Ep 176: Charting a New Course: The Art of Mid-Career Reinvention

It's about having the clarity , self-confidence and unstoppable belief to go after and get everything you want . If you'll come with me , I'll show you how Well . Hello friends , I hope you had an amazing week . This week we're going to talk about a different part of mid-career and that is reinvention .

Now , this is a really juicy topic , but before we dive into the meat of the episode and I share what are six ways of starting to think about tackling a reinvention of your life yourself at mid-career , I want to talk about what it is and what it isn't .

At its essence , the definition of reinvention is changing the way you see yourself , and I think that's really different from how most people think about it . I think most of us , when we think about reinvention , we think about the external facade right of our life .

So we think about changing our wardrobe , changing our body size , changing our partner , changing our house , changing our car , changing our job , changing our city .

We think about those things and we think if we do one or more of those things , we've reinvented ourselves , we've reinvented our life and it's all going to look and feel different and will therefore be more fulfilled .

But the truth of the matter is , the definition of reinvention is changing the way you see yourself , and so , while a reinvention effort might eventually manifest in changing some of the external factors of your life , the truth is that the change starts with how you see yourself , because when you see yourself differently , you show up in your life differently .

And when you show up in your life differently , you get a different result . You have a different experience of your life . If you just change some of the outer trappings you just change your hairstyle or your boyfriend or your car or your city or something like that I can promise you it's not really going to change .

It's just some of the surrounding environmental elements might be different , but you're still going to be the same person until you change what's going on on the inside . I can speak from experience here because I think I've told you before on this podcast , I have moved to 14 different cities .

Like I was born in St Louis , then I lived in Kansas City , then I moved to the Boston area , then I moved to 14 different cities .

I was born in St Louis , then I lived in Kansas City , then I moved to the Boston area , then I moved to the Philadelphia area , then I moved to Charlotte , then I moved to Chicago , then I moved back to Charlotte , then I moved to Richmond , virginia , then I moved to Boca Raton , then I moved back to Chicago and now I'm here in Dallas .

I mean , that is a lot of moves . I even briefly lived for three or four months doing contract work in San Diego , which , by the way , I loved .

But my point is my life in all of those cities , aside from making different friends and , you know , having some of the environmental trappings that were unique in those different cities , they all had something wonderful to offer .

The basic components of my daily life and how I showed up in that , and even the things that I did were kind of the same , even when I lived in San Diego and even when I lived in Boca Raton , being near the ocean , as someone who was born and grew up and spent most of my life in the Midwest , that was always a fantasy , right ? Guess what ?

Like you , don't spend all your life by the water , right ? So the components of your daily life , your way of being , is going to be your way of being until you change how you're thinking about yourself and therefore how you're feeling every day .

Therefore , how you're feeling every day and how you're showing up , and all of that , when you start to change things from the inside , your life can completely be reinvented without even changing a thing . That's the truth . Now , that's not to say you can't change the some of the trappings that are external .

I'm a big fan of shaking up your environment or changing aspects of yourself . You know your wardrobe , your , your persona , like any of that . But that's not where you should start .

You start on the inside , and that's what I want to walk you through today is the construct of what are six things that you need to do if you kind of feel that inner restlessness , that subtle calling , that little voice in your head that's telling you it might be time to make some changes , right ?

So I want to walk you through six things and we'll talk a little bit about them as we go through .

So the first thing I want to talk about is pay attention to that little voice , because it is there for a reason and it's very common by the time we get to the middle part of our life or career so say 39 to you know , mid to upper 50s very common that a lot of things are changing .

We're in a place where , if we have children , the children are getting older . If we've chosen a career path and stayed with it since we got out of school , you know we're well into that now might be growing a little tired of it , you know , might be ready for something new .

Maybe we've had a close knit circle of friends but somehow by the time you get to midlife , through career changes and things like that , people take off and they spread out . Maybe we ourselves have gotten transferred and we find ourselves transplanted in this new place .

Or maybe , you know , we just feel like we're stuck in a little bit of a rut , like we don't really allow ourselves to explore or to try new things .

