Take Steps to Reignite Yourself After 50

In March 2018, we planned a girls’ trip to New York City with another friend. We were working in executive positions in different cities at the time. It was going to be a long weekend filled with laughs, good food, and adventures. 

The trip was all that, but it was also a turning point for us upon reflection. Our long conversations over wine were consumed with talk about burnout, the challenges of managing people, abuse in the workplace, and whether we were living our best lives. We needed this time to decompress and deeply share our challenging experiences and process these with other like-minded women in the same life stage. 

We recognized our careers were at a tipping point. Was the goal to keep climbing the career ladder at the expense of our personal lives, social lives, and families? By the second glass of wine, the conversations dove more deeply into our dreams, desires, and how we wanted to live the next half of our lives. Each of us expressed a longing for something more than the current state. At the end of the weekend, we realized we all needed to make different types of changes to move in the direction of our dreams. The spark was lit in New York City. 

Fast forward to 2020. We now lived in the same city and met regularly to envision Rumblings. We knew we weren’t alone facing midlife career, personal, and family transitions. We heard from other women our age who were struggling with the same challenges. 

The common thread we were all experiencing was an internal RUMBLING that something needed to change to live our best lives through midlife and beyond. 

The change is different for everyone. For some, it’s a career change, to start a business, or leap past fear and take on a new challenging position. For others, it’s traveling more, moving to a new city, finding new rewarding volunteer opportunities, or creating a life that aligns more closely with personal values.

Whatever your dreams are for reinvention, go for them. We’ve never looked back, and even with the ups and downs of starting a business, we know we’re on the right path—slower than we hoped, yet moving in the right direction. 

These six actions helped us leap past our fears to start creating the life we envisioned.

Embrace a learning mindset. We thought we needed to know everything about starting a business for too long before we leaped. After a year of talking about beginning, we realized we had to stop talking about it and do it. In July 2020, we launched our website and built a community through social media. The most important thing we needed was an open and learning mindset.

The reality is you’ll never be fully ready, know everything, or have the perfect plan. Be willing to leap and learn. Ask questions of others who have reinvented themselves. Learn from their experiences. Open up to learning from women younger and older than you. 

Leap past fear. Change is scary, but what’s more frightening is living a life not aligned with your values and dreams. It was challenging to start something new, put ourselves out there, not know whether midlife women would engage with us, and not feel perfectly ready when we did. And, the fear creeps in regularly when we try something new (like producing a fashion show!) or discuss something that feels vulnerable (showing our faces or sharing our personal stories).

But, the rewards have come on the other side of fear. So leap, friends, leap!

Forgive each other and ourselves. When you forge into something new, you’ll make mistakes. We certainly have —lots of them, to be honest. Early on, we made a pact to accept that we will make mistakes, laugh at them together, support each other through them, and move on quickly. This pact has worked for us and has helped us realize mistakes are our lessons, they’re inevitable, and they’re part of the process of living forward.

Be kind and forgive yourself and others as you move along your path.

Ask for support and be supportive. Reinvention takes support. We have called on friends and family to support our efforts to build Rumblings. In return, we make an effort to promote other midlife women reinventing themselves. These women have taught us so much as we’ve learned their whys for reinvention, seen their actions, and witnessed their successes.

Don’t be afraid to ask for support. Share your dreams and audacious goals. Ask other like-minded midlifers for help.

Be consistent. Consistency has been our biggest lesson and the action that continues to move us towards our goals. It sounds too easy, but in reality, it can be challenging. We need to remind ourselves frequently to break down tasks and take action every day. When we do, we see progress and change.

Change and reinvention are not easy. You have to stay focused on your why and take steps every day towards your dreams. It’s the daily steps that create progress. 

Practice self-care. To live your best life requires you to be at your best. Take care of yourself. Sleep. Eat well. Move. Meditate. Take time for yourself. For years, we put ourselves last as we built our careers, raised children, and cared for parents. We put off medical appointments, didn’t exercise, and reached for convenient food.

As we’ve built Rumblings, we’ve reprioritized ourselves alongside our ambitions. Our dreams matter. We matter. But, only we can take steps to take care of ourselves. No one can do it for us. We’ve realized that we feel better when we do this and do better.

Now is the time. Prioritize and take care of YOU. 

Reinvention is a continuous process. We’ve learned a lot and realize how far we’ve come as we reflect on that New York City weekend. We’re making progress on living the life of our dreams, and it’s exciting. We still have things we’re working on—confidence, focus, and vulnerability. We acknowledge the challenges ahead of us and reflect on these same actions as we discuss how to move past them.

It’s not too late to pursue your dreams and desires. 

Let’s reignite, reinvent, and RUMBLE through midlife together. 

Read more about how turning 50 inspired Rumblings and advice from other midlife women on how they reinvented themselves.