4 clues that you might be heading for a mid-life awakening
Many of us reach a point in our lives when we feel compelled to change.
Sometimes we’re not even sure why, other than maybe something is missing.
It can show up in funny ways.
We may get angry or frustrated. Or even a hollow — or sinking — feeling.
More often than not this can happen when we reach milestones in life — having kids and hitting 40 or 50 are big ones. I turn 50 later this year (to be honest I’m just about getting my head around being in my 40s).
Alternatively we might get knocked by a significant life event, whether something that directly affects us — our career, reputation or health — or the death or illness of a loved one.
This perspective shift does make you ask yourself some big questions like:
What is life asking of me?
What is my work to do?
What is my responsibility here?
(And am I too old to start a band? 🤔)
“Midlife is when time becomes more scarce than money. Money can return. Time can’t.”
The quarter life crisis
I have a confession to make. I actually had my mid-life crisis aged 25.
I had just started in my first (and as it turns out only) full-time salaried job. It was for a pension fund in the City of London.
I’d come out of University with an economics degree, which for most people led to a career in finance. This didn’t really appeal, so I left the UK for 18 months to travel the world — hoping that this experience would help work out what I wanted to do with my life on my return.
Surprise, surprise that didn’t happen.
So I took that job in finance.
Spoiler alert: it didn’t go well.
I became a shell of myself. It made me depressed and I found it hard to even enjoy the weekends.
I lasted 10 months. I’ve worked for myself ever since. That was in 1999.
Fast forward to today
I still am thankful to the younger me that found the courage to walk away from what many would call ‘success’. A well-paid job with great benefits and even better earning potential.
On the outside everything looked great. But on the inside it felt terrible.
I learnt a valuable lesson at a very young age — that money alone wouldn’t make me happy.
Anything was better than this.
So from that moment I took charge of my life, putting my happiness first. I taught myself how to design websites. I started making a few for friends and relatives. It turns out I was quite good at it. I’d found a way to express myself creatively and get paid to do it.
I had a spring in my step again, and could feel the colour coming back to me.
I didn’t look back. I spent 5 years freelancing in London before starting a design studio with my long-time friend Carlos Saba in 2004 and fulfilling a dream to live by the sea and walk to work every day.
Our company purpose? To optimise for happiness.
Almost 20 years later we’re still working together (we closed the agency in 2015 to focus on our new mission at The Happy Startup School).
This is what the world is asking of me.
This is my work to do.
To share my story –to inspire others to take their happiness seriously.
(And yes, I’ve started a new band…).
So how about you?
Do you feel that you might be ready for a change in your work or business?
It can be scary on your own. So it can be easier to do nothing.
But I’ve found that over time, this gnaws away at you.
And starts to show up in how we show up.
We get sick. We get bored. We burn out or bore out.
“You aren’t a machine with broken parts. You are an animal whose needs are not being met. You need to have a community. You need to have meaningful values, not the junk values you’ve been pumped full of all your life, telling you happiness comes through money and buying objects. You need to have meaningful work and feel you are respected. You need connections to all these things.”
— Johann Hari, Lost Connections
From working closely with 140 entrepreneurs and professionals from across the globe over the last 3.5 years on our Vision 20/20 program I’ve seen again and again how our unmet needs can give us clues about what needs changing.
⏰ Time
A lack of freedom and autonomy
Most people measure success in terms of money, not time. But our time on this planet is finite, if we’re lucky we get 4000 weeks. So when we feel like our time isn’t ours, we feel constrained. We can feel our lives ticking away and frustration builds.🤲🏻 Relationships
A deep need for belonging and being part of a community
Most entrepreneurs and leaders aren’t alone, but they can feel lonely. Those around you often don’t get you as they don’t know what it’s like to take the road less travelled. And often we can surround ourselves with people that don’t align with our highest beliefs and ideals.💰 Money
A desire to make money aligned to your values
I’m living proof that when you make money in ways that sacrifices other parts of your life — or clashes with your own values — you can feel unhappy. Conversely when we get rewarded by being more of ourselves, and from people and projects we believe in, we feel fulfilled.🌏 Purpose
A need to contribute and make a difference
The world is full of problems that need solving. We can’t fix them on our own, but we can do our bit. And impact can come in big and small ways. When we feel like the work we’re doing has meaning and is helping others, we feel less of a need to live so fast or to consume so much.
“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.”
A mid-life awakening isn’t about buying a new sports car or an extreme makeover.
It’s that point in life when you know you can’t stand still any more (and it doesn’t have to happen in your 40s).
When you want to align who you are, what you do and who you do it with.
When you stop ignoring the signs and start saying yes to possibility, before it’s too late.
Death is the exit strategy. What’s your excite strategy?
🚀 If you’d like to explore what the next chapter might look like for you, we’re now recruiting for the next cohort of our transformational Vision 20/20 group coaching program which starts in October. An amazingly supportive community of likeminded people that want to make more effortless income and impact. Learn more and how to apply at vision.happystartups.co
