Mid Life Women - What They Really Want

Guest post by Barbara C. Phillips

Over 40 million women are entering the second half of their lives and what they really want is not what many people think. It's not about the gray hair, a few wrinkles or even hitting the big 5-0.

The recent story in Time Magazine (5/9/05) has hopefully opened eyes to what midlife and older women really want. So often, society looks at midlife as just being that - midlife, menopause, empty nest, gray hair and wrinkles. Yet, to women it's so much more.

We have been asking women about their views and stories regarding positive and successful aging experiences. Not only have they shared their wonderfully delightful stories, they have also revealed their hopes, expectations and goals for the second half of their lives.

These stories tell of women looking forward to this time of their life as a time of renewal, of exploring new areas of interest and of the "freedom to be whole and who I really want to be". Women speak of lessons learned, wisdom granted, and the ability to look ahead to accepting new challenges. Many of these women actually look forward to growing older and to the gifts that come with age.

What about you? What do you really want? This is not as easy of a question as it appears. Ask your self some questions and record your answers in your journal. Visit it often and see what presents itself to you.

Here are some questions to consider. 

• Name 3-5 things you have accomplished in your life. These are things you are most proud of. What are they?
• Name your strengths. What are at least 5 positive qualities that you have? Any special talents or particular areas you are strong in?
• What are the things that get you up every morning? What are you passions? What makes your toes tingle and your soul quicken?
• What is really important to you? If you were at the end of your life, what would you need to have accomplished so that you have no regrets about anything?
• With the above questions answered, action do you need to take so that the second half of your life is truly extraordinary?

Answering these questions will help you find your passions, priorities and your life's purpose. It's time to start living it.

Barbara C. Phillips, Nurse Practitioner and founder of OlderWiserWomen(tm) inspires women to embrace the freedom, magic and wisdom of Successful Aging. Visit http://www.OlderWiserWomen.com for your copy of "Celebrating You: 50 Tips for Vibrant Living". ======================================= The Mid Life Opportunity (www.MidLifeOp.com) is a community for Mid Lifers. Advice and Guidance will soon be available from The Mid Life Coaching Panel. It’s free to join - click here

How Big is your World?

I recently visited a large company in the middle of a medium-sized city. Their offices are arranged around the sides of a square with a beautifully landscaped area in the middle. A series of interconnecting ponds and streams are interspersed with grass covered hillocks, bushes and ornamental trees. A block paved path runs amongst all of this with patio areas overlooking the ponds. A dozen or so tables with chairs provide the perfect place for the staff to eat their lunch or chat with colleagues.

This peaceful little oasis in the middle of an office block, in the middle of a city is home to several families of ducks. They spend their days lying in the sun, swimming lazily amongst the reeds in the ponds and generally enjoying their self-contained world. They have no reason to leave their world – everything is there for them. As far as they are concerned, that IS the world.

What is your world? You have your friends and family, your work colleagues, your virtual friends on Facebook and your conversations on Twitter. People and situations that you know and feel comfortable with. But what about the rest of the world? There are 6 billion of us living on the planet – what an opportunity that represents to anyone who wants to expand their business or widen their circle of friends.

In reality, of course, most of these 6 billion people won’t be interested in you or your business. But some will and the trick is to find those who are interested enough to start a conversation.

You will never find them if you confine yourself to your current contacts, in your own world. You have to network, online and offline, and ‘fish where the fishes are’.

Unless, like the ducks, you are perfectly happy in your own world and don’t want to explore more. The difference between you and the ducks, though, is that you know that there is a much bigger world out there. It would be a shame to let it all pass by without trying to make your mark.

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The Mid Life Opportunity (www.MidLifeOp.com) is a community for Mid Lifers. Advice and Guidance will soon be available from The Mid Life Coaching Panel. It’s free to join - click here

Lean Thinking Online

When you’re aiming to improve the way that you do things – to make yourself more efficient – take a lesson from the Japanese inspired method of ‘Lean Thinking’.

There are many lessons that we can learn from Lean Thinking, which is now practiced in many large organisations around the world. The technique which we’re going to look at here is PDCA – Plan, Do, Check and Act.

This technique is not a ‘one off’ review – it will help you to continuously improve your performance, starting today!

Looking at the steps in logical order:

PLAN

• Define the issue/problem that you are addressing
• Understand the root cause of the issue – why is it happening?
• Develop the detail of what needs to be done
• Prioritise, to ensure that you do the right things at the right time

DO

• Do it! – implement your solution to the problem.
• You might do a test first or a pilot, or you must just ‘go for it.’

CHECK

• This is really the crucial step in PDCA. Check on the results of your actions. Are you getting the results that you expected? If not, why not?. What else can you do? 
• If you’re online, this may involve using Google Analytics to measure your performance.

ACT

• Reflect on what you’ve learnt in the ‘Check’ step.
• Understand what needs to be done differently.
• Act on the findings

So the cycle starts again - Plan (on the  basis of your previous learnings), Do, Check and Act.

