Ep 187: How to Overcome Time Drama (Midlife Drama #1 of 3)

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 , my friend . I hope you had an amazing week . Today I want to talk about something that most of us wrestle with , especially at mid-career or midlife , and that's the idea of time drama .

That's what I call it . Granted , I think time can do a number on us at any age , but midlife is when our thoughts around time start to get real , because midlife is when the clock really starts to feel like it's ticking loud and the ticking gets louder and louder with every passing year .

And , depending on what we're telling ourselves about that loudly ticking internal clock , we can start to feel panicked . And when we feel panicked , that's when we start looking at life in ways that maybe aren't so helpful .

Some of us will look at our past and wonder or obsess a little bit about whether we've made the most of it , whether we spent our time well , right . Some of us will focus on our future through the lens of I'm now halfway through my life and we'll wonder whether we can even accomplish the things we want in the time that we have left .

And when we start to ask ourselves questions like did I spend my time well in the past or is it possible to do the things I want in the time I have left Usually because those aren't very helpful questions to be asking ourselves framed in that manner we'll usually find our inner critic answering by telling us it's too late , we're too old , time has passed us

by , we missed our opportunity . That's what I mean by time drama . And when we have that time drama , that's when we can start to spin endlessly in regret and stuckness as we feel desperate to move forward . But we don't let ourselves move forward because we're telling ourselves that it's too late , that there's not enough time .

There's this feeling for many of us that the clock is ticking louder , as if it's almost trying to tell us better , hurry up , because you're running out of time . But then we stay rooted to the spot because we feel like there isn't enough time . So what's the point ? That's what I mean by time drama .

It's this cycle , this non-virtuous cycle of panic and stuckness , this non-virtuous cycle of panic and stuckness . Desperation to move forward but inability to move forward because , what's the point ? There isn't enough time . Does any of this sound familiar Like ?

Do you ever find yourself feeling panicked about time , whether regretting how you spent your time in the past or worried about not having enough of it in the future ? If so , I honestly want to do this episode today , because I want to assure you that you are not alone .

Almost every one of the very accomplished people that I've worked with over the past couple of years in my practice has struggled with time in some respect , wondering if they have enough time to accomplish their goals or wondering if they spent too much time on the wrong things leading up to this point .

To put it simply , for most of us in midlife , time is not always our friend , because that's when we start to tell ourselves a lot of stories about time , stories that aren't very helpful , stories that tend to get more dramatic , more limiting and usually scarier the older we get .

There's this feeling that I've got to keep going and I've got to speed it up , but there's also an equal feeling that it's too late . So what's the point ?

So today I want to talk about how to shake loose from that time drama that we can sometimes experience at midlife or , potentially , at other points in our life you might be earlier on , but still find yourself struggling with that and how to manage through it in the most effective way .

Because , listen , midlife is when our life and our career is at its most complex . For most of us , no matter what choices we made along the way or how much or a little we've accomplished by the time we get to midlife , there's a lot going on . There's a lot of things vying for your time .

Most of us are at the peak of our career , so our job can be super demanding right now , and for most of us , so is the rest of our life . Maybe we still have kids in the home or we're putting kids through college . Maybe we still have our parents , but they're aging and requiring more of our time and care and attention .

We have friends and family , maybe not all of whom live close to us . So there's this feeling of how do I wedge in the time to keep connected to those people ?

And for many of us , we have a spouse or partner that we wanna stay connected to , and last but most certainly not least , there's finding enough time for our own self-care and for our own goals and aspirations for the future . It's hard to find time to fit it all in .

Life gets more complicated in midlife and it's easy to get swept away in the everyday demands of life . And when we're swept away by the everyday demands of life , we have this sense that time is not our own , that it belongs to someone else .

And when we feel that way , we become a servant of time versus having time serve us , because we're spending time on the things we have to do versus on the things we might want to do .

And that's when we start thinking that our lives or career or relationships just aren't as meaningful as we wish they were , that the things we have in our life , even though we've worked really hard for them , can start to feel like a drag on our time instead of a blessing . We feel like we've become a slave to the everyday obligations of our life .

And when we become a slave or feel like a slave to the everyday obligations , it's easy to lose touch with yourself , with what you want , because who has the time to think about that ? Because we're so busy serving this slave master called time and the obligations of our life .

