187. Attainable Is Overrated: Why "Wildest Dreams" Beat "Realistic" Ones | Back to School - Ep. 2

Most of us would fire our contractor building our dream home if she tried to make the plans conform to "specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound." So why do we do that to our own lives?

Session two of the Back to School (of Midlife) series. If last week was orientation, this is the core curriculum — the actual framework behind everything Laurie coaches: BEST LIFE™.

She starts by naming the pushback she hears constantly — "I'm not a high achiever" — and dismantles it directly: if you've ever solved a problem nobody asked you to solve, put yourself last on the list, or believed your rest had to be earned, you're a high achiever, whatever your job title says.

From there she walks through the two real reasons she built BEST LIFE™: the goal-chasing problem (achieving the goal without ever asking what you actually wanted, and feeling empty anyway), and her long-standing issue with SMART goals as personal-life advice. The dream house metaphor she opened with threads through the entire back half — you wouldn't build a house without a plan for what you actually want to live in, so why are you building a life that way?

Then she breaks down BEST LIFE™ letter by letter — BEyond your wildest dreams, Success on your terms, Truly want, so you can build a LIFE of Legacy, Impact, Fulfillment, and Excitement — with homework at the end: pick one letter, write down what it actually means to you.

What we cover:

• Why Laurie built BEST LIFE™ for two specific reasons, not one
• The "I'm not a high achiever" pushback, and why she doesn't let anyone off the hook for it
• The success playbook checklist — school, job, marriage, kids, house, promotion, retirement — and why finishing it doesn't always feel the way you expect
• Why chasing the right goal without checking in with yourself first still leaves you empty
• What changes when clients do the foundational work first — what do you want, what does success mean, what does your best life look like
• Laurie's own story: 20 years in commercial real estate and brokerage before she became "student one" at the School of Midlife
• Why the SMART goals framework is excellent for a sales quarter and terrible for a marriage or a health goal
• A closer look at two SMART letters specifically — Attainable and Time-Bound — and why Laurie thinks both are the wrong filter for your personal life
• The dream house metaphor, used to explain why you plan a life the same way you'd plan a home: you can't hand someone the blueprints until you know what you want
• BE: Beyond your wildest dreams — letting yourself want something big before your brain talks you out of it
• S: Success on your terms — redefining success outside of money and job title, specific to this season of life
• T: What you truly want — stripping away everyone else's opinion, including a nod to that scene in The Notebook
• LIFE: Legacy, Impact, Fulfillment, and Excitement — including the generational angle: what your daughters and sons learn by watching how you live
• This week's homework: pick one letter, write down what it actually means to you — not a dictionary definition, the real one
• A preview of next week: the three seasons of life — Learn, Earn, Yearn — and why waiting for the last one is a bad bet

Quotable moments

• "You have to remember, I was student one at the School of Midlife."
• "If there is a problem in your life, more often than not, you're the one who solved it, even when nobody asked you to."
• "I don't care if you get there. When we talk about attainable and achievable, I want you to make it so big — wildest dreams big."
• "If this is something you genuinely want... who cares how long it takes?"
• "You have to stop trying to make everybody happy and start living a life that is true to you."
• "If, like, none of it excites you, it's probably someone else's goal or dream that you've just adopted."
• "This is not just some rosy saying that should make you feel good. There is intentionality behind this."

Resources + links mentioned

• Episode 186 — Orientation Day: When Being a High-Achiever Isn't Enough (Back to School [of Midlife] series, session one)
• Best Life Planner
• JOIN MY MAILING LIST
• CONNECT WITH LAURIE

📩 JOIN MY MAILING LIST
https://www.schoolofmidlife.com/newsletter

👉 CONNECT WITH LAURIE:
📩  Email Laurie

💻 Website

On Instagram

On LinkedIn

Work with Laurie

Transcript

0:00

Picture this, you're building your dream house, completely blank slate, custom lot, whatever you want. Now imagine you hand the blueprints to your contractor and she says, "Great. Let's make sure these plans to build this house are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound." You would fire that contractor right on the spot, wouldn't you? But that's exactly what most of us do in our own lives every January, every goal list, every five-year plan that we make. And today I'm breaking down why the framework I built instead of the one that we are accustomed to applying to our lives, why my framework starts with your dream life and not your resume. Let's get into it.

