Midlife Advice and Guidance

The Mid Life Survey has been running for the past few months and will continue until the end of the year. At the end of June, I published the results to date on this blog.

Since then, people have continued to complete the survey and add their comments to some of the questions. Some of these comments have been from midlifers who are seeking help with their issues.

The Mid Life Survey is anonymous, of course, so we have no way of contacting anyone to follow up these requests for help.

The Mid Life Coaching Panel will shortly be finalised and members will be able to contact the coach of their choice. In the meantime, if you would like assistance with issues relating to career, relationships, lifestyle or family, please email: Karen@betterlifecoaching.co.uk

Karen can work with you in person, over the telephone or by email and she will definitely be able to offer you the advice that will help you to move forward.

Everyone deserves to live their life as positively as they can – don’t waste your opportunity!

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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

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

Mid Life Happiness – the 3 Basic Rules

There are 3 basic rules to ensure midlife happiness:


Rule 1: Be happy in your own time
Some people find it hard to accept that they are growing older, they seek perpetual youth.

Some have facelifts, botox injections and other cosmetic surgery to try to keep the ravages of time at bay. This may look very attractive for a time but often ends with the person looking a parody of his or her previous self. ‘Trout pout’ anyone?

Some wear clothes that would look much better on their children (rule 1a – If you are old enough to have worn it when it was in fashion last time around, don’t wear it this time!).

Some people in midlife decide to start again with a younger partner – ‘Cougar’ women take a toyboy, midlife men might opt for a 20 something female with long legs. Whilst this might seem attractive in the short term, once the initial excitement has died down, the couple find themselves living together with little in common. They watched different TV programmes when they were children, they grew up listening to different music and they wore different styles of clothes – they come from different ‘times’ and unless they are very fortunate, they are very unlikely to feel comfortable with each other in the long term.

Rule 2: Be happy in your own skin
We are all born with the hand of cards that we are given. Some will grow up as beautiful people, others won’t. Some will become thought leaders in their spheres, most won’t.

‘Show me the boy and I will show you the man’, a popular saying that rings very true. Most of us don’t change greatly as we get older, we play the hand that we were dealt.

Many people, though, are not happy with the cards that they were dealt and call ‘foul’. Most women are not happy with some aspects of their looks. Some go to great lengths to change their appearance with nose jobs, boob jobs, tummy tucks and all kinds of plastic surgery. This goes far beyond trying to keep their youth (see Rule 1) and is an attempt to change their looks, to give themselves characteristics that they wished they’d been born with.

Whilst some attempts at remodelling your looks can be beneficial, particularly for self-esteem and confidence, it is important to draw the line.

A midlife crisis is often triggered by a person not being able to come to terms with living in their own skin.

Rule 3: Be happy in your own life
Many people feel that they need to ‘fit in’, that they need to conform to a norm with which they aren’t really comfortable. Teenagers, in particular, feel that they must be part of a crowd and fall victim to peer pressure. Their friends all have tattoos, so they feel that they should have tattoos, even if they don’t like them (and will regret having them in later life, particularly if they include someone’s name!)

Midlifers are less inclined to worry about peer pressure but the ‘green-eyed monster’ of jealousy is a very real part of the life of many people in midlife. We all lead different lives and however happy we are, however well off we are, there will always be people who seem to be doing better than us. Some of them will indeed be doing better than us, either because they were dealt a better hand at birth (see Rule 2) or because they work harder than we do (often both).

The grass always seems greener in somebody else’s life. However, when the green-eyed monster rears its head, take a few moments to consider the other aspects of the person’s life – these may not be quite so rosy. Your rich friend may be doing very nicely in the big house, driving the expensive car but behind closed doors their relationship may be falling apart. Their kids might be taking drugs and mixing with the wrong ‘friends’.

Don’t try to ‘keep up with the Jones’ out of jealousy, to make yourself look better or more acceptable to your friends. You may find yourself deeply in debt if you overstretch yourself unnecessarily.

To be happy in your life, accept what you have – but don’t let that stop you from striving to achieve greatness. There is a difference between making the most of your life and trying to live your life imitating someone else.


What do you think? Please leave a comment. Thanks, 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?

If you would like some help now with aspects of your life, contact Better Life Coaching: www.betterlifecoaching.co.uk

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) leads 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!

Next time, we’ll look at the some of the typical mid life crossroads and some suggestions on how to manage them.

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?

If you would like some help now with aspects of your life, contact Better Life Coaching: www.betterlifecoaching.co.uk