That's how we lose our sense of meaning , because it feels like we're ignoring who we really are and what we really want , and maybe the stirrings of our passions or the things that are calling to us , that are new , that we'd otherwise love to pursue , but we don't , because we tell ourselves that we don't have time to think about any of it , let alone go after

it . Right , does this sound familiar ? Do you sometimes crave something different , but you're not quite sure what it is ? And because you're so busy doing the things you have to do , you aren't taking the time in a purposeful way to check in on the things that you might want to do in the future .

Are you just letting how you spend your time be the thief of the life you want in the future ? It's important to be disciplined in what we tell ourselves about time and to be disciplined about how we choose to spend our time , because the truth is we might have half of our life behind us , but most of us are all living older these days .

We're all living longer . Most of us have half of our life in front of us . We still , god willing , have a lot of time left on the planet . So what do we want to do with the time that's remaining , especially when we're in the middle of the messy middle of midlife .

Right In all of that complexity , midlife is the age where all the things that you've been working on building and acquiring and achieving over the first 40 or 50 years of your life I call it the societal checklist those things have come true , many of them , anyway . We have the education , the career path , the house , the spouse , the kids , the friends .

We've spent half of our life building all of that and while it's a blessing , it can also feel like a little bit of a curse because at midlife we don't do as much building . Bit of a curse because at midlife we don't do as much building many of us as we do managing everything we've built . That's why it feels so time consuming .

Building in those early years , those first 40 years of life , 50 years of life . It feels possibilities oriented , it feels exciting . We don't really know what's around the corner and we're filled with like hopes and dreams of what it will be like when we arrive . Managing it all , on the other hand , after we've arrived , usually feels exhausting .

At least many days it does , and sometimes less appealing now that we've actually achieved the things that we wanted and worked so hard for right . That's when we look at time as the tyrant instead of the ally . Suddenly we're not doing as much building in our life and instead it's become about managing the life we've built .

And listen , that's not necessarily a bad thing . Midlife is a time of harvest and harvest is a plentiful time . Like it's great to enjoy the fruits of your labor , but when you labor too long in one place , it starts to feel like an obligation and not a blessing .

Right , and while we might very well have a great life even the life or job we always dreamed of , a life that , to the outside world , looks amazing . Maybe we've started to look at some of the things that we have and wonder .

Maybe we say to ourselves I don't want this anymore , or I'm not sure I want this anymore , or I've climbed the ladder and I've accomplished the things , but now I think it's the wrong ladder for me . Like that's not great .

Our cheese has been moved and we're not a hundred percent sure , sometimes at midlife , where it's being moved to or what that's going to look like . Or am I just chasing this cheese thing all through my life and I'm never really going to feel satisfied , right ?

And these thoughts start to creep in , especially when you're so busy , spending all your time managing all the midlife things . Those thoughts can make us feel panicked , because there's these stirrings of the things you want to change , even if you're not 100% sure what you want to change them to .

Even if you're not 100% sure what you want to change them to , you just know that you don't necessarily want what you have . And then you look at the time that you have left in your week or your month or the year , even the time left on the planet , and you start to feel panicked . You might think what's wrong with me ? Why don't I want this life anymore ?

Connect . You might think what's wrong with me , why don't I want this life anymore ? And , by the way , the clock is ticking now and I only have so much time left , and now it's too late to make any changes . I'm not as young as I used to be , I don't have enough time .

And that's when time becomes a thief , because it starts to make us feel stuck , because , instead of giving ourselves permission to make important changes , because , listen , I feel like we're on this arc of our life and that that arc is an arc , for a reason we have to kind of keep moving .

That doesn't mean we're not grateful for all the things that we worked for that we now have . It just means it's okay to want some new things . That doesn't mean that anything has gone wrong , right . And what we don't want is we don't want to tell ourselves things about time that aren't helpful .

We don't want to spend all of our time remaining clinging to the things that we've built that maybe we don't want anymore , because we are telling ourselves it's too late to have what we really want , so we better hang on to what we've got . Does this sound familiar ?

Does your life maybe look great to others , but not so great to yourself anymore , for whatever reason ? Maybe it's not your whole life , maybe it's a part of your life . Do you feel like there's something new that you want for your future , and whether you do or don't know exactly what that is yet , are you talking yourself out of it ?

Are you telling yourself it's impossible or too late to go after it because you don't have enough time to pursue it ? Let's look at time through a practical lens just for a minute and think about time remaining in the year , so let's forget about the rest of our life for just a second and let's say okay .