Speaker 2 0:48

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.

1:26

Well, hey friends. Welcome back to another episode of The School of Midlife. If you were here last week, you know that we are now in week two of the Back to the School of Midlife series. If last week was the orientation, then today we're gonna do a deep dive on what we'll call the core curriculum, also known as the BEST LIFE Framework. Because this is a series, if you haven't listened to last week's episode, I'm gonna drop a clickable link for you in the show notes. Go listen to it. It is one of, probably one of my favorite episodes that I've recorded in a while, and the comments that I received, woo. Women loved it. So if you haven't listened, go take a listen. And we're in a series, so you're gonna wanna pick up where the series begins anyway. That doesn't mean that you need to stop listening to today's episode and go back and pick that one up first. I think it's all gonna make sense to you, but just know that you're gonna have a better lay of the land, understand what we're doing for the next several weeks if you go back and listen to last week's episode. Okay. So today we're gonna talk about core curriculum at the School of Midlife, the BEST LIFE Framework. I wanna tell you exactly why I built this. And I know that I have talked about the BEST LIFE Framework before, but I'm not sure that I have given you a peek behind the curtains of why I built it. Because there wasn't one reason. There's actually two. There's probably more than two, but two big ones, and that's what we're gonna focus on in today's episode. Let's start with reason one. We'll call it the goal-chasing problem. Mm-hmm. Yep, goal chasing. Most of my clients, goal-oriented. That's because they're high achievers. They're always looking for the next thing on their list. Mm, and let's- address this Discomfort with the term high achievers. Because there are plenty of you out there, I know because you've talked to me about it, "This doesn't apply to me because I'm not a high achiever. This doesn't apply to me because I didn't get straight As in school. This doesn't apply to me because once I started having children, I left the workforce and I stayed home to raise my family." Mm, yeah. You can say that you're not a high achiever, but let's actually think about what you have done in your life up until now. You have had a career. You have probably raised small humans. If you haven't, then maybe you're a dog mom like me, but whether you've been mothering your own children or animals or someone else's kids or, you know... Women are naturally born with this mothering feeling, and it doesn't necessarily mean that you have to birth humans, but you've, you've done a lot, right? I don't care what kind of grades you got in school. I don't care what your paycheck looks like. If there is a problem in your life, m- more often than not, you're the one who solved it, even when nobody asked you to. Like, you just raised your hand, you stepped in, and you said, "You know what? I got this covered." When anyone needs help, we are the first ones to line up and say, "How can I help you?" When our best friends or a family member, when they're ill or they just need some support, we are always there. We believe that our rest is earned, and we only take it if everything else seems like it is under control. We oftentimes put ourselves last on the list because we are looking out for ways to be of service to everyone and everything else in our lives. Does that resonate? If it does, you're a high achiever, regardless of your job title or your social status or how much money you make. So can we just put it to rest that, like, I don't wanna fight about this anymore. Just, assume that you're a high achiever. If that doesn't really fit with you, fine. And just know that I think of you and every other woman who listens to this podcast and is sorting through many of these same issues that we talk about as a high achiever. Okay? So let's get back to reason one, the goal-chasing problem My clients, super goal-oriented. Like, eye on the prize, what's next? What is the next step I need to do? That's great. I mean, that has helped us achieve so much in our lives. And also It leaves us feeling a little empty inside. Here's why. Most of us just got really busy checking off boxes on the success playbook, right? Go to school, get a job, get married, have some kids, buy a house, raise up those kids, get promoted at work, work until retirement. Th- this sounds familiar, right? I mean, obviously we haven't all done every single step, and certainly we have done them in different orders than everyone else, but it's the same steps And it's also the reason that many of us get to midlife and we are wildly successful high achievers. Like, we have done it all, everything expected of us, everything that we should do. And we get here, and we don't feel like we expected to feel. For years, I've had clients tell me that they just feel like there's something missing. They feel, and, and these are their words, profoundly unfulfilled. So very unfulfilled. Like, they've