There is a very specific kind of panic that can happen somewhere in your 40s.
You look around at the life you spent twenty years building and think:
Wait. Is this it?
Which is particularly inconvenient because you may actually like your life.
You might love your spouse.
Love your kids.
Like your house.
Have friends you adore.
Have a perfectly respectable career or business.
There may be absolutely nothing obviously wrong.
And yet.
Something feels different.
The things that used to motivate you don’t quite work anymore.
The goals you spent years chasing suddenly feel strangely uninteresting.
You start thinking about things you’ve never thought about before.
Maybe you want to write a book.
Move somewhere else.
Go back to school.
Quit your job.
Start a business.
Close a business.
Travel alone.
Learn pottery.
Get a tattoo.
Grow dahlias.
Become the kind of woman who owns twelve linen dresses and somehow knows how to make sourdough.
Whatever.
And then immediately behind that thought comes another one:
What the hell is wrong with me?
Nothing.
You might just be ready for something new.
If you’ve been wondering how to reinvent yourself in your 40s, I don’t think the answer is necessarily starting over. In fact, I think some of the best midlife reinvention happens without blowing up your life at all.
I Think We Get Midlife Reinvention Wrong
When we hear the word reinvention, we tend to imagine something dramatic.
Sell the house.
Quit the job.
Leave the marriage.
Move to Costa Rica.
Open a bookstore.
Become unrecognizable to everyone who knew you before.
And listen, maybe Costa Rica is calling.
But most midlife reinvention doesn’t happen like that.
Most of it happens quietly.
You start questioning things.
You become less willing to tolerate things you used to tolerate.
You realize you’ve been doing certain things because you’re good at them, not because you actually like them.
You notice how much of your life has been built around what other people need from you.
And eventually you start asking a question that sounds ridiculously simple:
What do I want now?
Not what should I want.
Not what would make the most money.
Not what makes sense on paper.
Not what would impress anyone.
Not what would be easiest for everyone else.
What do I want?
That question can be surprisingly hard to answer.
Somewhere Along the Way, We Stop Asking Ourselves What We Want
Kids need things.
Partners need things.
Businesses need things.
Parents need things.
Jobs need things.
Houses need approximately seven thousand things at all times.
And for years, we’re really fucking good at responding to all of it.
We solve problems.
We keep calendars.
We make appointments.
We build careers.
We pack lunches.
We remember birthdays.
We pay bills.
We take care of people.
We become extremely competent at managing a life.
But competence is not the same thing as desire.
And somewhere in all that competence, a lot of us stop asking ourselves what we actually want.
Wanting something for no particularly productive reason can even start to feel selfish.
Entitled.
Impractical.
Shouldn’t I just be grateful?
Don’t I already have enough?
Do I really need something else?
We’ve heard some version of you don’t always get what you want our entire lives.
Fair enough.
But somewhere along the way, some of us interpreted that to mean:
Maybe I shouldn’t want anything at all.
Those are very different things.
Reinvention Doesn’t Mean Your Old Life Was Wrong
I think this is one of the reasons midlife can feel so disorienting.
We assume wanting something different means we made a mistake before.
If I don’t want this career anymore, was choosing it wrong?
If this business doesn’t fit me anymore, did I fail?
If I want more independence now, does that mean I’m unhappy in my marriage?
If I don’t enjoy something I used to love, what does that say about me?
Maybe nothing.
Maybe it means you’re a person.
The version of you who made those choices was working with the information, desires, responsibilities and dreams she had then.
She wasn’t stupid.
She wasn’t wrong.
She got you here.
You don’t have to shit on your old life to build a new one.
You can be grateful for what something gave you and still be finished with it.
You Are Allowed to Outgrow Things
This has been one of the hardest lessons of my own midlife.
I have started businesses.
Closed businesses.
Created programs.
Ended programs.
Started podcasts.
Stopped podcasts.
Built communities.
Changed my mind.
