#3: 3 Secrets to Navigating Midlife Transitions
Did you know that dip in the satisfaction you might be feeling right now--if you’re in your 30s, 40s, or 50s--happens for most everyone...even Great Apes?
Yes, researchers call it the Happiness U-Curve. But here’s the good news: it doesn’t mean you’re having a crisis.
It might seem like a crisis because we’re so used to hearing about red sports cars and younger lovers. Yet a midlife crisis happens for just 10% of us.
While the midlife crisis is overstated, our satisfaction really is at an all-time low in our mid-40s...give or take a few years. Your midlife malaise is the REAL DEAL. And, on average, it’ll last 4 to 5 years.
But today I’m going to share three secrets with you that are going to change the way you think about navigating your midlife transition...whether you’re 35 or 65...or somewhere in between.
GENERALLY ACCEPTED IDEAS ABOUT MIDLIFE
There are two generally accepted ideas about midlife:
First: that midlife marks the onset of decline
Second: that the only mature way to deal with aging is to acknowledge and accept your growing limitations.
Here’s the real story: Midlife is exciting because it’s a time when we have the opportunity to reexamine even our most basic assumptions.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m in no way trying to downplay the objective problems that arise with midlife.
Sure, people at midlife face more physical limitations. Health becomes a pervasive concern. As a physician once told us, “If you’re 50 and nothing hurts, you’re most likely dead!” Particularly in the U.S., which does not offer universal health insurance, a major illness can lead to a financial catastrophe.
There’s evidence that stresses involving multiple role demands, or financial pressures may cluster in midlife or take a greater toll
Although job loss or divorce, for example, can occur during other age periods, those in midlife may experience greater stress due to age discrimination by employers or more limited opportunities for remarriage
Add to this the fact that the cultural atmosphere makes it increasingly difficult for people in advanced careers to find jobs…
It’s not surprising that many middle-aged people experience enormous anxiety.
While those problems have become the focus of endless discussion, the advantages that many people gain in midlife have hardly been mentioned.
By this age, most of us have gone through protracted crises that seemed insurmountable at the time. Through these crises, we’ve discovered our strengths. One strength that tends to increase with age is the ability to put emerging problems into perspective, which helps us deal with the issues at hand much more calmly and with much greater self-assurance.
Midlife can also be a peak time in many areas, including earnings, position at work, leadership in the family, decision-making abilities, self-confidence, and contributions to the community.
3 SECRETS TO NAVIGATING MIDLIFE TRANSITIONS
As a midlife transition coach and educator, I have helped midlifers just like you move cross-country for a dream job, publish a nationally best-selling book, and so much more. But they’re not always big, sweeping changes. Some just want to feel capable of navigating the transitions of life more smoothly...instead of chasing that proverbial gold star.
You might be...
Wondering if this is as good as life gets.
Afraid the best years are behind you. Or fearing what the future holds.
Feeling a growing disconnect between your thirty-something self-image and forty-something reality.
No longer wanting to live the afternoon of life carrying the dirt of life’s morning.
Self-critical because aren’t you supposed to have stuff figured out by now?!
Needing a guide to map out your new landscape.
So what’s the key to creating YOUR unconditional satisfaction? It’s learning to always have your own back--no matter how many hurdles you face.
Here are the three secrets about navigating life transitions and how you can feel more satisfied with your life...no matter your obstacles.
SECRET #1. While the Happiness U-curve--or that mid-40s dip--is real, we’re going to experience life disruptions every 1-2 years. And for every 10 of them, 1 will likely be a major event. On average, these major events last 4-5 years.
But the big idea here is that because you live a NONlinear life, you’re going to face a lot of life transitions...both big and small...throughout your life. Typical expectations used to be that you’ll have one career, one relationship, one home, one sexuality, one identity from adolescence to assisted living. But these expectations are more out of sync with modern life than your date’s hips dancing to Rump Shaker at your first middle school dance.
Modern life is no longer a straight line. And this nonlinear life has profound consequences for decisions you make every single day. The biggest of those consequences is that--for all the benefits of living a nonlinear life--personal freedom, self-expression, living on your own terms--it asks you to navigate an almost overwhelming array of life transitions...so you really need the skills to navigate them.
This is important because you’ll spend nearly half of your midlife in some sort of disruption, whether it’s a smaller disruption...or a bigger lifequake.
SECRET #2. The second secret is that we listen more than we talk...when the real gold is in talking to ourselves more than we listen to ourselves. Too often our lives sound like a voiceover in a movie, instead of a dialogue with ourselves. We’re focused on powerless questions from a place of dysfunction and self-blame, which sound like, “Why can’t I just move on?” or “Why can’t I find a partner?” We need to ask ourselves powerful questions from a place of curiosity. Questions like, “What’s one thing I could do to move forward?” or “In what ways would I be a good partner for someone?”