got the money, and the house, and the car, and the handbags, and the job title, and they've done everything that they thought they should do. They have sacrificed time, and, and effort, and energy, and willingly, right? Because they wanna make the people around them happy. So yes, they've sacrificed that, but they did so with this, we'll call it a promise, that once they get the kids graduated and once they get to a certain place in their career, that they will have this time to themselves to essentially reap the rewards of all of their work. Oftentimes, that comes in midlife. And then when we get to midlife, and we expect to feel differently, like we've been delaying a lot of our life and a lot of what we wanted to do until we get here, and then we get here, and it's like, "Huh, this isn't what I was expecting." So we think, "Oh, I probably just need to work a little harder," or, "I should just be happy with everything that I have. I'm so blessed." And yes, you can be blessed and grateful for your life, and you can also want more for it. There is nothing wrong with that. Let's normalize that we can be in a gratitude practice and still believe that there is something out there that's more for us. That doesn't make us selfish. It doesn't make us self-centered. It doesn't make us ungrateful for what we have. It's just we know that there is more to life than what we have been living. Which leads me to this idea that if we were chasing the right goals or the right dreams, we would feel differently. And I know that to be true because I've seen it in my clients. How this plays out is instead of just chasing what's next or something bigger or something is perceived to be better than what we've done or what we have, instead of doing that, we need to check in with ourselves first. Figure out what we actually want. What does success mean to us? If we were living our best life, what does that actually look like? Because for many of us, we've never even taken the time to figure any of that out. We have just assumed that we need to constantly be in motion in the direction of this path that has been laid out before us. But here's what's so interesting. When we do that, when we just keep working the checklist, when we keep working the playlist, when we just focus on the next thing that we're supposed to do, the bigger thing, the better thing, when we achieve that goal or realize that dream we still feel a little empty. We still feel like there's something missing. And that is totally different than what my clients experience, which is when we take the time to do some foundational work, what do you want? What does success mean to you? What does your best life look like? Then when they actually achieve the goal or realize the dream that aligns with what they want and what success means to them and what their best life looks like, lo and behold, they were filled with fulfillment and satisfaction in a way that simply chasing goals in the past had never given them. Watching this from the outside, and I gotta say, I've felt that way myself when I allowed myself the opportunity to Think about what it was I really wanted and not just what was expected of me. I, I mean, you have to remember, I was student one at the School of Midlife. Like, I left a 20-year award-winning career in commercial real estate, and then in brokerage. I left those careers when I realized that what I really wanted was something different. And I started being very intentional about the steps I was taking in my life. So I know this works because I was student number one at the School of Midlife, but I also know it works because I've seen so many of my clients experience the exact same thing, that, wow, once we actually started figuring out w- what the goal was, what the dream that... our dream, our adult dream, once we figured out what that was, then we could move in the direction of achieving the goal or realizing the dream, and oftentimes, get this, it didn't even matter if they got there. There was more fulfillment and satisfaction in the journey towards that goal or towards that dream that had the whole payoff. Isn't that interesting? And this was a complete departure from that, we'll call it more of the same way of showing up, this idea that if I don't feel like I thought I would, then I just have to do more or better or bigger, right? So I, I began to notice that instead of just chasing another goal or chasing another dream, we had to do some background work first, right? So that's reason number one. Reason number two is a little more direct. I think, I think the SMART goal framework is genuinely terrible advice for personal life. Okay? So let's get into that. I know I've talked about this before, on the podcast. In fact, I know that there are other episodes that I've done specifically on this topic, but let's just refresh it because it doesn't hurt to hear it again. Here's my problem with SMART goals, and as a reminder, SMART goals, specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. They are fantastic for your professional life. Of course, we wanna know, like, did we meet our