me, you're going to a job and you are not having those new experiences because you get into the routine.

Same with living our lives as a adults. We get into a routine. We go to the same restaurants each week. We tend to eat out of the same restaurants.

We get into a pattern on are we gonna watch TV or a movie after dinner? Are we gonna go for a walk with the dog? We tend to settle into routines because [00:08:00] they're predictable, they're comfortable. Nothing wrong with routines. I'm, I'm not knocking those at all.

But they add to this idea that the year is going to go by just as quick as last year if we're doing exactly the same things, if we're not learning new things, if we're not having new experiences. Albert Einstein said, and I've, I've talked about this a number of times because it is one of my favorite quotes, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and over again and expecting different results.

So for those of us who feel like last year went super fast and this year has gone super fast, then my question is, what are you doing differently to change how you are walking through life and how you're experiencing it? If you are just resigning to, that's just what we always do. That's where we go to eat. That's what we do on the weekends. That's what we do after dinner.

If you are pretty much living the same [00:09:00] day, week, month, over and over again, then yes, you're gonna get to the end of the year every year. It, it shouldn't be an a surprise to you at this point. It's going to feel the same. And if you have been living 2025 under those same guidances, you know, with the same experiences, it is no wonder that you get to the middle of October and think where the hell did the year ago?

Because it's the middle of October at the time this episode drops you. You might be like me, which is, I still am working on a number of goals, big dreams that I had planned for 2025. One of them is that I was going to finally replace my brokerage income with the School of Midlife. I've actually been saying that for a couple of years now.

This was the the year though that I was really doubling down on it. And [00:10:00] understand that I don't need to actually replace my income for us to live a good life. It's this, it's almost a hangup that I have that in order for me to replace a professional income that I had with the School of Midlife, it's more about validation.

It's more about proving to myself that I have something really good here. I know the impact. I know it's changing lives. I love that about it. And. I would like to make some money at it. I, I know that that sounds as a business, of course, you wanna make money. I'm not focused completely on the dollars in the sense.

But at some point, in order to continue to pour all of the time and energy and frankly money into it, there has to be some money coming back. It's, it's, it's a universal principle. It's a, [00:11:00] you know, an energetic exchange. It has to happen and have put a lot of pressure on making that happen in 2025,

So it is, we'll call it the middle of October, and I am a couple of hundred thousand dollars short of where I want to end the year.

So it feels like I have two options at this point. Number one, I can do it all double down, try and cram everything in to the next, we'll call it 10 weeks. I don't know, I, I haven't looked at the calendar in a little while, but nine or 10 weeks. And I have done that a lot in my life where I look at the calendar.

I'm always very motivated by the end of the year, and I understand that a calendar is just this time framework, this rubric that we have created. It's kind of silly that we [00:12:00] all feel like we have to do all the things before the end of the year when. What's gonna happen if we don't do 'em before the end of the year? W we will roll it into next year.

But for some reason, that time pressure in Q4 really gets me excited. So you can do what I've done almost always, which is try and cram everything into the last quarter of the year, which leads to a little bit of burnout. Sometimes saying no to invitations that I wanna accept.

Sometimes saying yes to all of the expectations, and then realizing I don't have time to do the things that are really important to me. Sometimes it means that I have said yes to everything, I do everything, and I'm still trying to do everything for work, which leaves me burned out and tired and oftentimes sick at the end of the year.

I used to [00:13:00] get strep throat every single year. I was sick on my birthday, which is in December, near Christmas time. I was sick almost every year growing up. And, and when I say growing up, I mean I even missed growing to Hamilton on my 50th birthday because I was sick. We had just gotten back from traveling and I was on the couch and I did not feel well.

Um. I was probably sick on my 50th for other reasons than, you know, trying to cram it all in, but I, I probably not. If I think, if, if I really get honest about it. I mean, having a birthday around Christmas time just means you have one more thing to kind of cram into, to an already busy schedule, but that's neither here nor there.

