Pressing Refresh on your midlife
The season of change can be for you too
I always think September is the real new year. Back to school and back to routine. My summer clothes loiter in a pile in the corner of my bedroom, just in case summer throws out a last hoorah of heat.
Our inner clocks change pace as well as the ones on our walls. We shift our own outlook as the view around us transforms, colours changing, air crisping and leaves curling. I dream of lighting the first fire, while a fist of fire rekindles in my belly. The slow sloth of summer thinking makes way for faster, figuring-out, ideas brewing and bursting in my head. Sleeves rolled up, ready to knuckle down and go deeper in the darker evenings.
Because all this repurposing isn’t just for nature. It’s for us too.
As we pull on layers, it’s the perfect time to peel back the layers of our life, and have a check in. Peek into the nest of our reality before we fluff out our feathers and hunker down.
It’s the season to press Refresh and update our thinking, review our plans and promises, and perhaps repurpose ourselves a little. It’s also time to remember to reinvest in ourselves for the rest of year - health, fitness, career, relationships, dreams and desires. What did you really want for yourself this year? Did you stay focussed or get distracted by the endless requests and demands on your time, emotions, energy and confidence?
I work as a coach for women in midlife - which is anything today from 30’s to 60’s. It is full of potential and unprecedented promise, and also full of demands and un-precedented pressure.
It’s so easy to barrel your head down in survival mode and not re-emerge for years. I see it with so many of my clients… they’ve been so busy being responsible for everyone else’s happiness, they’ve forgotten how to be responsible for their own. They’re so busy raising kids, they forget to keep raising themselves. They’re so pulled by external demands, they have lost touch with their internal desires.
So in this season of change, change out of that trap. Stop. Check in. Refresh. Review. Repurpose. Reinvest. There are a few months left of this year, to reflect on how far you’ve come and the path forward. It’s a great chance to review where you are at.
What changes have happened? How can you adapt to them?
When I press refresh on where my life is right now, I don’t just see my youngest starting secondary school; I see how that affects the length, scope and energy of my whole day. Without checking in, all that extra time could just be pulled away from me, sucked into the vortex of jobs, and roles and “stuff”. Instead, I’m being really intentional about how it will be spent (some on work, some on exercise and some on writing / researching my next book).
It’s not just about making a list of to-do’s but also a list of un-do’s. Of pressing REFRESH and checking in to make sure the things you always do or think you should do are actually the things you want to do.
I asked a client of mine recently to make a list of all the things that make her happy or would give her joy, things she’d like to do and places or experiences she’d like to visit or have. After she initially made the list, she suddenly looked at it and realised she didn’t actually want to do most of them. They were ‘shoulds’ instead of wants. It’s so easy to get caught in that trap.
Transformation is one fallen leaf at a time.
One decision at a time.
One new habit at a time.
One to-do and one un-do at a time.
We prune and cut back to create space for the garden to breathe, so how about you? Where can you prune and cut back to create more time and space to breathe? Where you can you plant seeds that will grow and blossom down the line. Where can you plan and create, replant and cut away dead wood?
Review yourself:
🍁 What have a I learned about myself this year and how does that change what’s really important to me?
🍁 What frustrations am I tolerating, what elements feel they are missing?
🍁 What has surprised me? What has shocked me? What has disappointed me and what has enriched me?
Repurpose your intentions:
🍁 How can I be more intentional about how I want to feel, how I want to interact, how I want to live this manic midlife?
🍁 What joy, adventure, challenges, growth can I build into my life (and how can I reduce the frustrations and tolerations!)?
🍁 How can I push myself in these last few months to live life more on my terms than be pulled constantly by the external demands?
🍁 How can I repurpose those habits and reactions that don’t serve you. I wrote recently about repurposing your career and passions.
Reinvest in yourself.
🍁 Time, energy, friendship, care. Health. Fitness. Curiosity. FUN! Learning, creativity, curiosity, space.
I spoke in my recent Instagram post about setting your intention for each day, and how important it is to invest in the simple act of choosing how to feel. It’s so easy to become a To-Do list we forget To Be.
I’m also running a brand new webinar called REFRESH, (details below) where I’ll help you review, repurpose and reinvest, but in the meantime, as you start to kick the fallen leaves, don’t forget to kickstart your own season of transformation. I’d love to know how might might do that in the comments below.
Go on. Press refresh and see what happens.
I'd love you to join me for my new online webinar called *REFRESH Your Midlife* on 3rd October where I'll help you REVIEW where and how you are, REPURPOSE your plans and habits, and decide how to REINVEST in yourself in terms of time, energy and thought.. ..and not just on the never ending To-Do list that September always brings. It will be fun, practical and focussed on you. Imagine that? Space and time to think about you. You can register here and paid subscribers get a 10% discount. Just email me at alana@alanakirk.com and I’ll sort you out.
As ever, my latest book Midlife, redefined: Better, Bolder, Brighter will give you the tools and guidance to really refresh your midlife at your own pace.