sales goals? Did we meet the KPIs that we set for ourselves? Are the employees performing at the level we need them to perform? Are we hitting the sales goals? Are we exceeding the sales goals? Like, I get it. I get it. I know why they work in the business setting And I also understand why we would try and use them in our personal life. Because honestly, for most of us, we've never been taught how to set goals. It was just expected that maybe we would show up with a list, right? And that comes from the idea of setting a New Year's resolution. Um, it came from the programming and the conditioning that we receive that, you know, we should be working on a goal. But nobody ever taught us how to do that. It was just kinda something that was assumed we would figure out. And like many things in life that if we are left to our own devices to figure something out, yeah, we can probably do it. But if somebody hands us a framework or a strategy that's going to move us from point A to point B in a results-driven way, then yeah, that's gonna make so much more sense to actually operate that way. What I figured out is when women would come to me and they would, we would talk about the goals that they wanna set for their personal life. What are you working on? And they would say, "I wanna save more money," or, "I wanna be healthier than I've ever been before," or, "I wanna get the spark back in my marriage." Then they would almost invariably stop and say, "Oh, but I know that that's not a smart goal. So I guess what that would look like is if I wanna save more money, I wanna save $1,000 a month for my 401 But then one month something happens and they have to deploy that extra money somewhere else, and all of a sudden they haven't contributed their $1,000 for the month, and they figure, "Well, I should just give up because I can't I'm, I'm not gonna achieve my goal." Or they would say, "I wanna be healthier," and in their mind that would mean, "I want to work out every day of the week. I want to start meal planning on Sundays. I want to see a certain number on the scale." And you know, many of them travel for work. A lot of them travel for vacation with their families. And any time you create a goal for yourself that says, "I'm gonna do this every single day," unless it's like meditating that you can pretty much do anywhere, or writing your Morning 5-10-5 in your Best Life Planner, which you can do almost anywhere, if you say, "I'm going to the gym every single day," mm, you're setting yourself up for failure. And what I know about high-achieving women is they hate failure. And many of them, instead of dealing with that failure, they just kind of throw up their hands and they're like, "Well, now is not the time. I will wait until things settle down. Um, maybe after the summer I'll get back into it. You know what? Maybe because it's gonna be a heavy, heavy fall from a scheduling standpoint, I'll just wait until the beginning of next year Because we have been chasing goals and dreams based on a framework that was given to us for business purposes we've essentially set goals in our personal life in the same way. We've wanted them to be SMART. There are so many problems with that from an execution standpoint. Let's start with the idea that in order for you to set a SMART goal, there is this assumption that you already know what you want, and you just need a plan to execute it. So We want to increase our sales quarter over quarter by X percent. That is something that you understand where you wanna go. You just have to have a plan to execute it. If in your personal life you wanna get the spark back in your marriage Mm, that's gonna be really hard to create a plan to execute that, right? Because what does that actually mean to you? When you say, "I wanna be healthier," what does that actually mean to you? We can create a plan and execute on that once we understand what it is you say you're wanting and what is your motivation behind it I will say this, most of the women I work with don't lack execution. They lack ever having asked themselves what they actually want in the first place, and this all gets back to the, you know, what do you want? Not what you were raised to want, not what society tells you to want, not what you've been conditioned to want. But what do you actually want? That requires actually checking in with yourself and figuring out what you want. I could go letter by letter in the SMART frame acronym and break them down and tell you what the issues are for your personal life. If you wanna hear that, go listen to one of the episodes that specifically deal with SMART goals. For purposes of trying to convince you that this is a awful idea for your personal life, I'm just gonna focus on two of them, okay? Attainable, and sometimes the A is achievable, so attainable, achievable, however you define SMART. Does it make it a bad goal or dream for your life if you aren't convinced that you will actually get there? That is a rhetorical question, but if you ask me, I say no. I don't care if you can attain or achieve the goal that you're working on for your