The Midlife Pressure Nobody Talks About

There is an unseen, unnecessary pressure a lot of people put on themselves at midlife and beyond.

It’s this:

That by now, you should have the rest of your life figured out.

There is often a belief that by this stage of life you should know exactly what you want to do with your life, work, career, or business. As though decades of experience should somehow mean you automatically know what the next chapter should be.

But why would you expect yourself to have the rest of your life figured out when you have never done this stage of life before?

This is the first time you have ever done midlife and beyond. The first time you have ever stepped into this chapter of life. It is completely different from every chapter that came before it.

And yet so many people treat not knowing what they want next as some sort of personal failure. It’s not. It’s a transition.

Life is a bit like writing a book. You write one chapter at a time. Each chapter shapes the next one. You don’t start on page one already knowing exactly how the entire story will unfold.

The same is true of life, work, careers, and business at midlife and beyond.

I recently turned 60. And although I have been designing life, work, and business on my own terms since leaving my corporate career 20 years ago, I still reached this stage of life and realised I wanted things to be different, personally and professionally. But I wasn’t sure exactly what that was, and I was totally OK with that because I have never done this chapter before.

Using my Design it. Build it. Live it. process, I took time to stop and properly think about what I want my sixties to be, personally and professionally. A few weeks ago, I did not have that figured out. Taking the time to do that became my 60th birthday gift to myself.

There was no pressure that I should already know. No beating myself up because I didn’t have all the answers. Just an acceptance that this stage of life needed some thought, some changes, and some planning. And now I have an exciting new chapter to start creating, personally and professionally. 

And here’s the good news. 

At midlife and beyond, you now have decades of experience behind you. Some good. Some difficult. Some things you would repeat. Some things you wouldn’t. But all of it gives you insight, experience, perspective, and self-awareness you simply did not have when you were younger.

That can make this chapter an exciting one, full of potential and possibility.

So, if you are at midlife or beyond and feeling like you should have it all figured out by now, take the pressure off yourself. You are simply in a chapter you have never lived before. And like every other chapter in your life, you can and will figure it out.