Whatever the reason that we've gotten to this place , if you feel a little stirred up , if you feel a little agitated , if you feel this subtle push that it might be time for something new , it is very , very important that you don't dismiss it , that you don't talk yourself out of it , because there's all of these narratives that can crop up where , even if we

allow ourselves to see it and recognize it and say , oh yeah , I'd like to change some things , I can promise you for most people , what will immediately happen is that your brain will kick into high gear and start to talk you out of it . It's too late , I can't do that , I'll never find the right partner , or you know , there's really no better job .

I'm just going to keep the one I have and you'll talk yourself into staying in it . Or it's too late to start that business , or I don't have enough money to start the new business , or I'm too old to make new friends , or I'm too old to completely up and move across the country , or whatever you're thinking that you might want to do for some reason .

I want you to not do that . I want you to pay attention to that voice and explore it . You don't have to act on it , but I think you do need to honor it , because it's there for a reason and it's trying to tell you something . I would discourage you from acting on it until you fully explored it .

But listen to it Instead of turning away from it , instead of talking yourself out of it , instead of trying to silence that inner voice that's prodding you and pushing you and asking you to listen to it and to honor it .

Turn into it and explore it and ask yourself what might it be telling me and why might I be thinking these things and why might I be feeling these things right ? So pay attention to it . Is number one , don't dismiss it .

Number two once you've paid attention to it , once you've got some awareness that this is a recurring pattern of thought that you have , that it might be time for something new . Number two I want you to pay attention to what's going on in your life right now . So it's kind of an assessment when are you in all parts of your life ?

And here I just want you to look at it , not with judgment . To look at it not with judgment but as a means of evaluation . Like , are you happy with your set of social friends ? Are you happy with where your relationship is at with your partner ? If you have one ? Do you want a partner ? If you don't have one ?

Are you happy with how you're handling your kids growing up , cause that usually happens around this time of life . Do you feel like you need to make some adjustments there ? Are you happy with your self-care .

Are you happy with where you're at in terms of how you've taken care of yourself and the way you show up in the world through your appearance , your wardrobe , your weight , all of that ? Are you happy with that ? Are you happy with where you live ?

Or do you want something different , like look at all parts of it , look at your finances , your health , every part of your life , and I want you to evaluate your degree of happiness and satisfaction with that component .

Because , like I said about my last week's episode , if you double click into reinvention in your own life , I want you to look at all the different factors that you have that make up your life and evaluate what are the ones that you'd keep and what are the ones that you want to reinvent .

And it's okay if maybe you want to blow it all up , maybe you do and you want to completely reinvent , or maybe you just want to edit and take out some things and put some new things in .

It's different for everyone , but it's important to look across the components of your life and pay attention to how things are going , whether or not you're happy with that , and it's not enough to say , oh well , it's always been this way , so this is just the way my life is . It's like if you could completely reinvent some parts of your life , would you ?

And why ? And that is important to know Because that's going to

allow you . If you just look across the different components , and I think the big ones are you know your , what you do for a living , your financial situation , your health situation , your relationships , your environment . You know your city or your home , I think is another big one . My environment for me is important to me .

And then I think the other one is your persona . Like how are you presenting yourself ? Because I think at midlife it's really easy to not pay attention to those things , to just kind of start going through the motions , and I think sometimes that's why we end up being a little , you know , less than enthused about our life .

Is that we've kind of put things on automatic pilot ? So break it into component parts , evaluate it and get honest with yourself about the things that are working for you and the things that aren't , and why . Why is a very important thing here .

Number three then I want you to take a look at that evaluation and I want you to get clear on what parts need change , and of those parts ? Are they minor tweaks ? Are they complete reinvention ?

If you had to give it a score of one through 10 , with one being the slightest of tweaks and 10 being I need to blow this up you know , like , get honest with yourself about the degree of change that you would want to see .

And it helps in that one number three , if you can kind of look to the future , to future you in like 10 years , and say , well , you know , here's where I am now . What would a 10 year from now me look like ? If it was everything that I think now that I would want it to be , what kind of relationships would you have ?

What would your financial situation look like ? What would your health look like ? What package would you present to the world ? Like , where would you live ? Like , what would your environment be like ? What would your friend circle be like ?