personal life. Because I know that for you to be the person you need to be who does the things that you need to do to realize and achieve the goal that you are working towards, you will Experience That fulfillment that you have been chasing, regardless of whether or not you actually achieve the goal. Just knowing what you want in the first place, that's gonna help you get there. And I couldn't care less if you get there. When we talk about attainable and we talk about achievable, I want you to make it so big, like wildest dreams big. And I don't care if you actually get there because I know what the transformation is. I know what the change is in you that it's going to take to move you closer to the goal that you've set for yourself. My other issue is with Time Bound, and again, I have issues with all of the letters. For purposes of this podcast, we're gonna talk about two of them. Time Bound is the second one. If you have a goal, a dream, a desire for something in your life, I don't care if it takes you four months or four years to achieve it, and neither should you. If this is something you actually want, like you genuinely want it, not because it looks good on paper, not because it sounds good to other people, but this is something you genuinely want, who cares how long it takes? Let's take it back to the dream house that I talked about at the top of the episode. Think about you're building a dream house, your dream house, right? You envision yourself living in this home on this lot that you picked out with the view that you've always wanted. You might be looking out to the mountains. You might be looking out to the beach. You might be in the middle of a city in a high-rise condo. I don't know what your dream house looks like, but you do. And you can envision yourself having your morning coffee there and looking out on this spectacular view, and you know how you want your closet designed, and you know where the kitchen's gonna go and how people are gonna gather in that. I mean, you can think about every little bit, every piece of how you're gonna use that home. That's what you do first, isn't it? You actually Make a plan for the home before you start building. You might have the land, you might have the lot, you might know where it's going to be built, but you wouldn't go buy the lumber and steel and pick out the tile and order the fancy toilet and the bathroom fixtures or hire a contractor or hire subs until you had somebody draw the plans. And they can't draw the plans for you unless you tell them what you want Right? So let me ask you this. What is different about building your dream life? Because for most of us, we've just gotten in action. Like, we figure out if we just work harder, we will finally get there. Mm, that's not how it works. Because if that were the case, we'd already be there. There wouldn't be any sort of gap in our life. We would already have what we want. The fact that we are still seeking, that we are still chasing the fulfillment that has eluded us necessarily means that we are missing something that we actually want. Okay? So if the SMART goals don't work for us, if this just working harder doesn't work for us, what does? And that's the BEST LIFE Framework. All capitals B-E-S-T-L-I-F-E. B-E, beyond your wildest dreams. S, success on your terms. T, what you truly want so that you can build a life, L-I-F-E, of legacy, impact, fulfillment, and excitement. Let's break that down. B-E in the BEST LIFE Framework is beyond your wildest dreams. These aren't just reasonable dreams. They're not, uh, just attainable dreams. There's no time limit on them. This is the part where you actually build your dream house, but instead of actually building the house, you build your dream life. And yeah, your dream house might be part of that. But this is the part where you actually let yourself want something big for your life, full body, "Yes, absolutely. That's what I want." And you do that before your brain gets involved and starts talking you out of it because it's impractical or it's illogical or there's money constraints or time constraints or whatever. I don't want that to happen to you, right? Cause we've been doing that for so much of our life, and what that has left us is burned out and overwhelmed and stressed out and feeling like we are out of time. It's too late for us. But hear me. Even if you don't achieve your best life, you are still going to be further along by moving in the direction of that life. You're still gonna feel so much different. So when we talk about beyond your wildest dreams, I really mean what does your best life look like? What is a life beyond your wildest dreams? Can you even envision it? And I want you to be absurdly creative and absurdly bold in asking for it. What does a life look like for me if I was living my best life? How would I show up? What would I do? How would I spend my time? That's just like you are thinking about when you're building your house and you're helping the architect with the plan, you're giving them ideas on what to draw, you are envisioning yourself living in that house. Well, I