The 2010 MidLife Lifestyle Survey – Results

Note: this is a long post, you may only want to read  the main points!

As we’ve reached the mid point of the year, it’s time to review the results of the 2010 MidLife Lifestyle survey. So here are the headlines:

Survey Respondents’ Profile:

Male: 36%,  Female: 64%

Age: 30-40: 5%, 40-50: 32%, 50-60 49%, other: 14%

Location: UK 47%, USA 42%, Europe 5%, other 6%

Q1 - Happiness with Life:

55% of respondents were either happy or very happy with their lives at the moment. A further 32% were ‘OK.’ The remainder were either unhappy or very unhappy

Q2 - How is your Relationship?

26% of respondents said that they were happy and an encouraging 32% said that they were in love. Perhaps more worryingly, 19% said that ‘they don’t do relationships’. 22% were just ‘OK’.

Comments in this section included:

‘I've been divorced for about 20 years. I don't long for a relationship. I'm so busy with kids and grands, I never think of "being alone." In fact, when folks ask if there are any singles in the group... I look around to see who they might be talking about. I'm not single. I'm not married. I'm just a very happy me!’

‘31 years of marriage both now have a PHD in marriage’

‘I feel fortunate to have a partnership that works. Not that there are not disagreements, there are. We just know how to solve them.’

‘I find it ironic that the biggest decision you make in your life happens for most in their late teens. I wish I could have been the person I am now making relationship decisions.’

‘but it's with myself!’

Q3 – Will your Pension provide for you?

A worryingly high 26% of respondents don’t have a pension, while 22% felt that their pension would cover their needs in later life. A huge 32% regretted not saving more during their earlier years. 18% had other investments, either instead of, or as well as, a pension.

Comment in this section included:

‘We are never retiring but hope to get refired!’ (love it!)

‘I saved like heck and had a wonderful retirement. The down turns in the stock market have wiped me out. Now I feel I'm starting from scratch.’

‘I do not plan to retire. I believe in being productive right up to the end.’

‘I'm hopeful that my financial situation will change. However, I know it is up to me to make it change’

‘I am still saving and investing’

‘I am working on passive income and believe it will cover expenses plus more.’

Q4- How Healthy are you?

43% said that they were OK for their age and 28% felt they were Pretty Fit. 25% were overweight, to some extent. 4% said that they could ‘Run a Marathon’.

One respondent had a problem this question, as they felt that someone who is overweight could still run a marathon. I completely accept that this is quite true and I wasn’t trying to mislead when I wrote the questions.

Q5-Is your life better or worse than your parents lives?

This question caused confusion for several people and when I rerun the survey I will reword it. Some respondents felt that there should be a distinction between the financial side of their lives and the emotional/satisfaction side of things.

Overall 87% felt that their lives were better than their parents’ lives.

Comments in this section included:

‘There should be "about the same" choice here. My parents had a nice life, and mine is nice too. Not really better or worse. I did not have children, and they raised myself and my siblings - so their young life might have been worse than mine.’

‘My dad made enough for my mom to stay home w/the 2 kids, but they went without a lot of stuff. Both my husband and I work (I'm in my own business, coming up on year 2) so the money's not always there, and that adds a lot of stress to him.’

‘My dad was a happy person and my mother was very unhappy. It was a big division they could never figure out.’

‘Much more emotionally healthy but not better financially yet.’

‘That's a tough question...I don't see it as worse, I see it as different. I chose worse because of financial situations.’

‘My parents never led spiritual lives. As a result, they never really experienced the joy that they could have, and wanted to have, yet they wonder why everything turned out the way it did. It was all due to their personal choices. I meant my life would be different and that I would break that cycle, or curse that tried to be injected into my thinking. I did so by searching for the real meaning of happiness and disregarding all of the negative circumstances that I lived in, and learned that many things I was taught while growing up wasn't my truth. I knew life was not supposed to be lived that way at a very early age. Now I feel as though God set me apart from my family as I have yet to see those changes take place within them. The sad thing about it...I cannot impart that to them. It's too late. I worry about their salvation because of this.’

‘ think I'm happier, but they are wealthier’

Q6- How do you feel about your Life in General?

An encouraging 63% are looking forward to the rest of their lives and 28% feel that ‘the best is yet to come’ (many of these will be the same people). 7% wish they’d studied harder when they were young and 18% are worried about the rest of their lives. A strong theme was a worry about the world that their children will live in with 19% indicating this (see comments below).

