What does 'success' mean to you now?

Weeks 15 & 16, Midlife Journal Guide

As part of my year long Midlife, redefined Daily Journal Guide, I give you 14 daily prompts every two weeks to help you journal each day (or as many as you can muster) to get, and stay, connected to yourself. The prompts below for the next two weeks are about updating the software, looking at your checkboxes and how they might have shifted, and redefining your definitions of success for all aspects of your life. You can start this journalling guide at any time of the year because it’s not date related: The daily prompts from Weeks 1 to 14 are here.

Defining what success looks and feel like for you

One of the most important parts of my coaching, is helping women essentially ‘update the software’ in terms of their energy direction, goals, and ideals. When we start off in our early adult life, we create that checklist from which we will judge the success of our lives…. maybe travel, education, career, partner, kids, home (and for many of us, a decent bra!). By the time we’ve lived a couple of adult decades though, we have laughed and learned, loved and lost; we’ll have experienced things we never imagined and seen things we could only have dreamed of. But often we keep trying to tick the original boxes of that checklist, despite the fact we haven’t checked back in to see if they’re still what we want, suit our lives now we know ourselves better, or are leading our lives in the direction we now want.

I once had a client in her 50’s. She ran her own successful business but wanted to do something different now. Her two sons were becoming adults and she wanted to change the pace of her life. As we explored what this might look like, I could see there was a slight glitch in her software… despite wanting a different pace, wanting a more passion/purpose based business, freedom to travel more and learn about new and exciting areas of interest, she also kept mentioning working towards getting a bigger house. It felt so incongruous with everything else she was telling me, and I could see it was so deeply ingrained in her software she wasn’t even aware of it. As we progressed with the work, and she really began to tune into who, how and where she was in life right now, I finally brought up the house.

“Why do you keep wanting a bigger house when it seems counter to everything else you seem to be wanting for your life as it evolves?”

It stopped her in her tracks. She mused on it a moment and then looked at me aghast. “Why would I want a bigger house?”

I laughed and said, “I know. But you seem to want it as if it is an irrefutable fact! So tell me, why do you want it?”

And as we delved in (oh I love these parts of coaching!) she realised it had just been on her original checklist of success, something she’d learned growing up that you always work towards a bigger house and it had never occurred to her to question it. It would have derailed her entire plans to redefine her life at this new stage.

We have to regularly redefine what success looks and feels like in all aspects of our lives, especially in our mile-a-minute midlives, when so much is happening, so much is changing, and so much is at stake… so that we are not just checking boxes so we “arrive” but that we are constantly becoming.

As part of my year long Midlife, redefined Daily Journal Guide, I give you 14 daily prompts every two weeks to help you journal each day (or as many as you can muster) to get, and stay, connected to yourself. The prompts below for the next two weeks are about updating the software, looking at your checkboxes and how they might have shifted, and redefining your definitions of success for all aspects of your life.

For those of you newly following me on Your Midlife Matters (thank you for being here!) I’ve already explained how this year-long adventure with yourself will work in Power is in Your Hand. You can start this journalling guide at any time of the year because it’s not date related: The daily prompts from Weeks 1 to 14 are here.

In this year long adventure with yourself, this opportunity to spend a few minutes every day (or as many days a week as you can) thinking about yourself will transform your relationship with yourself and to matter more in your own midlife and to build self-knowledge and empower yourself to live life for you.

A quick reminder we are now in the second section - Passion, Purpose & Priorities. The first part was Self-Discovery and the third part is Action and Living with Intention. Then we repeat these directions (with new prompts) for the second 6 months.

We started with self-discovery because you can make all the plans and checklists in the world, but if you aren’t coming from a place of current self-knowledge - who, how and where you are at this age and stage of life - you could be making the wrong plans, or signing up to someone else’s (culture, society, Instagram, the school gates, the patriarchy, your partner, your parent)’s version of success. 

So this section is all about reconnecting to, and retrieving, all the parts of you that still are there that may not have had much attention. Or just needs to get a bit of a shine.  Or you have lived and loved and laughed and learned and have developed new areas of interest and discovered new talents 

For ALL my lovely subscribers there is my free Midlife Daily Journal Template in my previous post here which you can use as a guide each day - and what I use every day.

For just €5 per month, this Midlife Daily Journal Guide (and lots of other content and discounts on coaching) is for my paid subscribers.

So let’s get into the prompts for Week 15 and 16 of your journaling journey.