want you to do the same thing with your life. I want you to envision yourself waking up every morning in your best life. What do you do? How do you spend your time? How does the day unfold? How do you feel? What do you look like? I mean, just every... Use every sense that you have and envision your life beyond your wildest dreams. From there, we go into success on your terms. Because for most of us, we are successful by every reasonable measure. In the world that we live in, honestly, we are raised to believe that success means how much money you have and what is your job title. Well, a lot of us have made a lot of money, and we have been... Like, we, we have the big job title. Back when people were carrying business cards, we had that fancy title on our business cards, and we were in the corner office, and it still didn't feel like enough. So clearly the idea that, well, I'm successful if what I'm doing is going to impress my friends and family members and the neighbors, if that isn't the case, then, then what is? We necessarily have to find a different definition of success And success means exactly what you think it means. What does success feel like? What does success look like? And I don't want success from, like, soup to nuts, kid to retirement or old age. I'm talking about what does success look like to you in this season of life? Because if you're like most of my clients, success to you meant something different in your 20s and 30s and 40s when you were in that hustle and grind part of your career, and Everything you had, everything you could give to move forward in your career, you did. Most of us are beyond that now. Like, there, there might be this plateau in our career. Like, we've reached it. We've done the things. Some of us might be thinking about retirement. Some of us might be in retirement. If you can only be successful based on your title and how much money you're making, if you are retired or if you ended your career to raise your kids, you're not successful? Though I think that's bullshit. You gotta figure out what success means to you in this season of life and live your life accordingly. And then the T of the BEST LIFE Framework, what do you truly want? This is, this is stripping away who's watching and who tells you what you should want. This is not paying attention to what your parents or your aunt or somebody on social media is commenting on. You know, they think you're making strange choices with your life. They don't get a say anymore. At some point, you have to realize you get one shot at this life, and man, if, if you take nothing else away from this episode, I want you to hear this. You have to stop trying to make everybody happy and start living a life that is true to you. So what do you actually want? Not what you've been conditioned to want, not what you've been raised to want, not what your parents told you to want, not what society thinks you should want, not what some influencer on social media tells you is what you should want, but what do you actually want? And I think about that scene in The Notebook where Noah's asking Alli, "What do you want?" And she says, "It's not that simple." I think she's wrong because I think that it is that simple. You have to start with what do you feel in your soul when you strip away everybody's expectations of you? When you strip away seeking everyone's validation and approval, what do you want? That's where we start. That is the basis of everything. So BEST is beyond your wildest dreams, success on your terms, what you truly want. Said another way, what do you want? What does success mean to you? What does your best life look like? These are... Like, we have talk about this all the time, right? Those are the three foundational pieces of everything we do at the School of Midlife. That's why this is core curriculum. Session two of the multi-series: core curriculum. Okay. So we've got the BEST part. What does the LIFE framework look like? Because we want to live a BEST LIFE, right? So we've got beyond your wildest dreams, success on your terms, what you truly want, so that you can build a LIFE. And life is also an acronym: legacy, impact, fulfillment, and excitement. And there is so much more that I walk through in all of my coaching, but I want you to understand, like, this LIFE framework is... It is so nuanced, it is so intentional. When you have the opportunity to actually be coached through this with me, it's going to blow your mind. But we don't have time for that today. So let's talk about legacy. What do you want to still be true about you after you're gone? Not just what you accumulate while you're here, but what do you wanna leave behind? And that can be ideas. That can be how you, the model of how you lived. I mean, think about your kids in this, right? The way you live your life is teaching your daughters how they should live their life, and it's teaching your sons how they should be in partnership with high-achieving women. Legacy is what are you doing now that will outlive you, right? Impact. Who and what do you actually want to move? This is a, It's, it's related