But number one. There are two ways to, to, to approach this. We're, we're at the end, we've got some goals and, and dreams that we're working on. So number one, we can either try and cram it all in,

[00:14:00] or number two, we can decide that we're gonna do something a little different this year. We are going to get really intentional about what is important, what, what's really cream of the crop, top of the heap, what is so important for us to finish this year and do that. And then let everything else move to next year, which is probably absolutely fine.

You know, we have this construct that we have created or this idea in our mind that we're going to get it done this year. But for most of us, for most of the things on our own personal dream or goal list, it doesn't matter if it happens this year or next year. These are self-imposed deadlines.

For the things that we do decide to push off so that we don't end up burned out and run into the ground and resentful and maybe sick, for those [00:15:00] things that we push off, we can decide, we can get really intentional about living a different experience next year than we did this year.

I think that this is all front and center because I have spent the last week getting prepared for this year's Best Life Retreat.

In fact, the retreat as of the date that this episode drops , i'm heading to the retreat in two days and I'm very excited about it. We, uh, we started slow with women signing up for this year. It is completely sold out. I'm just so excited. The, the retreat weekend is my favorite weekend every year, and this one is, is going to be a really, really good one.

 The reason I'm so excited about the retreat is I know the impact it will have. I know [00:16:00] that the women who show up for the retreat are going to leave in a completely different mindset, they're gonna have the tools that they need to create and live a different life next year and the year after that. And the ripple effects moving forward, incredible. Really hard to find a similar experience that pays dividends the way the Best Life Retreat does.

This is the fifth year I've done it. I, I think fourth or fifth year, I have gotten so much better about preparing and delivering the content. I know the impact it has.

In fact, I probably, a couple of months ago maybe, I met one of the women who came to the retreat two years ago for coffee and this woman, I didn't know her when she showed up. I didn't know anything about her story or [00:17:00] her backstory or why she was there. But she played full out. It was a great retreat. It was a great group of women. She was all in. She participated in all the activities ,shared when we were talking through different ideas that would come up during the exercises. I mean, she was 100% present.

And what she told me at coffee a couple of months ago, was that when she raised her hand to go to the retreat, she was going because one of her coworkers had found it and thought it seemed like a good way to spend a weekend.

And this woman kind of begrudgingly went. Because she had spent years in talk therapy. She, she, she was at an inflection point in her life and looking back, she was [00:18:00] definitely at this, in this transition. At the time she was in it, she didn't really realize exactly where she was, but she, she was at this point in her life where everything was maybe going to change. And a year after going to the retreat, she did make some major, major changes in her life.

I don't know this. I mean, yes, I can kind of see what's going on a little bit, and I definitely keep in touch with the women who are coming, but I, I'm not in their head after they leave the retreat. What she told me a couple of months ago when we went for coffee is that retreat changed my life. I was able to make some changes in my life about a year after I went that have changed everything for me. I'm a completely different person than I was when I showed up two years ago.

I'm sharing this because. The, the plans that we have for our [00:19:00] life, going to a retreat doesn't necessarily change your life tomorrow, although it absolutely can. This is a woman who went to the retreat two years ago, and it is still impacting the way that she shows up and makes decisions about living her life.

Talk about legacy, talk about impact, talk about ripple effects.

It you can, you can go away for a weekend and still have that be one of the most impactful weekends of your life years later? The experiences that you can have at the retreat rise to the level of that retreat changed my life. So I am so excited for the women who are coming to experience it this week.

But I will say, I am, I am trying to figure out how to say this gently, and I I'm not going to, I'm gonna be very [00:20:00] direct because I think you need to hear this. Women across the board are willing to pour our time and attention into things that we think are going to make our lives and the lives of our families better. We do not hesitate to hire a personal trainer.

We do not hesitate to hire a registered dietician or sign up for a meal delivery service if we're trying to eat better. We will definitely hire somebody to do our taxes. We hire people to work on our cars. A lot of us hire people to come in and help us clean the house every now and then.

So, yeah, we oftentimes ask for help. We understand the exchange from money to time, and we understand that yes, these are things we could probably figure out ourselves. I mean, we could [00:21:00] probably go to the gym and put together a weight training program. We could probably spend the time to figure out how to do our taxes. But we, we realize that it's not actually worth our time or effort to figure that out when there are professionals that can help us, and they can actually get us to where we wanna go much faster than if we spend the time to try and figure out on ourselves.