Comments in this section included:

‘I can't keep worrying about "what had happened", because it's in the past - so it can't be changed. It can be learned from, however, so hopefully I'll continue to grow as I ripen with age. I do worry about the world my kids are inheriting, but hopefully we'll give them the tools they'll need to make a difference :)’

‘I am concerned about the problems my kids and grand kids run up against, but I am not worried. I actively work to make it better.’

‘But I do worry about the world my children live in to some extent. Healing the planet in an emotional, spiritual sense, as well as ecologically, is important to me.’

‘Overall, pretty good.’

‘Counting my Blessings!’

Conclusions:

So what do we conclude from this survey? Overall, there was a broad spectrum of responses with the majority of midlifers feeling that their lives are going 'OK to Well' but a worrying number feel that there financial provision could be better. Given the state of the world economy, that’s not a huge surprise.

Relationships are a very mixed bag, probably reflecting the fact that many midlifers will have ended a long term relationship (either willingly or unwillingly). I was surprised to see that almost a fifth of respondents ‘don’t do relationships’. It would be interesting to probe deeper into those responses.

It’s encouraging that the majority of midlifers are looking forward to the rest of their lives. Equally encouraging is the concern over the world that our children and grandchildren will live in and the hope is that some of us will actively try to make this better.

It will be interesting to see how the 2011 MidLife Lifestyle Survey compares. If you have any questions that you would like me to include in the next survey, please let me know.

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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

Survey - Attention Grabbing Headlines

Tomorrow is June 30^th, the last day of June. We will also be half way through 2010 (already …)

In my post tomorrow, I am going to publish the results of the 2010 Mid Life Survey, a slightly light-hearted survey which has been running for the last 2 months. If you haven’t completed it yet, could you please take 1 minute to answer the seven questions.

June 30^th also marks the end of the blog30 challenge. Can I firstly congratulate all those who managed to post 30 articles on their blogs during June – a great effort!

Secondly and more importantly, I’d like to thank those of you who retweeted my articles and who left comments on my blog. It was very good of you to take the time and I hope that some of you will continue to follow my (less frequent) postings in the coming months.

Well done, too to Jeanette, who kept up with everything so well.

During the month, I read several articles about writing good headlines. For interest, my most popular blog post (by a long way) was the one with the title ‘The Art of Making Money’ – that must tell us something!

Please come back tomorrow to read the survey results.

Best wishes

Rob

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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

Please take 1 minute to complete the 2010 Mid Life Survey: Click here

Leaving the Rat Race - The Mid Life Devil's Advocate View

It’s very tempting to think that we can give up our stressful (high paying) job and opt for a simpler way of life. As we travel through mid life, this option looks ever more appealing.

If we take a less stressful job (with less money) we won’t need to spend so much. No more commuting or expensive business suits. Let’s stop trying to keep up with the neighbours and friends and opt for a simpler way of life. We’ve seen most of the world so let’s explore our own country – we’ve always said that we would do that and it’ll be much cheaper than going to the Maldives again.

We can grow our own vegetables, keep chickens and pigs and make our own clothes. We can use green energy. We can cycle to most places, so we only need one car – maybe we don’t need a car at all.

This is all very ‘doable’ and lots of families have travelled this road before. There are many benefits and also a host of issues that you need to consider. The job of the Mid Life Devil’s Advocate is to help you to understand some of these issues. The Advocate isn’t trying to dissuade you from taking up The Good Life, just making sure that you’re aware of some of the ‘warts’.

So what is the Devil’s Advocate’s view of The Good Life? Here are some points to ponder:

• The first thing that you will consider is growing your own vegetables. See The Mid Life Devil’s Advocate’s earlier advice on growing your own.
•  If that doesn’t put you off, you’re made of stern stuff – excellent!
• You may consider keeping chickens to lay eggs and provide a Sunday roast. Your chickens will not lay eggs every day. Some days you will have no eggs, other days you may have several.
• If you want to breed your own chickens you will need a cockerel. Cockerels crow at first light. They will wake you up. They will also wake your neighbours up, who may not share your passion for chickens.
• When your eggs hatch, statistically, half of the chicks will be male, which don’t lay eggs. You can rear these to eat when they mature. This requires you killing them when the time comes. Your kids will probably have given names to all of the chickens and might be horrified when you tell them that ‘We’re having Brad Pitt for dinner on Sunday.’ They may never speak to you again when you kill their pets.
• After you’ve killed the chicken you have to pluck the feathers (ideally when the body is still warm). You then hang it up somewhere, out of reach of the cat and the local fox. Later, you have to cut off its head and feet and pull out its insides (which you can also eat). There is a lot of blood involved and it’s quite a smelly business, all in all. At least it teaches your kids where meat comes from – their pets.
• You may decide to keep a pig in the garden which will eat the family’s leftovers and which you can kill when it matures and enjoy gammons and hams.
• Pigs grow quite quickly and will, indeed, eat your scraps. They will also eat everything else in the garden and leave it looking like a ploughed field. They are very lovable (and very intelligent) and you may find that you can’t bring yourself to slaughter it. Your pig then becomes an expensive pet.
• You could also keep sheep for wool and lamb chops. They won’t turn your garden into a municipal replica of the Somme in 1915 (see Pigs above) but they will eat all of your flowers as well as the grass. They may also become pets if you can’t bring yourself to have them slaughtered.
• You will then have a source of wool which you can use to spin into yarn and make your own clothes. Very green and very worthy. Also very itchy.
• If you can bring yourself to have your sheep slaughtered, don’t ask for the head to be returned from the slaughterhouse with the rest of the meat (unless sheep’s eyes and brains are a particular favourite of yours). The kids will not be impressed.
• Soon you will want a shed. More expense. Rats live under sheds. Wasps often build nests in sheds. Wasps sting.
• Camping holidays can be great fun. Unless it rains every day and the kids are bored and need to be entertained. At that point, the Maldives look a very attractive option for next year (and probably no more expensive).
• When you take up cycling you get a very smug feeling inside. You’re getting fit and helping the planet at the same time by not driving your car. You soon realise that roads have hills that you’d never noticed in your car. It’s hard work. Your bottom begins to hurt as it rubs against the saddle. Then you get a puncture and it starts to rain. You push your bike home and open the scotch bottle.
• Having a wood burning fire is so good for the planet and you don’t need the central heating any more. In the winter, it’s great fun getting up in the cold, with frost on the windows, walking downstairs and lighting the wood burner. Within a couple of hours it’s almost warm enough to take off your thermal vest. Don’t forget to order more wood before your stock runs out.
• Your green windmill was a great investment and produces enough electricity to meet most of your needs. On windy days.
• Your compost heap will probably become home for a family of rats.
• Charity shops stock a wide range of clothes, mostly from dead people. Very reasonably priced.
• You can hang your washing out to dry in the garden rather than using the tumble dryer. Remember to take them in when it starts to rain and be prepared to wash off the bird poo.
• Bartering is worth exploring if you have skills to barter – if you have no skills to barter, keep your credit card handy.

If you are keen to adopt The Good Life, don’t let the Mid Life Devil’s Advocate put you off. The points above are all exaggerated (some more than others) to give you a real flavour of what’s in store for you. It is a commendable vision and if you are serious, go for it!

Good luck,

The Mid Life Devil’s Advocate

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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

Please take 1 minute to complete the 2010 Mid Life Survey: Click here

The Art of Making Money

I recently came across a book by P T Barnum (of Barnum and Bailey Circus fame) titled The Art of Money Getting. I have listed below the chapter headings. When you read them, bear in mind that this book was written 130 years ago …

DON'T MISTAKE YOUR VOCATION

SELECT THE RIGHT LOCATION

AVOID DEBT

PERSEVERE

WHATEVER YOU DO, DO IT WITH ALL YOUR MIGHT

USE THE BEST TOOLS

DON'T GET ABOVE YOUR BUSINESS

LEARN SOMETHING USEFUL

LET HOPE PREDOMINATE, BUT BE NOT TOO VISIONARY

DO NOT SCATTER YOUR POWERS

BE SYSTEMATIC

READ THE NEWSPAPERS

BEWARE OF "OUTSIDE OPERATIONS"

DON'T INDORSE WITHOUT SECURITY

ADVERTISE YOUR BUSINESS

"DON'T READ THE OTHER SIDE"

BE POLITE AND KIND TO YOUR CUSTOMERS

BE CHARITABLE

DON'T BLAB

PRESERVE YOUR INTEGRITY

If we were writing a list today, it wouldn’t be too different, would it? OK, we’d use different words in some cases and some of the tools have changed. For example, for many businesses, ‘Location’ no longer refers to the double fronted property on the corner of the High St. Now, it’s the first page on Google.

The fact remains that to be successful in 2010, a business has to follow the age old principles highlighted by P T Barnum in 1880. The internet has changed the world but not so much that we can overlook sound business practise. Interesting.