to legacy, but it's more short-term, like right now. I think it's interesting, too, because when we think about impact, so many of us think about how do we impact people in positive ways in, in helping them move forward. Remember, you can also impact people in negative ways, right? If you are showing up a certain way, if you are energetically not there, if your motivation is not in align with who you are and what you want, and you're just sort of begrudgingly doing it, people around you, they pick up on that, right? So just know that impact can go both ways. F for fulfillment. This is, this is one of the things that the SMART goal framework never ask you about, right? I mean, How do you feel? Do you have a deep sense of personal happiness? Are you satisfied with your goal? Do you feel whole and complete? What's interesting is when women feel fulfillment, they don't chase the next thing because they... It feels like enough to them. And finally, excitement. Because life should be fun. We get so busy doing and providing that we forget that it should be fun. It's like we've lost the plot. We get so busy. To what end? For what purpose? Every now and then you have to experience some joy and some excitement. And Full body yes! I'll say if what you're doing if the life you're living, if, like, none of it excites you, it's probably someone else's goal or dream that you've just adopted because you feel like you should or because you think it's gonna bring you some validation or approval. Everything about the BEST LIFE Framework is about getting back to you in a fully aligned, fully authentic way. That's the whole framework. B-E-S-T so that you can build an L-I-F-E, right? Beyond your wildest dreams, success on your terms, what you truly want, so you can build a life of legacy, impact, fulfillment, and excitement. That's the framework. Obviously, there are ways that we use the framework to move through the coaching. We certainly don't have time to do that today, but I knew it was important for you to understand that BEST LIFE is not just this kind of off-the-cuff thing that I say. When I talk about living your best life in midlife and beyond, this is what I'm talking about. When I'm talking about the BEST LIFE mastermind or the BEST LIFE retreats, this is what I'm talking about. This is not just some rosy saying that is, you know, should make you feel good. There is intentionality behind this. This is I'm not gonna say it's my life's work, but moving you into the direction of your capital B-E-S-T L-I-F-E, super important to me. Because when I look at the impact and the legacy that you can build, how you can change this world if you are living a fulfilling life, one that excites you, one that is aligned with who you are and what's important to you, man, we can change the whole world. So let me know, what do you think? How is this landing with you? Are you surprised that there is so much work that went behind this? Is there a piece of it that resonates with you more than others? As always, I would love to hear from you. Send me a DM, reply to an email, just reach out to me. I'd love to hear what you think about the BEST LIFE Framework. At the end of last week's episode, so the orientation episode, I gave you a little homework. I'm gonna give you a little bit more homework this week as well. I want you to pick one letter in the BEST LIFE Framework, just one, and start writing down what does that letter mean to you? And if you, obviously, if you pick BE, then that's two letters, but it's still for best. Um, what does your best life look like? Or you could choose S, what does success mean to you? You could choose T, what do you truly want? Or you could choose one of the letters in LIFE: legacy, impact, fulfillment, and excitement. Don't just think about these things. Actually write it down. Take out a pen and paper and write your definition. And when I say definition, I don't mean one phrase or something you would read in a dictionary, but, like, big picture. Like you're building your dream life just like you are building your dream house. What does that mean to you? When we strip away everyone else's definition of what you should want, and what success means to you and what a best life looks like, what does it mean to you? You don't have to answer all seven of them. I mean, if, you can if you want, if you wanna do that exercise, but Choose one. Write it down. Get honest with yourself. Just see what comes up. I'd be very curious to hear how that exercise goes for you. Next week we are moving into the three seasons of life, which is fitting 'cause it's session three of the back to school special. Um, those three seasons of life are learn, earn, and yearn. And we're gonna talk about why waiting for the last one is not how you should be living your life. With that, Class is over for this week. Thank you so much for being here. I will see you right back here next week when the School of Midlife is back in session until then take good care.

Speaker 37:17

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 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.