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 Mid Life Survey

How do you feel about your life? Are you happy in your relationships? Is your career going well? Are you saving enough for your retirement? Do you have any pertinent observations that you would like to share with the rest of us?

The Mid Life Survey is a short survey – only 7 questions – which has been running since last month. It is designed to give a snapshot of how midlifers (and others) are feeling about aspects of their lives today.

I will be publishing the results to date in my last blog post in June, so regular readers will be able to agree or disagree with the findings.

Can I please ask you to take 1 minute to complete the survey (link below) – about 100 people have completed it so far and I’d like to double that number by the end of June.

So far, 61% of the respondents are from the UK, 24% from the USA, 2% from Canada, 9% from mainland Europe and 4% are from Asia. Let’s see how that changes during June!

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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?

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

The Mid Life Crisis Survival Kit

During Mid Life many people feel a growing dissatisfaction with their life. This leads to the inevitable questions about the meaning of our present place in the world and is usually accompanied by a sudden encounter with the concept of our own mortality. This can lead to a frightening conclusion - Is this it!? Is this ME for the rest of my life!?

Highly painful periods of personal re-evaluation can leave us running aground in shallow waters of despair unless we have a map and compass. The Mid Life Crisis Survival Kit provides both. Its world map helps the reader to understand his/her place in it and the coaching tools provide an opportunity to plot a route home - wherever that might be now. 

By the end of the book, the world will be a smaller and less frightening place as you find not just a path to understanding yourself better in Mid Life, but also the courage to express yourself authentically and with purpose.

Customer Review:
The Mid Life Crisis Survival Kit does exactly what it says on the tin. It helps you negotiate the choppy waters of mid-life, which so unexpectedly turn out to be filled with rapids and piranhas… By focusing on the future rather than dwelling on the past, it enables you to work out what you want for the rest of your life and how to get it. It doesn’t make the crisis go away, but it does encourage you to take responsibility for your own life and put structures in place that will make it easier to achieve your goals. Both inspirational and practical, it will repay careful study. It is clearly written from the heart.


Click on the link: The Mid Life Crisis Survival Kit to purchase your copy of this excellent reference book.

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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?

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

Life Lessons - written by a 90 year old

The list below was written By Regina Brett, 90 years old, of The Plain Dealer, Cleveland, Ohio:
To celebrate growing older, I once wrote the 45 lessons life taught me. It is the most-requested column I've ever written.

My odometer rolled over to 90 in August, so here is the column once more:
1. Life isn't fair, but it's still good.

2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.

3. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone...

4. Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your friends and parents will. Stay in touch.

5. Pay off your credit cards every month.

6. You don't have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.

7. Cry with someone. It's more healing than crying alone.

8. It's OK to get angry with God. He can take it.

9. Save for retirement starting with your first pay cheque.

10. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.

11. Make peace with your past so it won't screw up the present.

12. It's OK to let your children see you cry.

13. Don't compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.

14. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn't be in it.

15. Everything can change in the blink of an eye. But don't worry; God never blinks.

16. Take a deep breath. It calms the mind.

17. Get rid of anything that isn't useful, beautiful or joyful.

18. Whatever doesn't kill you really does make you stronger.

19. It's never too late to have a happy childhood. But the second one is up to you and no one else.

20. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don't take no for an answer.

21. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie. Don't save it for a special occasion. Today is special.

22. Over prepare, then go with the flow.

23. Be eccentric now. Don't wait for old age to wear purple.

24. The most important sex organ is the brain.

25. No one is in charge of your happiness but you.

26. Frame every so-called disaster with these words 'In five years, will this matter?'

27. Always choose life.

28. Forgive everyone everything.

29. What other people think of you is none of your business.

30. Time heals almost everything. Give time.

31. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.

32. Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does.

33. Believe in miracles.

34. God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did or didn't do.

35. Don't audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.

36. Growing old beats the alternative -- dying young.

37. Your children get only one childhood.

38. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.

39. Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere.

40. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else's, we'd grab ours back.

41. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.

42. The best is yet to come.

43. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.

44. Yield.

45. Life isn't tied with a bow, but it's still a gift."

For help and advice in Mid Life: www.MidLifeOp.com