It's exactly the reason that we also spend time and money going to therapy, and I love, love, love therapy. But I also think it's interesting how reticent women are across the board to spend money on ourselves. We believe that our resources of time and money are better spent on our family or in our investment account.

I mean, there are millions of ways that we can deploy our time and our money. And more often than not, [00:22:00] we choose to do it in a way that isn't spent on us. Because we're, we're concerned that that's going to look like we are being self-absorbed or that it's going to make us seem greedy or stingy that you know, we want all the time for ourselves.

And that's just, it's not true. I understand all the conditioning that's gone into it. I understand this whole idea that women are to be selfless and take care of everyone else around them first. But hear me when I say that old way of thinking isn't really serving us anymore. Sure. It got us to where we are right now.

But the thing that most women want most, most of the women that I work with, it's a lot of mosts. Women want [00:23:00] happiness, satisfaction, and fulfillment. Not necessarily in that order, but those are the three things that come up over and over and over again. And I'm telling you that happiness and satisfaction and fulfillment, they are not a destination.

You cannot get there. You cannot experience happiness and satisfaction and fulfillment by landing another job or another promotion, or you can't get the intimacy back in your relationship. By taking on another project at work. So you can't,

you can't earn it, if that makes sense. The happiness and the satisfaction, the fulfillment that you're looking for, they're not gonna just magically show up when the kids finally move out of the house and move on and start doing their own thing. It's not how it [00:24:00] works.

I. I, I'm an attorney. I love making evidence. I love putting together a case. I love creating evidence. I love stacking reasons why things work or they don't work.

But if working harder got you the fulfillment and happiness and satisfaction that you have been looking for, you would already have it; right? You're no stranger to hard work. If getting the next promotion would leave you feeling fulfilled and happy and satisfied like you've been chasing. You would already have it because you've had a lot of promotions in your life. You have had a lot of success in your career. You'd already have it.

The fact that you are still seeking something different than what you have right now should be an indicator that we need [00:25:00] to approach how we're living and what we're doing, how we're doing life in a different way.

We go back to our friend Al Einstein again, right? Doing the same thing over and over and over again, and expecting different results is the definition of insanity.

So I'd like to invite you to not try and kill yourself getting all the things done that you thought you were going to do in 2025. I want you to be realistic about what you can get done between now and the end of the year, and then push everything else to next year. Or the year after that.

Because you are the asset. Protecting you. Protecting you are the baby. You are the thing that needs to be protective. I don't know if you have read the book Essentialism by Greg Mcow. No, it's not McOwen. I always say that wrong. Greg McKeown. He talks about the importance [00:26:00] of the vital few versus the trivial many. We're all swimming in the sea of trivial, many. All of the things that want our time and attention, and we are quick to give our time and attention to the trivial many. But the most important thing is protecting the asset. And if you're not watching on video, I am pointing at myself because Greg McKeown says, you are the asset.

It's the same reason that when you are on an airplane, you have to put your oxygen mask on first. Because if you're not taking care of yourself, you are not going to be able to help other people. You are the asset. You are the thing that has to be protected.

So again, I'm thinking about all of this on my hike today, and it has, has brought me to this point where, [00:27:00] if I'm being honest about myself and the School of Midlife business and this whole idea that I'm going to replace my income this year, well, I, how would I expect different income results when I have pretty much continued to work the business exactly the same way since the inception five years ago?

It's not doubling down and and writing a longer newsletter. It's not posting more on social media. It's actually creating experiences, whether that is online coaching, one-on-one coaching, these retreats, but actually giving the people you ways to come into the School of Midlife, our community, and work with me.

Because I understand that not everyone can get [00:28:00] away for a four day weekend, and it's three and a half, I get that. But you know, there's travel on either side of that. I'm, I'm really toying with this idea of either a, a two day virtual retreat and or. A, an in-person two day, so like 10 to four each day, two day over the weekend of an in-person retreat in Boise.