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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

Please take 1 minute to complete the 2010 Mid Life Survey: Click here

Saturday Humour - one for the girls ...

Exercises for the over 40s:

Begin by standing on a comfortable surface, where you have plenty of room at each side.

With a 5-lb potato bag in each hand, extend your arms straight out from your sides and hold them there as long as you can.

Try to reach 30seconds and then relax.

Each day you'll find that you can hold this position for just a bit longer. 

After a couple of weeks, move up to 10-lb potato bags.
Then try 20-lb potato bags and then eventually try to get to where you can lift a 25-lb potato bag in each hand and hold your arms straight for more than a full minute. (I'm at this level)

 After you feel confident at that level, put a potato in each bag...  :)

Yesterday, I wrote about not seeing what you expect to see. The joke above is another example of this – it’s so easy to make mental pictures in your mind of what you think you are reading or seeing or hearing and then finding that, in actual fact, you were way off the mark.  I suppose the lesson here is to remain open to change and accepting that there is more than one way to skin a cat!

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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

Please take 1 minute to complete the 2010 Mid Life Survey: Click here

Searching for what you really want

There was a very, very tall coconut tree and four animals:

a Lion

a Chimpanzee

a Giraffe

a Squirrel 

They decide to compete to see who is the fastest to get a banana off of the tree.

Who do you think won?

Your answer will reflect your personality.

So think carefully.  Try and answer within 30 seconds.

Got your answer?

Now scroll down to see the analysis.

If your answer is:

Lion = you're wrong
Chimpanzee = you're wrong.
Giraffe = you're wrong.
Squirrel  = you're wrong.

Because, of course, a coconut tree doesn’t grow bananas!

This is a great example of us seeing what we expect to see, or anticipating an outcome which we expect, but which was never going to happen.

In the UK, it’s often said that the High Street in every town now looks the same – same shops, same signs, same people in many cases. This is true but not if you look up. Look at the architecture of the buildings, look at the rooflines. There are some wonderful old buildings around in our High Streets and we never take the time to notice.

Or we look where we usually look. We look where we expect to find the answer.  When you’re working, how often do you look for the unexpected? How often do you walk a different path? If you work for a large organisation, or have done in the past, I bet you park in the same parking spot every day! 

So take a lesson from the Coconut tree and don’t try to find bananas growing on it. Don’t assume that you’re going to see or hear something before it happens. 

Don’t anticipate a negative response to a sales question because that’s what usually happens – prepare for a positive response. The tone of your voice will change and that alone may subconsciously direct your prospective customer to agree with you.  

Try it, you might go bananas!

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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

Please take 1 minute to complete the 2010 Mid Life Survey: Click here

Are you a Mid Lifer?

Simplistically, we might conclude that a Mid Lifer is someone between the ages of say, mid thirties to late fifties. Mid Life, though, is a state of mind as much as a physical age. So you may be older (or younger) and still consider yourself to be a Mid Lifer.

Typically, many of your habits will be set – you know what you like to drink, the type of holidays that you enjoy, the clothes that you wear and your hobbies, for example. These won’t be set in stone and may change as you grow older but by and large, you know who you are and you know what you want.

Some Mid Lifers may have young families as they have delayed parenthood whilst enjoying their youth. Others may have a young family with a second partner. At the other end of the family spectrum, some Mid Lifers will have seen their children leave home and this may lead to life changing decisions – moving house, reviewing their career, taking early retirement for example.

Mid Lifers may be carers for their elderly parents or they may have experienced the trauma of their parents passing away.

Many Mid Lifers spent their youth swearing that there would never be a generation gap between them and their children – then finding themselves wondering why their offspring listen to ‘such mindless music’ and have such odd hairstyles.

Some Mid Lifers will feel that they’ve reached the top of the ‘bell curve’ and it’s all downhill from here. These are the people that often experience a ‘mid life crisis’ with all the negative aspects that this holds for them and their family and friends.

This will be the future for some Mid Lifers but it doesn’t have to be. As Henry Ford once famously said ‘Whether you think you can, or whether you think you can’t, you’re usually right’. So mid life may be a time of retrospection and review and your conclusion may be that your best days are behind you. More positively, you might conclude that the experience and learning that you’ve gained in your younger years provide you with the springboard to greater things in the second half of your life.

Life is always full of opportunities – the trick is in recognising them for what they are.

The Mid Life Opportunity highlights all of the positive aspects of Mid Life whilst also recognising that not everyone is in this happy place.

