Peace.

©2012 Discover Aid: The Challenges Of Living In Your Midlife. All Rights Reserved.

How about giving yourself some more fundamental plans. Plans that really help you change your life for good. Its all very well dreaming about the ‘you’ in the future when everything is sorted and you have the life you have always wanted, but what will you need to do to get there? and how long does it take to put all these things in place? some things do really just take a long time to develop. Lots of nurturing and sustaining to make them become real and part of your life.

Why not start next year by laying out a plan of your wildest dreams. The dream alone may be something that keeps you going when things seem like life is too hard. Create a dream of a life that is realistic and achievable, but is creative enough to realise all your needs. So what are your needs? define them, list them. Leave them and come back to check and add to them when you think more about them all.

Then look at them all and find a plan for each that may take a year or maybe five years to achieve. Make that first step for each of them part of your new year’s resolution.

Good luck!!

©2012 Discover Aid: The Challenges Of Living In Your Midlife. All Rights Reserved.

©2012 Discover Aid: The Challenges Of Living In Your Midlife. All Rights Reserved.

For instance, take me. I have to keep my perspective right now. I have a cash burn rate that is higher than my income. And it is going to be very much depending on my burn rate as to whether my business succeeds or not.

I have to step back and see that right now, I am in mid life, and that typically, like many mid lifers do, they step out of the office and try to make it independently, setting up their own business and make their own life and be their own boss.

That’s right where I am. That part of that type of cycle of life. That’s me all right.

But I am also aware that so many people fail to succeed with this because running your own business means you have to been sound with all the facets of business.

Your burn rate is very much about how good you are at cost control within your financial department.

Back in the dot com days there was much talk about new businesses setting up offices with old doors on legs for take tops and desks. They key here was to keep the costs low whilst you build the business. My costs are low, but, they could be lower, maybe.

Others see their independence as a sign that they can live a life of the projected riches to come.

There was (at least) one dot com company that employed many, paid them well and let them travel first class until the company came to a halt with investors.

Now as I wrote that I had another company in mind, but I then recalled being in upper first class for a one day trip / meeting across the Atlantic myself, so put me in that example too!!

So I, as others have learnt the hard way, that if you lower your burn rate, you can last longer. The longer you can last, the longer you will out-survive your competitors, and have some cash for really important things.

That pattern of life, that cycle that I am in has warned me to keep things tight so that I can survive just a bit longer before my income exceeds my outgoings.

If you feel this article has helped you, please donate something to help me keep this site alive for others. Thank you.

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©2012 Discover Aid: The Challenges Of Living In Your Midlife. All Rights Reserved.

This clearly was a nightmare situation for couples looking to have a child because of the dilemma it put them in as a couple and as individuals in terms of whether to continue with the pregnancy and risk dealing with the extra responsibility of a child who needs a lot of care and resources, or to terminate the pregnancy.

For many reasons of beliefs and personal outlook its a hard decision for anyone to make, and a very sad one at that. Only the individuals themselves will know what is right for them.

I was told that they took a day off to get out and work through what was right for them; could they take this responsibility on if the risk turned out to be reality or would it restrict their own needs and plans for the future? perhaps it would be impossible for them to consider other children? or maybe there are other responsibilities in their lives that would need to be considered also, such as looking after elderly parents.

They sat on a ferry to cross an estuary as they took a walk that afternoon and by pure chance found themselves sitting close to a couple with a Downs Syndrome child.

Later they said to my friend, “what does it mean? what should we make of that?” They were seeing the situation, the coincidence, as a message of some sort. Maybe this was a message and ‘fate’ was having something to do with what was going on for them at that very moment.

At times of hardship it is easy to take a step out of your own strength of decision making and hand it to something else, especially if the decision you need to make is particularly hard.

This, of course, got me thinking about how we take situations and coincidences. Some may see this as a sign from a god or a message from some unseen entity to tell them something. Perhaps it was telling them it was the right thing to do. Perhaps it was telling them it was the wrong thing to do.

This article has nothing to do with the choice of whether to have a Downs Syndrome child or not. What I want to express is that, as in this example, a situation or a coincidence is actually an opportunity and that any coincicence is an opportunity that is passing you by. You choice is to whether to grab it and make something of it, or watch it go by and do nothing, and so miss that opportunity and perhaps go on your way less informed about your path ahead.