Like , look at it that way and then juxtapose , you know , the assessment from number two on kind of where you are and what you don't want . Let number three be the juxtaposition of that of well , what would those things look like in 10 years If they were ? Would you want it ?

I think that's really important to set aside the restrictions , set aside the confines of today , as your life is , and allow yourself the freedom to say what could it be if I just forgot all the rules , if I just forgot all the decisions that led me here in the first place 20 years ago , 10 years ago , five years ago ?

And what if I just blew it all up in this one area , or the whole thing , whatever it is , and say what could it look like if I completely put it back together again and again here ? Keep that voice of the inner critic muted , turn it down , do it , you know . Turn it off .

Put it on mute for just a minute so that you can look forward without judgment , with 100% possibility , and ask yourself what do I want to do here ? I'm in the early stages of doing this in my own life and five years from now will look completely different than it does today .

And sometimes I'm going to be honest , sometimes that's very , very exciting and I can't wait . And I'm starting to indoctrinate that plan and into my decision-making so that I head in that direction . But there are moments when I think , oh gosh , I don't know , like this is a really big shift . What if I don't like it ? Right ?

And it's that voice that you need to push to the side . Right now You're not changing anything . Right now You're evaluating and you're assessing what could be . So the first three pay attention , do not silence that voice . Pay attention if it's telling you it's time for reinvention .

Number two assess , like across the components of your life , what are you happy with and what aren't you happy with , and why . I'd even give them a rating , like from one to 10 .

What is the degree of satisfaction , with one being not satisfied at all and 10 being I'm thrilled with this part of my life and I'd make it about the big stuff health , finances , relationships , environment , your persona , all of that stuff . That's what I would do . And then , number three get clear on where you want to go .

Like , if you could , you know , knowing that you just did your assessment of where you're at , what would 10 years from now ? You look in each of those areas and mute the voice of the critic that wants to tell you that the things you're thinking about aren't possible .

Just allow yourself to imagine that anything is possible and what would you want that to look like ?

Right , important to know what the delta is in those areas between where you are now and what you think it would look like if it was the way you wish it was Then a number four once you figure out the different components you want to change whether it's a complete reinvention or it's just a subtle edit in a few areas I want you to start to do some identity

work on those things . So self-image and self-identity is how we see ourselves and if you go back to what I said at the beginning , reinvention is really changing the way you see yourself . So there's a lot of identity work that has to go into it . The self-image is critically important because our self-image , how we see ourselves , has been built over our life .

So if we find ourselves in a place where we're not a hundred percent thrilled with different parts of our life , if we don't get clear on what we want number one and then two adjust our self-image to believe that that new thing is possible for us , even if we've never had it before , even if it's a completely different way of looking at ourselves , we're not

going to make the change right . Think about all the diets that people start and don't you know and stop . Think about the relationships we get in or out of . Think about the job dissatisfaction . We don't like a job .

We get a new job , we like it for a while and then we don't like it again , like the reason why all of that stuff happens is because we haven't changed how we see ourself and when we see ourselves .

In a certain way , that means that we have a certain set of thoughts and beliefs about ourself and our possibilities and that has us living in a certain emotional state on a daily basis because of those thoughts and that has us doing a certain set of actions or activities because of how we're feeling . So that's where all the overeating comes from .

That's where all the over Netflixing , over spending , over all of those behaviors come from how we're feeling Perfectionism comes from how we're feeling Procrastination comes from how we're feeling . Like all of the things about yourself that aren't quite working are coming from how you're thinking about yourself and all of that adds up to your self image .

So if you're looking to reinvent , when you're doing your self assessment and you're looking forward to what you want those different areas to evolve into , you have to look at those areas where you want to make changes and change how you see yourself in that area . You can't keep saying and change how you see yourself in that area .

You can't keep saying , well , I'm just someone who can't control , you know how I spend money , or I'm just someone who you know doesn't like going to the gym , or I'm just somebody who never is with the right guy , or whatever story you're telling yourself . You can't keep telling yourself that story .

