New Life – New You!
28/02/2006
Are you still undecided about what you want to be when you ‘grow up’? Have you been made redundant in your later years? Are you suddenly single, after a lifetime of marriage and children? Well, join the club – of active, intelligent, relatively healthy pre- and post-retirees who do not want to be ‘put out to grass’ and who feel that there is more to life than babysitting the grandchildren.
There is no denying that many of today’s 50+ ers are in a unique and privileged position not enjoyed by their parents and not to be enjoyed by their offspring in an age of tuition fees, raised retirement ages and closed company pension schemes.
But how to enjoy this privilege, when so many of us may feel uncertain and even scared of what lies ahead?
Physically and mentally, many of us are fit, healthy and mobile and may remain so for another 30 years or more! My own mother, at 84, still lives independently in the family home and is still travelling, her latest jaunt being to Istanbul last September. It is psychologically, emotionally and spiritually where our issues lie.
Empty nest
How do we deal with those issues thrown up by the children leaving home, by being made redundant, by losing a loved one, by becoming divorced – all at a time when one is aware of one’s age and mortality and in a culture that promotes youth and materialism?
We may feel ‘lost’ or empty; without purpose or direction. We may feel the loss of skills, knowledge and experience. Ultimately, we may feel a loss of self-worth. The 50+ years are a time of great upheaval and change. It is how we manage those changes that can determine the quality of the next phase of our lives.
There are a number of things we can do to help ourselves. The first is to accept that our lives are changing. Acceptance can help us to let go of any negative emotions and to start thinking creatively and positively about our future.
My friend Susan* was an ‘empty-nester’. She had put her own teaching career on hold while she brought up her family. Now, she’s doing an Access course at her local college, with a view to studying for a degree in Nutrition. How did she get to this point? Once she had accepted her situation, she thought about what she felt most passionate about and the answer was food and nutrition. She grew her own vegetables, loved experimenting with new recipes and, being a vegetarian, read widely and deeply about nutrition. She has found a practical outlet for, and new career in something she loves doing.
The second is to consider and examine our values. Our values make us who we are and help to determine how we live our lives. The closer we live our lives to our values the more content we tend to be. Identifying our values is not always easy. A Life Coach may well spend several sessions with a client helping them to identify and explore their values and will use a range of techniques for doing that.
Fulfiling your goals
Try this one for yourself: Write down your three most fulfilling accomplishments in life so far. Then write down what has made them your three most fulfilling accomplishments – this will help identify your core values.
Identifying our core values gives us a framework within which to build our new life. We can then start to set goals to bring what we need into our lives. If we set goals that are in line with our values we are in a strong position to achieve them.
One of my clients, Steve*, an overweight semi-retired businessman with a young second family set his goal to become fit and active in order to fully engage with family life and to be around to see his family grow up. This entailed a change of diet and he is now within his correct weight. Note that his goal was not ‘to lose weight’ but to achieve something that was important to him as a family man.
On our journey through change, we all need to feel supported, encouraged and validated. Partners, families and friends may be able to provide some of that support, but you can also motivate yourself:
Read inspirational literature. Try: Reinvented Lives - Women at Sixty; A Celebration by Elizabeth and Charles Handy, Hutchinson 2002 or Living The Seven Habits by Stephen R Covey, Simon & Schuster 1999.
Explore change. Get a box file and in it put cuttings/print-outs of anything from magazines, newspapers, the internet that catches your eye. It could be dog sledging in Norway. It doesn’t mean you have to do it – you are simply opening up your mind to new possibilities.
Keep a “Gratitude Journal” in which you record daily, things that made you feel good. It can be as simple as feeling the first warm ray of sunshine of the year. This well-established technique really helps to put things into perspective when you are feeling ‘down’.
Start a support group amongst your friends. Before I became a Life Coach, my friend and I ran a monthly group where we would explore our (sometimes long-forgotten) dreams, ideas and aspirations. We had fun, supported one another and it led to both of us changing careers!
Ask yourself - what one thing can I do right now that will move my life forward by one step today?
Now do it!
*Names changed to protect confidentiality
Gina Bovan is an accredited Life Coach specialising in mature-age issues. She runs a telephone practice in Berkshire and can be reached on 0845 200 8153 or info@venturelifecoaching.com