When this episode airs , it's July 7th . We've just crossed the halfway point in the year , so we have 25 more weeks left in the year . 27 weeks of 2024 are now behind us . That's a container of time that's very specific , and yet 25 weeks is enough time to do something meaningful with , and I'm trying to prove a point here .

I'm trying to take away the time drama that you might have fallen into . I want you to think about time , just as this container of time remaining in the year , and I want to ask you a question what did you want to accomplish this year On January 1st ? Did you set any goals for yourself ? And I want you to think for a minute . What were they ?

Write them down on a piece of paper . And if you didn't set any goals , I want you to pick one . It doesn't matter what it is . For example I'll give you a few examples here Maybe you set a goal in January and you wanted to lose weight , get more fit , right , and maybe you haven't done a thing with that goal yet .

You keep telling yourself you'll start next week or next month or whatever it is . Well , there are 25 more weeks in the year with a healthy eating protocol and a structured workout regimen that you would follow . In theory , most people could be between 30 and 50 pounds lighter by January 1st . That's a lot of weight , right ?

That's a lot that you could still do and accomplish by the time we start next year . It's a lot of time left in the year to do something with . Here's another example . Maybe you've had a goal of getting promoted at work .

You told yourself that this was the year that you were going to move from senior manager to director , or from director to VP , or from VP to SVP , whatever it is . And yet here we are , just crossed the halfway point , and you're still sitting here , treating your life in the same way , going through the same motions .

Nothing has changed , and like you're waiting for something to happen , right . What if you stopped waiting ? What if , starting tomorrow , you decided to be the next level promoted version of you ? What does she look like ? How does she dress ? How does she spend her mornings ? What does she do with the time as she's driving to work ?

What if you started showing up as her in that way every day , from how you start your morning to how you put yourself together , to how you enter a room at work , to how you show up in meetings , to how you speak up and express your points of view , to how you approach your work assignments .

What if you simply , starting tomorrow , channeled her , that next level of her ? You didn't wait for someone to notice you to decide that you're worthy of that . You just become that . What if you became that in the next 25 weeks left in the year , you demonstrated what that next level you looks like to your boss and to everyone else around you .

A funny thing happens when you start being that next level , you , before you , actually have it Pretty soon . The rest of your life races to catch up with that . There's this thing . It sounds a little woo , but there's a thing called alignment .

And when we start showing up as that new thing , that new thing starts chasing you down instead of you feeling like you're chasing it down .

Granted , maybe that promotion won't come from the place you currently work , but when you're showing up that way over and over and over again and you start believing that and you start being that every single day , the recruiters start to call , opportunities start coming your way , whether it's in your current company or outside of it . That's what happens .

Or let's use another example . Let's say that you've been wanting to find a partner and you keep telling yourself you'd like to meet someone new and this is the year you want to do it , but we've just crossed the halfway point and you still haven't had a date for a year or two or however long it's been .

What if today you signed up for a dating app and I know some of you are saying I don't want to do that . Maybe some of you are already on it , but let's just pretend you've done nothing with it Sign up , pick one . Or , if you don't want to do that , choose a few clubs or activities to get involved in .

Join a gym , join a club , and then vow to attend those meetings one or two a week . Think how many new people you'd meet between now and the end of the year . Think how many opportunities you'd have to find interesting people that you might want to have coffee or lunch or dinner , or maybe even more , with between now and the end of the year .

If there are 25 weeks left in the year in this scenario and you vowed to have , let's just say two dates a month that you were going to actually work at it . You were maybe going to make the first move . You were going to invite someone to coffee right Between now and the end of the year . At two dates a month between now and the end of the year .

At two dates a month between now and the end of the year . Chances are within that period of time , you'd meet someone you wanted to spend more time with and I'm guessing you'd meet a whole lot more that maybe you could just become friends with .

My point in all of these examples is that when you're thinking about time and the thing that you're trying to accomplish , but you're not actually doing anything about it , it feels like you don't have enough time to do anything about it . It's partly because of the stories we tell ourselves about time .

It's because that dream is in our head and we aren't doing anything tangible to bring it about . It's because we're thinking instead of doing Now . Granted , I'm all about having a purposeful mindset and self-image and I think mindset work is the foundation of everything you want in your life . It's what I teach in my business .