If you have issues with your career, finances, relationships or your health you will be able to find Advice and Guidance from experts in their field. Experts who can help you to see that your coping skills, experiences, maturity and accumulated wisdom can increase your confidence and show you the way through your current crisis to a brighter future.

Thanks for your interest in The Mid Life Opportunity and do please join the community and add your voice. There is a form to the right of this blog or at: The Mid Life Opportunity – www.MidLifeOp.com

The Mid Life blog: http://MidLifeOp.blogspot.com

The Aura of Power

Here is an excerpt from columnist Quentin Letts (recommended read if you’ve never heard of him) who was reporting an exchange in the British House of Commons between Michael Gove and Ed Balls. Conservative Michael Gove has just been appointed Education Secretary in the new Coalition government...

“For years he has cut a pigeon-chested figure, never quite seeming to fill his single-breasted suits, always looking as though he could do with some more mashed potato on his plate.

Yesterday (after his appointment) he cut a chunkier figure. It was almost as though office had bulked him out and had made him plant his feet more stoutly on the floor.

The suit looked more expensive, too.

This once spindly, now almost sleek, Secretary of State refused to show contrition for newspaper leaks about his schools policy... (etc)”

When people are in positions of power they seem to grow in stature. It’s not so much body language as an ‘aura’ around them which gives them this stature. They appear confident, positive and self-assured. If you don’t necessarily believe in them, at least you can respect them.

The reverse is true when they lose their positions of power. I have worked for two directors who, when they lost their jobs, seemed to visibly shrink in size. Suddenly, they lost their aura and they looked very ordinary indeed.

Why is this? They are the same people and their personalities haven’t changed. Yet their whole being is diminished.

Do we build them up in our minds? Are we overawed by them or is their something more?

I believe there’s something more, but I don’t know what it is!  What do you think?

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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? Join here FREE!

Please take 1 minute to complete the 2010 Mid Life Survey: Click here

Midlife Worries - Focus your Energy

Do you find yourself worrying over all sorts of things? Perhaps you worry about whether or not the weather’s going to be hot on your holiday. Are you concerned that peace will never be reached in The Middle East? Do you find yourself stressing that interest rates might rise, making the mortgage more expensive?

Steven Covey, in his book ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People’ highlights the difference between those things that concern us and those things which we can influence. The ‘two circles’ diagram below highlights this difference.

The two circles represent the areas where you spend your time and energy. Many Midlifers focus too much time and energy in the outer circle, their Circle of Concern. This is where they spend their time worrying about things that are outside of their control, things that they can’t influence, however much they agonise over them – the weather, the Middle East and interest rates, for example. Preoccupying yourself by worrying about issues such as this is a waste of time and a waste of your energy.

Steven Covey identified that highly effective people worry about things that they can influence, they don’t waste their time worrying about things over which they have no control. They spend their time and energy inside the inner circle, thinking of ways to address the issues that they can influence, where they can actually make a difference.

Where do you spend most of your time and energy?

Exercise:

In the outer circle, write down all of the things that you worry about or spend time thinking about on a regular basis. Take each one and ask yourself ‘What can I do about this to change the situation?’ If there is something that you can do to improve the situation, write this issue inside the second circle, the Circle of Influence and delete it from the outer circle.
When you have completed this exercise you will have split your issues into two sections – those that you can’t do anything about and those that you can influence. It is the latter set of issues, those inside your Circle of Influence, which you should spend your time on. Ignore the rest – if you can’t do anything about them, why waste your time and energy worrying about them?

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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? Join here FREE!

Please take 1 minute to complete the 2010 Mid Life Survey: Click here

Do you recognise yourself??? :)

Thank goodness there's a name for this disorder. Somehow I feel better, even though I have it!

Recently, I was diagnosed with A.A.A.D.D - Age Activated Attention Deficit Disorder.