And again, it, it, it would be over the weekend. So, you know, you're not missing work for it. It would only part of the day, 10 to four, if you do a VIP then we'll go out to a really nice dinner one night. It's not going to be the exact same experience the whole getting yourself away from your life to actually work on your life that, that an actual travel retreat, it, it's going to be a different experience.

It will be no less impactful though. I mean, if [00:29:00] you go to an in-person retreat over the weekend, or even if you attend a virtual retreat on your computer and you play full out, I will give you the tools and the information, everything, uh, all the exercises that you need to put into place for 2026 to be a year that you don't get to the end of that year and think, wow, this year has gone really fast.

You won't feel that way because you have had different experiences and you've learned new things, and you're not stuck in your routine, in your rut anymore.

I'm still trying to figure out if this thing has legs, so will you please do me the favor of letting me know? Shoot me an email and all it has to be in the subject line is Retreat Yes! That's all it has to be. There's a clickable link in the show notes to send me an email or if you don't even wanna [00:30:00] do that. My email is Laurie, L-A-U-R-I-E at School of midlife, all one word. S-C-H-O-O-L-O-F-M-I-D-L-I-F e.com. laurie@schoolofmidlife.com. Send me an email write Retreat Yes!

I don't have the dates figured out yet, but if this is something that you want to do and, and I've heard from so many women who say, I would love to do a retreat, but the timing isn't right. Or I can't get the time off of work. Or the family needs me or any other, there are so many reasons why we tell ourselves that we cannot spend the time on ourselves, on our own life to actually figure out what we want to figure out, what success means to us, to figure out what our best life looks like. And we can't create a different life until we figure out what it is we're working [00:31:00] for.

Because if we don't take the time and give ourselves some space and actually work on creating a life that is meaningful to us, that lights us up, that leads to the happiness and satisfaction and fulfillment that we're looking for, that we're going to find ourselves at the end of every year thinking, wow, this year went by really fast, just like last year. I mean, they just all seem to go by faster than the, than the one before.

I don't want that for you. I want you to have an incredible experience. Even if it's just two days, either virtually or in person in Boise. I mean, Boise is way easier to get to than Sun Valley so whether you're in Boise or not, you can still travel here. It, it's, it's easy.

I want you to have the same experience that those of us who are going to sleep away [00:32:00] camp to, to go to the retreat this week.

But I don't want you to wait. I wanna give you everything that you need to make 20 26 and, and actually the end of 2025. I mean, we've, we're gonna start now.

I'm looking at dates in November. If you are interested in doing something like that, and the fact that you just say Retreat Yes, you send me an email that says Retreat Yes, Obviously you're not obligated to it.

But if there's enough interest, I really think that this is one way, that not only I can improve my bottom line, I mean at at the end of the day, there will be a cost associated with it.

But I can also create the ripple effects that I am hoping to create with the School of Midlife. I wanna give women the tools and the information and the [00:33:00] community to make midlife and beyond their very best life. And that starts with just a rock. And that rock could be a virtual or a two day in-person retreat.

And I've really, I know the impact. And I would love to have you join us. So if that sounds like something you'd be interested in. Again, I have nothing worked out as far as dates or venues or anything. This is literally something that I have been noodling on and, and really just, it hit me on the hike today.

Send me an email. Retreat yes, and I will get all the information out to all of you if there's interest real, real soon.

I am gonna leave you with where we started [00:34:00] and we're gonna go back to our buddy Al's quote again, which is the definition of insanity, is doing the same thing over and over and over again, and expecting different results.

If you don't want to live 2026, get to the end of the year and think, wow, that went so fast, you have to do something different. Let's lock arms. Let's figure out what that is. Let's figure out what you want. Let's figure out what success means to you. Let's figure out what your best life looks like and give you the tools to start living it.

I'm excited about it. I, I can't wait to see what's important to you to see what lights you up, to see what you uncover. And I know that if you spend the time right now, that next year and the year after that, you're gonna come back to me just like this woman did a couple of months ago and say, that retreat changed my life. You can do it. [00:35:00] Gimme two days. It will change your life.

Thank you so much for being here today, my friends. I will see you next week when the School of Midlife 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.