Take the example above. The couple didn’t engage with the couple with the Downs Syndrome child. They just looked out the corner of their eyes probably like everyone else, and were left with their own feelings of how this impacted on their own very real dilemma.

Perhaps if they had seen this as an opportunity to quietly engage in a conversation with the couple maybe they would have found two individuals who would be very helpful to support a couple going through the same situation they had done many years before.

But the opportunity was lost and the couples went on their ways.

To me, the missed opportunity here means the couple are less informed and their path ahead is much harder to take. Now they may make the wrong decision for them by seeing this situation as a message to say yes, terminate, or conversely, no, don’t terminate the pregnancy.

Taking coincidences and seeing them as opportunities, as opposed to letting the situation tell you what to do rather than having the strength to make your own decisions is key to taking control of your life.

Leaving the decision making process to ‘fate’ is as good as going to a casino and putting your life on a bet.

If you feel this article has helped you, please donate something to help me keep this site alive for others. Thank you.

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©2012 Discover Aid: The Challenges Of Living In Your Midlife. All Rights Reserved.

I am really busy right now, hence the reduction in my postings. However the main thing I keep on thinking about is around creating a simple outlook on life. I feel very strongly that getting one’s self in a state of simple living enables one to be completely at one with yourself & be completely aware of who you are. This then gives you the greatest opportunity to have an open mind to think creatively about yourself and how you live and create things around you. Be that creative output an art, relationships or your job, you are the best placed to make this a success.

I need to think more about this but am very busy right now. If anyone wants to chip in, please feel free.

©2012 Discover Aid: The Challenges Of Living In Your Midlife. All Rights Reserved.

Like this feels like my first ever real success,
Like its the only thing I have possibly ever done all by my self,
Like I’ve been an entrepreneur for so many years yet never had a break like this,
Using the words “I feel confident” hasn’t been that regular in my vocabulary for too long.

Almost five years ago I left corporate life. Since then I’ve trashed through a few small business ideas that were playing rather than real businesses whilst I worked out what I really wanted to do with my life.

I got divorced. I got qualified as a counsellor too.

But underlying this all, I realised that I did not believe in myself. I would put up new business web sites but not want to promote them because I didn’t want the exposure.. how self destructive is that!!

I had formed a learned behaviour that everything I did was a failure.

I would also find it hard to complete any project, I would get bored as I got nearer the end, looking for the next new thing, convincing myself (very well I might add!) that the next idea was going to be at least twice as definite to make me an income as the last.

This all starts a long time ago I am sure but there were signs of this learned behaviour in some troubled waters I thrashed through starting in the late 90′s.

I escaped from a distructive boss in a large corporate. He was arrogant and ignorant. I couldnt trust him any further than I could keep an eye on which cubical he was currently slivering into (note: my opinion of most of my bosses doesnt get much better from nowon). So ‘escaping’ is not a good way to describe a career development.

However I got into product management which was what I had wanted to do for a long time. Still with business Internet services so I was happy and excited.

Except I got into a team managing a some high profile services just at the time when they were going to drop through the floor.

All my ambitions to turn them around went up in dust and I ended up with nothing. However, since I wasn’t tarred with the same brush as the rest of the team, I survived as the blue eyed ‘survivor’ .

I spent a number of years (and a couple of other bosses who weren’t half bad actually) trying to create some services based on the fact that my corporate had contracted with another corporate to purchase a lot of their software and so was committed to doing something with all that software instead of just dumping it in the stationary cupboard.

So my services were less about market needs and more about my corporate accountant’s needs. I sold nothing but was very busy still.
I got little achievement and fulfilment out of any of this. It was a bizarre time because the team I was part of felt quite desperate and felt that doom was only around the corner for us all at any time.

This part of my life I can not remember much about my children growing up. My mind was somewhere else. I was thinking about survival all the time. “What would happen if” scenarios were consuming me.

It’s a pity that no one told me, or if they did, I didn’t listen to the guy who told me that it all just doesn’t matter and that if you really believe in yourself, you know that you can walk out of this mess and find something far more useful to do.