Changed it back.
Got excited about things and then realized they weren’t actually mine to carry forever.
For a long time, I thought this meant I had a consistency problem.
Now I think I was expecting every decision I made to become a lifetime commitment.
That’s bananas.
We don’t expect ourselves to wear the same jeans we loved at 27.
Why would we expect ourselves to want the exact same life?
You are allowed to outgrow things.
Jobs.
Friendships.
Goals.
Dreams.
Versions of success.
Versions of yourself.
That doesn’t necessarily mean you need to immediately get rid of them.
Sometimes noticing you’ve outgrown something is enough information for now.
Before You Blow Up Your Life, Get Curious About It
The internet loves a dramatic transformation.
BEFORE.
AFTER.
NEW ME.
But there is a whole lot of life between before and after.
And I think that’s where the interesting part happens.
Before you quit the job, ask what you actually hate about it.
Before you sell the house, ask what you’re hoping another house will give you.
Before you start another business, ask what you think owning that business will make possible.
Before you decide you need an entirely new life, figure out what isn’t working in this one.
Maybe you don’t need a new career.
Maybe you need autonomy.
Maybe you don’t need to move.
Maybe you need adventure.
Maybe you don’t need to close your business.
Maybe you need to stop doing the part of it that drains every ounce of life from your body.
Maybe you don’t need a divorce, a camper van and bangs.
Maybe you need Wednesday afternoons to yourself.
Start there.
Try Things Without Turning Them Into a Job
I am historically terrible at this.
For most of my 20s and 30s, if I liked something, I immediately tried to figure out how to make money doing it.
A hobby?
Absolutely not.
This is clearly a business opportunity.
I didn’t just enjoy things. I monetized them within an inch of their lives.
If I was interested in something, I wanted to become something.
If I liked writing, maybe I should be a writer.
If I liked coaching, maybe I should build a coaching business.
If I liked creating something, perhaps there should be a website, an Instagram account and a corresponding revenue stream by Tuesday.
I have spent a lot of my life turning curiosity into work.
And I’m starting to realize that one of the gifts of getting older is letting some things remain completely, gloriously unproductive.
Golf has become that for me.
Now, to be clear, I would still like to apply to play on the Ladies Senior PGA Tour someday because apparently personal growth has its limits.
But mostly?
I just really like playing golf.
I like getting better at it. I like being outside. I like playing alone. I like playing with other people. I like thinking about my swing and trying again and occasionally hitting one absolutely perfect shot that convinces me I am basically one lesson away from going pro.
And I don’t need golf to become anything else.
I don’t need to teach it.
I don’t need to coach it.
I don’t need to build a golf business.
I don’t need to create a course called Golf for Women Who Have Monetized Every Other Goddamn Thing They’ve Ever Enjoyed.
I can just play golf.
This feels surprisingly revolutionary to me.
Maybe part of reinventing ourselves in midlife isn’t finding the next thing we’re going to become.
Maybe it’s finding things we enjoy without requiring them to justify the time we spend doing them.
You don’t have to become a writer.
You can write.
You don’t have to become an artist.
You can make something.
You don’t have to become a gardener.
You can plant shit.
You don’t have to become an entrepreneur because you made one thing somebody else would probably buy.
And you don’t have to know where any of it is going.
You can do something because it’s fun.
Because you’re curious.
Because you lose track of time while you’re doing it.
Because it makes an ordinary Wednesday better.
That’s enough.
I wish I had understood that sooner.
But maybe understanding it now is part of the reinvention.
Pay Attention to Envy
I know. Gross.
Nobody likes admitting they’re jealous.
But envy can be incredibly useful information.
When you see another woman doing something and feel that little stab of must be nice, get curious.
What exactly are you jealous of?
Her money?
Her freedom?
Her creativity?
Her confidence?
Her friendships?
Her ability to travel?
The fact that she appears to have absolutely nowhere she needs to be on a Tuesday afternoon?