The big idea here is that while you tend to live in thought instead of action, clarity comes from engagement, not thought. When you’re unclear about the courses and contours of midlife...or about what makes you come alive, you bend to false narratives that block your contentment. Often, your slump isn’t justified by your objective circumstances because many of us have more economic and social power than ever. So you make an attribution error...thinking your dissatisfaction is the result of some sort of character defect. “Oh, I suck is why!” When we’re unhappy despite an outwardly comfortable life, we feel a certain shame. “I have everything I need and then some, yet I’m still dissatisfied. What’s wrong with me?” We hide the shame by withdrawing and shutting down...because exposing it to others means diminishing our status. In effect, we hide when we most need to share. We then languish as we “wait it out” by staying in dissatisfying jobs, relationships, and more. I’m sure this pain feels a little familiar.
Here’s why this is important: clarity is power. You get curious about midlife malaise..and begin to recognize midlife more as a period of growth and renewal…which makes it more exhilarating and less terrifying. You distinguish between the natural vicissitudes of midlife...and the caricature of a crisis. In this way, you’re clear about what’s yours to work on, you know? You turn your vague desires into a clear vision for exactly what you want to kick-start living more satisfying midlife on your terms. And that’s the main point, isn’t it?
SECRET #3. Life transitions are a skill we can--and must--master. Most of us haven’t had training in how to figure out or create what we REALLY want--none of us were given an owner’s manual at birth.
We haven’t been taught…
How to think a thought purposefully.
How to feel and process emotions.
How to rewire our brains.
We mistakenly think we’re rational, but our brains are designed to scare us, generating doubt and confusion. This isn’t intentional; our brains just want to keep us alive.
The big idea here is that because you’re not taught the skills of mastering midlife, you revert to your subconscious patterns. In fact, just 5% of the ~60,000 thoughts you have each day are new and creative.
You decide you’re too busy or distressed to pursue your dreams and grow. And I get it: just getting through the day is hard enough.
You seek immediate pleasure: overdrink, overspend, overwork, overeat, over-Facebook.
Or avoid pain, which keeps you from moving forward with creating and contributing.
Or expend minimal effort...which creates false comfort that seems safe, but is basically just surviving.
You attempt to make changes through an outside-in approach.
You try to change behavior...like buying that step-tracking Apple watch.
You try to learn new information...even though we’re up to our eyeballs in information.
You try to focus on “a little more, a little better, a little different.”
You think your satisfaction is tethered to your objective, material circumstances.
You create your identity and then start creating stories about your identity...and these stories reinforce your beliefs, behaviors, and environment.
This is key because we make meaning from past events in our lives, then apply those outcomes to our current situation...thus, bringing our past to the future, with no possibility to create something new.
But in every single moment of every single day, you have the opportunity to choose how you wish to BE in the world. This means it’s possible to change in an instant.
Your ways of BEing are a choice. Even your personality isn’t fixed...you can change certain traits.
Anything you have, you’ve chosen...either unconsciously or consciously.
When you unconsciously choose, you’re reacting…you’re operating on unconscious automatic. Remember the 95% of your day?
When you consciously choose, you’re actively making a choice among options.
It may seem like semantics but the outcomes that each creates are worlds apart.
When something “goes wrong,” we often react at the moment instead of choosing.
We operate from “default,” based on our unconscious.
But reactions aren’t creative, they’re created by a limiting belief and happen automatically.
When we choose at the moment, we’re deciding to create instead of using old patterns.
SUMMING IT UP
As part of the "Is this all there is?" midlife ennui, you have stories that are likely keeping you stuck in a cycle of fuzziness, fear, frustration, or frenzy. Just remember the 3 secrets to navigating midlife transitions:
First: We experience life disruptions every 1-2 years. And for every 10 of them, 1 will likely be a major event that, on average, lasts 4-5 years. So...you’re in good company.
Second: We often listen more than we talk...when the real gold is in talking to ourselves more than we listen to ourselves. And to talk by asking ourselves POWERFUL questions like, “What’s one thing I could do today to move forward?”
Third: Life transitions are a skill we can, in fact, master...and do so with greater meaning and purpose.
If you’re ready to tune in, turn off, and take on your life transition, then check out my course called Midlife Tune-Up Technique available at shop.meghankrause.com; I link to it in the show notes as well. By the end, you’ll feel completely different about where you’ve been, where you are today, AND where you’re going.
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