If you want to reinvent your life in that area or overall , you have to be open to creating a new story about yourself , to create a new narrative that will head you in the direction that you want to go , that'll support that reinvention , that set of changes that you want to make in your life , so that it looks more like the life that you want .

So that's number four is shift your identity so it matches where you want to go , not where you are right now . So that's a big one , and for that you might find it helpful to get a coach . That's an area of specialty in my business self-image , because I believe that nothing is possible without an enabling self-image .

We're always going to start and stop and not make stuff happen or blow things up in a way we don't want unless we first change ourselves . That's where real change comes from . So that's number four .

Number five I want you , once you've kind of figured out , kind of where you want to go and the areas that you want to change , and you're starting to work on your identity . That can be a longer term thing that you've got to work on it . Identity shifts don't happen in an instant . But , number five you need to commit to the vision .

While you're working on that identity shift , you also need to look at where you're headed and the changes you need to make and you need to be committed to that .

It can't be a nice to have . It can't be something that you do when you get around to it . It can't be something that you'll do when you feel inspired or it can't be something that you do when you feel ready , because we know with anything in life , if you wait till you're ready , you will never do it right . That's the truth .

So you've got to commit to vision and that is mindset work and this is a really direct fallout of the identity work I was just talking about in number four you have to believe that it's possible . First and foremost . You won't commit to it if you don't think it's possible .

So that's why the identity work is so important is because , as you're working on building that belief and seeing yourself in that new way , which will take time . At the same time , you need to work on fully committing to that vision , making it not a nice to have , making it a non-negotiable . I'm doing this , this is happening .

I don't care if I have to start and stop 50 times , I don't care how many times I fall down . I'm going to get back up again until I make it happen , because I believe that it's possible . It's a hundred percent mindset . That is why some people stay with things and other people don't . Some people stay with things and other people don't . Right ?

You have to kind of be the Navy seal in your life . I think , when it comes to the things that you want , you've got to be incredibly tenacious and persistent . That's tenacity , I think , is one of the most important skills to have .

And commitment , because if you want to make big changes at midlife , I think it's a lot different than making big changes when you're in your twenties , right ? I mean we're just starting out when our mid twenties . So if we make huge , sweeping changes , I mean I don't mean this in a bad way , but what difference does it make ?

It's like you don't have a whole lot of stuff . You know there's not a lot of complexity yet , usually for most of us in our 20s I guess there's probably some exceptions to that , but in general , but when we get to midlife it's , like you know , complexity central Like there is .

There is a lot of things that we've been doing and ways of being that we've set up in our life , our home , our set of friends , everything that we've built . We're here now and tweaking . That is something I think to be taken . It's to be taken seriously , but it can be kind of daunting , right .

So you need to have the tenacity to stay with it , because changing something when you're 40 years in is a lot different than changing something when you're 20 years in . It takes a lot more willpower , sometimes there's a lot more complexity and sometimes there's a lot of things to unwind .

I kind of think of it , this kind of change , as like I don't know if you've ever had , like a necklace . I was just organizing my jewelry box the other day and I found this necklace that I have not worn in years and it was in a . I don't know if you've ever experienced your chains getting into a knot .

I had one chain and another chain in this really complex knot and I swear to God , it took me an hour and a half to unwind those chains . It was just this intricate ball of chain that I had to undo and I kind of feel like that's what it's like at midlife .

It's like the tentacles of the different parts of your life are interwoven and wound around each other , and I think that's why at midlife , when we want to change something , it can feel like exciting but at the same time like forget it . I'm exhausted just thinking about it , like I could never figure that out or I could never do that .

It's too hard , it's too complex , there's too many moving parts , like it will never work . And I'm here to tell you that's the story you're telling yourself , just like me sitting down and patiently unwinding those two necklaces that I probably will never wear and I will probably give away . But I just couldn't stand them .

Like being in that little knot , I got it all undone . And you can do the same thing in your life . It does not matter what story you're telling yourself about , how complex it is or how hard it's going to be . All you have to do is do one thing at a time , and that's leads us to number six . Once you get past commitment .