You don’t necessarily want her life.
But something about her life might be showing you something you want more of in yours.
That’s information.
Use it.
Stop Asking Whether It’s Practical for Five Minutes
You can bring practicality back later.
She’s very reliable. She’ll wait.
But practicality has a tendency to murder an idea before it has even had a chance to introduce itself.
How would that work?
How much would it cost?
What would I do about insurance?
What would my husband think?
Would anyone pay me?
What if I fail?
Where would I park?
Jesus.
We were just thinking about pottery.
You don’t have to immediately build the bridge between your current life and every passing desire.
Sometimes you just need to let yourself want something long enough to understand what the want is trying to tell you.
Make Small Experiments
If you feel like you need to reinvent your entire life, don’t.
Run experiments instead.
Take the class.
Volunteer somewhere.
Book the trip.
Start the newsletter.
Apply for the job.
Join the group.
Take Fridays off for a month.
Try the haircut.
Sign up for yoga.
Plant the ridiculous garden.
Spend $50 exploring something you’re curious about.
Give yourself permission to gather data about yourself.
Did that make me feel more alive?
Did I want to keep going?
Did I like the actual thing, or did I just like the idea of being someone who did the thing?
That’s useful information too.
You are not signing a contract with the universe every time you try something.
Let Yourself Be Bad at Something
This one gets harder as we get older.
By midlife, most of us have developed areas where we’re extremely competent.
We know how to do our jobs.
We know how to manage our homes.
We know how to navigate our relationships.
We know where the good Target is.
Starting something new means voluntarily becoming incompetent again.
Awful.
But there is something incredibly freeing about doing something you aren’t good at.
You don’t have a reputation to maintain.
You don’t have expectations to meet.
You’re just learning.
And learning makes life bigger.
You Don’t Need a Five-Year Plan
You might not even need a one-year plan.
Sometimes you just need the next honest move.
That might be sending an email.
Taking a class.
Having a conversation.
Changing your schedule.
Saying no.
Saying yes.
Ending something.
Beginning something.
Or admitting to yourself that you don’t know what you want yet.
That’s allowed too.
There are seasons of life when the work isn’t knowing.
The work is listening.
Midlife Might Not Be a Crisis at All
I’ve become increasingly convinced that what we call a midlife crisis is often something much less dramatic.
It’s awareness.
You become aware that time is not infinite.
Aware that you’ve changed.
Aware that some of the rules you’ve been living by aren’t actually rules.
Aware that there are parts of yourself you’ve ignored.
Aware that you may have twenty or thirty or forty years ahead of you, and you would actually like to participate in deciding what they look like.
Of course that can feel uncomfortable.
But discomfort doesn’t automatically mean something is wrong.
Sometimes it means something is moving.
You Don’t Have to Become a New Person
This might be the biggest thing I’ve learned.
Reinvention isn’t always becoming someone else.
Sometimes it’s becoming more yourself.
The person underneath all the shoulds.
The roles.
The expectations.
The responsibilities.
The identities you picked up because they were useful at the time.
You don’t have to torch your life.
You don’t have to know exactly where you’re going.
You don’t need permission.
You can keep what still fits.
Release what doesn’t.
Try a few things.
Change your mind.
Want something simply because you want it.
And build the next version of your life a little bit at a time.
That’s still reinvention.
Actually, I think that’s probably the best kind.
Not Sure What Season You’re In?
Sometimes the hardest part of midlife isn’t knowing what to do next. It’s figuring out what you actually need right now.
I created the Season of Life Quiz around five seasons I keep seeing in my own life and in the women around me: Emerging, Expanding, Shedding, Resting and Blooming.
Take the quiz and see which season you’re in right now.
And if this is the kind of stuff you think about too, Love Monday is where I write about all of it: midlife, business, identity, wanting more, wanting less, changing your mind and figuring out how to build a life that actually feels good to live.