This is one of the techniques that will help you continuously improve – think PDCA:

Plan it, Do it, Check it, Act on your Learnings!

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The Mid Life Opportunity (www.MidLifeOp.com) is a community for Mid Lifers. Advice and Guidance will soon be available from The Mid Life Coaching Panel. It’s free to join so what are you waiting for? 

Are you a Lark or an Owl?

The vast majority of people are either “Morning types” (or Larks) or “Evening types” (or Owls). This is governed by our own natural body clock and it is not something that we are at liberty to tinker with. You are at your most productive at the beginning of the day or the end of the day. Some jobs obviously suit particular types. Delivering the post or the morning milk is clearly a job for a Morning Type. Working in a nightclub is not!

You need to organise your working day around your type. If you are a Morning type, then plan your main tasks for the beginning of the day. It will be fatal to leave important (but possibly unappealing tasks) until after lunch. The afternoon will arrive, you will look at the task and decide that “as I am a Morning type, I’ll leave this until tomorrow morning.” Taken to its logical conclusion, tomorrow never comes and you can find yourself putting the task off until it is really too late.

If you are an Evening type you should plan those important tasks for later in the day. You should also arrange your meetings at this time when you are your most productive and most alert. Start the day with the routine tasks that don’t require a lot of brainpower. But beware of falling in to the trap of concentrating on the easy (and possibly more enjoyable) tasks throughout the whole day. This may sound simple but just take a moment to think about some of your recent working days. Have you been as productive as you should have been? If not, have you tried to address tasks at the wrong time of the day with predictable outcomes?

If you’re looking or new job, try to uncover the culture of the company that you are considering working for. In order for you to be happy in a new role, the culture of the company has to map to your own. If you're a morning person you will want to arrive at work early. If you find yourself working in a culture where nobody leaves until the boss has gone home in the evening, you may not thrive!

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The Mid Life Opportunity (www.MidLifeOp.com) is a community for Mid Lifers. Advice and Guidance will soon be available from The Mid Life Coaching Panel. It’s free to join so what are you waiting for? Complete the form on the right hand side of this post…Tx

10 ways to secure your career

Are you worried about losing your job? Many people have this fear and in the coming months, more and more people will be asking themselves the same question. If you are in this position, what should you do?

Firstly, ask yourself if this is a real fear or an unjustified reaction to the current economic climate. Most jobs, in fact, will not disappear and most people will remain in their current employment. You may be worrying unnecessarily.

If your job security fears are grounded in reality, here are 10 ways that can help you to come out on top:

1. Make yourself indispensable
2. Do a SWOT on yourself – your Strengths and Weaknesses. What are the Threats to you and what are your Opportunities?
3. Take a Personality Test – understand what makes YOU tick
4. Research the market for your talents
5. Network
6. Upskill
7. Understand your rights
8. Discuss the situation with your partner
9. Review your finances
10. Think what you really want to do with the rest of your life

Being made redundant in midlife is not the end of the world. It really can be the kick that you have needed to make the move and do what you really want to do with the rest of your life. You will never have a better opportunity to take the leap and give it a try. You don’t want to be going to your grave regretting that you wasted the best opportunity that you had!

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The Mid Life Opportunity (www.MidLifeOp.com) is a community for Mid Lifers. Advice and Guidance will soon be available from The Mid Life Coaching Panel. It’s free to join so what are you waiting for? Complete the form on the right hand side of this post…Tx

10 Reasons to Underachieve in Midlife

Are you in Midlife – over 35 maybe (perhaps well over 35) with lots left to offer to the world? You’re keen to make your mark and leave something behind for future generations?

Many people in midlife genuinely want to do something great but most don’t manage to do it. Why is that? What holds them back?

Here are 10 reasons why midlifers might underachieve (feel free to add more below):

• Fear of failure
• Lack of money
• Not wanting to step outside of their comfort zone
• Concern about feeling foolish
• Not sure about their idea
• Underestimating their own abilities
• Don’t know where to start
• Don’t know where to go for help
• Fear of starting but not finishing
• Not having enough time

Each of these reasons is a perfectly valid reason for our midlifer to stay where they are and carry on with their usual routine. They may be perfectly happy, but they will get to the end of their lives and wonder ‘what if?’

As Henry Ford said, ‘If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.’ (my favourite saying and regulars readers of this blog will have seen me use it before …)

So what’s holding you back? Please let me know and perhaps we can work together to move forward.  Join The Mid Life Opportunity where this will become a major theme when the main site launches at the end of the summer.

You’ve got in you, I’m sure!

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The Mid Life Opportunity (www.MidLifeOp.com) is a community for Mid Lifers. Advice and Guidance will soon be available from The Mid Life Coaching Panel. It’s free to join so what are you waiting for? Complete the form on the right hand side of this post…Tx