I want you to take a series of micro actions . That is exactly what I did to unwind the knot in the necklace . It was like one chain , okay . Looking at it and saying , okay , this I've got to put under , okay , this now is looped around , like I had to look at it as a series of small micro moves , one after another , that would get the chain unknotted .

And that is exactly what we have to do in our life if we want to do this . And I do think the micro action part makes it feel manageable . It's kind of like a person probably that is off their fitness journey and wants to become super fit , or a person who needs to lose , you know , 50 or more pounds .

Like you can look at that big end destination and say , oh , forget it , man , I'll never get there , it's too hard , I'm just too far from where that is .

But if you , instead of doing that , if you look at it and say this is just nothing but a series of tiny little changes , it's like think of it instead of this big thing that you're trying to do , think of it as a series of tiny little levers that you can pull every day and as you start to experience the outcome of the little lever that you're pulling that

day . They gradually add up to big change . But what is that adage that ? They say that people grossly overestimate what they can accomplish in a year and vastly underestimate what they can accomplish over five or 10 years .

So we kind of think about it in the reverse way that we should , you know , like , look at it as , yeah , allow yourself to be inspired by where you're going , but don't stay focused there .

Stay focused on the know where you're going , but stay focused on the micro actions you can take every day , because that's not daunting and you won't talk yourself out of that , right ? You'll just think of it as the step you're taking today and you'll be surprised to learn a year from now how far you've actually come down the path .

And you'll look back at yourself a year ago and think , oh , I might not be to that destination yet , but look how far I've come . That's the power of micro actions , right ? I think when you think about it as , oh my gosh , I've got vacation coming up and I need to lose 30 pounds or whatever , you know it's probably not going to work .

You're going to go on vacation . You're either not going to go on vacation . You're going to go on vacation and be 30 pounds overweight , right ?

It's the wrong way to look at it , like you can't think about the big change or the big reinvention as something that you're going to do quickly or allow yourself to make that big , sweeping change , mean that it's just too much , it's you're too far down the path . None of that's true .

It really is as simple as saying I got to get clear on where I'm going . I have to shift my identity and believe that that's possible for myself . I need to fully commit to that vision and make it non-negotiable that I'm doing it , and it doesn't matter how long it takes , what the time horizon that we put on things doesn't matter .

Like it , maybe it'll happen a year , maybe it'll happen in 10 years , but doesn't it matter that it'll eventually happen ? And , by the way , the journey to getting there is going to be so fulfilling , right . And then taking those micro actions one little , tiny step at a time .

So that is a six step guide to thinking about reinvention in your career or your life . I really believe that most people don't allow themselves to reinvent . I actually believe that most people stay kind of a product of how they were raised , and there's nothing wrong with that if that's what you want .

But I think if you're someone that has something new calling to you , honor yourself by acknowledging that desire and allowing yourself to explore it , and use these six steps to get clear on the areas where you're discontent , to get clear on what you want for yourself in five or 10 years to shift how you see yourself and what you believe your possibilities are .

That is deep , long-term work to shift your self-image , but it can be done , and I think a self-image should always be moving forward , because I believe that the most fulfilling life is one where you're constantly pursuing something new , you're constantly learning something or trying something new , and so that would mean that your self-image is always shifting and adapting

. I think keeping it pliable is really important as we age . I think it's important to a fulfilled life right and then fully commit to that vision . Make it a non-negotiable , you know . Tell yourself I'm going to honor myself , life right and then fully commit to that vision . Make it a non-negotiable , you know .

Tell yourself I'm going to honor myself , I'm going to do this and I'm not going to talk myself out of it and I'm not going to make it into this big , complicated story . I'm just going to take a series of micro actions , one step at a time , and I'm not going to pressure myself to get it done in six months or in a year .

It might get done in six months or a year , but I'm going to take it one step at a time , knowing that I will eventually get there . So that is a framework for how to think about reinvention at midlife and I hope that you found it helpful . Until next time , make

it a great week . My friends , do you have a life coach ? If not , I'd be so honored to be your coach . I've created a virtual coaching program and monthly membership called Next Level . Inside we take the material you hear on this podcast , study it and then apply it . Join me at thepurposefulcareercom backslash next level .

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