This is how it happens:

I decide to water my garden.
As I turn on the hose I look over at my car and decide it needs washing.
As I start toward the garage the postman arrives and hands me some letters.
I decide to go through the mail before I wash the car.
I lay my car keys on the table, put the junk mail in the rubbish bin under the table and notice that the bin is full.
So, I decide to put the letters back on the table and take out the rubbish first.
But then I notice that one of the letters is a final reminder to pay a bill.
I take my cheque book off the table and see that there is only one cheque left.
My new chequebook is in my desk in the office so I go to my desk where I find the can of Coke I'd been drinking.
I'm going to look for my chequebook, but first I need to push the Coke aside so that I don't accidentally knock it over.
The Coke is getting warm, so I decide to put it in the fridge to keep it cold.
As I walk towards the kitchen with the Coke, a vase of flowers catches my eye - they need to be watered.
I put the Coke on the side and discover my reading glasses that I've been searching for all morning.
I decide that I had better put them back on my desk, but first I'm going to water the flowers.
I set the glasses back down on the side, fill a container with water and suddenly spot the TV remote. Someone left it on the kitchen table.
I realize that tonight when we go to watch TV, I'll be looking for the remote,
but I won't remember that it's on the kitchen table, so I decide to put it back in the lounge where it belongs, but first I'll water the flowers.
I pour some water in the flowers, but quite a bit of it spills on the floor.
So, I set the remote back on the table, get some towels and wipe up the spill.

Then, I walk down the hall trying to remember what I was planning to do.

At the end of the day:

the car isn't washed

the bills aren't paid

there is a warm can of Coke sitting in the kitchen

the flowers don't have enough water,

there is still only 1 cheque in my cheque book,

I can't find the TV remote,

I can't find my glasses,

and I don't remember what I did with the car keys.

Then, when I try to figure out why nothing got done today, I'm really baffled because I know I was busy all day and I'm really tired.

I realize this is a serious problem, and I'll try to get some help for it,
but first I'll check my e-mail....

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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? Join here FREE!

Please take 1 minute to complete the 2010 Mid Life Survey: Click here

The Mid Life Crossroads

Many people feel as if they have reached a crossroads at some point during their mid life. They can see two (or more) paths in front of them. One path is a continuation of their current life, the other(s) lead off in different directions. The relative size of the paths will dictate which path the Mid Lifer chooses to take. If the current life path looks like a motorway (freeway) and the alternatives look like country lanes, it is likely that our Mid Lifer will continue with their current life.

They might dally for a while down one of the country lanes (change their wardrobe, take an evening class) but their life won’t change dramatically. But if one of the alternatives looks like a motorway, and the current life path looks like a gravel track, then watch out – change is coming. For better or for worse.

It may be a change of career, a new relationship or a full blown mid life crisis.

Seeing the crossroads up ahead can seem quite daunting but it can also be quite liberating, It’s very easy to be ‘stuck in a rut’ and we all know people who are stuck in their own rut. They’re not happy, they moan about most aspects of their life but they are too frightened or lazy to do anything about it. They will be the people who get to the end of their lives and think ‘if only…’

Sometimes the crossroads appear out of nowhere, like driving in the fog. You might be made redundant or your partner might decide that their relationship with you just isn’t working any longer. These crossroads are much more difficult to manage as you don’t feel in control. You feel like ‘flotsam and jetsam’ tossed around by the tide and pitching up on the shore at some point but not the point where you’d like to be.

The important thing is to take the positive view – yes, it’s easier said than done but there is always a positive angle to every situation. If the crossroads is thrust upon you and you suddenly find yourself travelling down a strange road, stop, take stock and regroup.

Understand that you’re not alone. You won’t be the first person to travel down this road (or the last). You will have friends or relatives that can help you. If not, there are self help groups everywhere which you can tap into – the internet is a wonderful, life changing development! The Mid Life Opportunity (www.MidLifeOp.com) has been set up for exactly this reason.

Nipping It in the Bud

Today I have been spraying weeds with weedkiller. Nettles, Docks, Buttercups, Thistles and Ragwort grow rapidly at this time of the year and if they aren’t kept under control, they will be covering the fields and there’ll soon be no grass left for the horses to eat. We have a backpack which holds 20 litres of diluted weedkiller – 20 litres of liquid is quite heavy when you have to lift it up behind you and strap it to your back! It’s a horrible job and one that I’ve been putting off for several weeks. 

The result of this prevarication is that some of the weeds are huge and they will require more than one dose of weedkiller to finish them off. So I’ll have to do the job again in a couple of weeks - I’ve made the job harder and longer than it should have been.

The parallels in the world of work are obvious. When issues and problems arise, how often do we wait and see if they will resolve themselves? How often do we leave them and hope that they will be insignificant in the overall scheme of things? Do we avoid confrontation, which would resolve the matter, in favour of short term harmony? 

Do we do the things we LIKE to do, rather than doing the things we NEED to do?

In almost every instance that you can think of, it is better to get the job done early before it develops into a major headache.

What are you putting off until tomorrow? Don’t leave it until you need to apply the weedkiller for the second time!

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