But the truth is that nothing changes in our life , no matter how much of your mindset you work on until you start taking action and doing something tangible with your time Granted . The key to making these actions sustainable is ensuring that you've got a mindset that supports where you want to go . We don't want to be self-sabotaging .

We want to believe that the things that we're taking action against are actually possible for us , so that mindset work is important . I'm not saying don't do it . What I am saying , though , is that it's the moment that we decide to take action and start taking action when everything actually changes . That's when we start to get momentum in our life again .

That's when we get unstuck and start moving forward . So , if you're someone who has a lot of stories , you're telling yourself about time , and you're also feeling a little stuck or stalled , here's my challenge to you today . And you're also feeling a little stuck or stalled , here's my challenge to you today . Today is July 7th , 2024 .

You have 25 more weeks in the year . That's 177 days . So , instead of focusing on , you haven't done anything with your year , change that narrative to I have 177 days left . I have 25 more weeks left in the year . That is a container of time that is enough to do something incredibly meaningful with . I want you to pick one thing . Don't focus on 10 things .

Pick one of your goals , something you'd really like to do , and I want you to focus on that between now and January 1st . What's calling to you Doesn't really matter what you pick , so don't get into any mind drama around . Should I pick this or that ? Pick one thing , the first thing that pops in your mind that you feel is meaningful to you .

What's calling to you ? What do you want more of and less of ? Is it your self-care ? Is it relationships ? Is it career ? Is it having more time for fun ? Is it learning a new skill ? What one thing could you do for yourself for the next 25 weeks ? That's not for your employer or your family , but for you for your employer or your family , but for you .

I want you to name it . I want you to choose it . Pick one thing and then ask yourself who do you need to be in order to have that thing ? Let's catapult ourself forward to January 1st and I want you to pretend that you have that thing . Whatever it is , who are you ? Who did you become now that you have that thing ?

So , if it was the weight loss goal , who is the version of you who's at her goal weight . How did she spend her time between July 1st and December 1st ? She wasn't doing all the things she was doing earlier in the year . She changed . What were those changes ? What is she eating ? How is she treating her body ?

How does she support her fitness goals and how does she stay true to that ? Who is that version of you ? If it's the promotion goal , who's the version of you who's already at that next level ? Who's already the VP or the SVP ? How does she dress ? How does she carry herself in meetings ? How does she lead others ?

If it's the dating goal , who's the version of you ? Who's already in the relationship she's been dreaming of for years ? Be that person today of for years . Be that person today . Identify who she is and look for all the small , tangible things that you can do to show up as her . Start really tiny , start , micro . I'm a huge fan of micro actions .

A lot of times we'll just try to over activate in our life and take on too much . Start small and layer in new things every week . I call that habit layering . Pick one new habit , tiny little thing you could do , and gradually add in a new thing every week . Do it with consistency . Gradually add in a new thing every week . Do it with consistency .

Notice how different you feel . Notice how the time drama goes away as your inner narrative changes because you start getting momentum in your life . Notice how , all of a sudden , it actually seems possible and , instead of feeling stuck , you feel excited .

Notice how you start to believe , as you begin making progress towards this goal , that the other things you're dreaming of start to also feel possible . The key to overcoming mind drama is to stop being so macro . Stop looking at your whole life and making sweeping generalizations . Go micro . Pick one meaningful thing .

Figure out who you need to be in order to have that thing . Determine what that version of you would be doing every single day and then chop that apart . Pick one tiny little piece of that and do that today . Add in something else next week , and then another thing , and then another thing , and start becoming that version of you .

One tiny little micro action at a time . This is how time becomes your friend . Time becomes your friend . You can start with these next 25 weeks . I know you can do it . Your future is possible .

Everything that you want to achieve in the last half of your life is well within your reach , but you have to change how you're thinking about time in order to make it happen .

If you enjoyed this episode , I'd like to invite you to go to Apple Podcasts and give us a five-star rating .

That helps me get favored in the algorithm so that I can reach more people , and that's one of my big goals with this podcast is to help as many people as possible who are struggling in midlife understand that really it's just the beginning and that everything that you want to accomplish is still well within your reach .

I'd really appreciate it and 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 the purposefulcareercom backslash next level . Don't forget the purposefulcareercom backslash next level . Join me and together we'll make your career in life everything you dream of . We'll see you there .