The trouble was, I didn’t believe in myself. I was never that confident. I had done well to hide it by being brash whenever I needed to look confident.

I got a call from a head hunter and was offered more money to do what I wanted in a smaller company that was going places. Sounded like a good break. I could leave all this poo behind and go do what I really wanted to do somewhere else.

I was off. New boss, nice chap, knew what he was doing so I could learn from him. 3 months later he resigned and I had an idiot for a boss again. A right wally.

During this time I got a new partnership service to launch but on the day we launched it my company split itself into two meaning that I went one way and my lovely shiny new partnership service went the other and so was doomed. I had spent so much time on that and put my whole reputation into it.

I was back again fixing other people’s muck ups. The marketing guys had signed a deal for a lot of software that they weren’t authorised to do. they got sacked and it was my job to make a service out of it (I swear I didn’t put that on my cv).

I also had to work on creating a service from a deal the sales guy had put together telling the customer that we would make a service from it.

The sales guy didn’t get the sack however. I also was the one later on to sit in a room with two dodgy looking guys trying to tell them the deal was now off and that the head of marketing was way way too busy to meet to discuss it any further with them.

I left the company before it left me (which unfortunately was what happened to a few who didn’t leave in time) and jumped into safe shoes at a larger telco corporate again.

These guys actually had money coming in so I felt very happy… for six months. That was the time it took for me and my great little team to loose our really nice boss who I thought I could learn a lot from (yes, you’ve heard it all before two paragraphs up).

I ended up with a “cowboy” (to quote a great person I had the pleasure of being the manager in the previous job) of a manager who just wanted to do deals with the prettiest faces and leave us all in the office struggling to understand what our jobs were.

I never really understood my job after that. He gave me team members who openly confessed to their inability to do the job yet my cowboy boss was too busy managing his next promotion to take any notice of the issues he was ignoring.

A few years on this guy had been given the shove out the door himself and now promotes himself as a consultant.. as most who get the shove seem to do.

But enough about him, what about me? failure after failure. Im sure that if it wasn’t 5 minutes to 1am I might be able to paint a completely different picture of these last corporate years.

I met some great people. I had a lot of fun. Things were exciting sometimes. But I do regret missing my kids growing up in that time. I look a pictures and don’t remember anything about those times.

This is why, by this time, I was ripe for giving it all up and taking a chance on having a complete life change. All that I knew was grinding to a halt.

I didn’t feel I had the qualifications, the age or the understanding with what was being thrown at me to make a success of anything. And, oh yea, another sales guy sold something on the promise that we would make a product out of it. He didn’t get sacked, and I got the job of trying to make a service out of it again.

So failure sort of feels like it follows me around. Or rather, there is no success for me.

This is why, when I begun to take the time to really understand myself, I realised that I did have a habit, or rather a ‘learned behaviour’ of expecting failure and not expecting any success.

So back to the present. In the past few weeks I have been in discussions with a business about doing business with them. The initial excitement was incredible.

I had no idea my little business could achieve such an opportunity. Then over a few conversations it seem to become more and more real.

I got to a point where I had to accept that I had achieved this all by my self.

I had created this business. I had worked hard to design and develop the business and promote it and present it in a way that would make it attractive and functional for clients.

It was all my doing. It took a long time and I had to believe in what I was doing was going to make a difference to me some day if I kept at it. I kept saying to myself, never give up. Keep going, keep improving it. Stay passionate, and when you aren’t passionate, find the passion in it somewhere.

But most of all, believe in yourself. Believe that you are owed a break. Believe that you deserve to have success.

Believe that success will come your way one day.

This will change thing for me a lot. It will prove I can believe in myself. It will prove the success is a real possibility and that I can plan to succeed and not plan to fail all the time.

Do you plan to fail or succeed?

©2012 Discover Aid: The Challenges Of Living In Your Midlife. All Rights Reserved.

©2012 Discover Aid: The Challenges Of Living In Your Midlife. All Rights Reserved.

Or Do You Live In The Present Whilst Ignoring The Future?

It is hard to balance what you do today, for today and what you do for tomorrow.

For example, would you bow all your savings on a holiday and justify it by saying you may not be alive next year?

Or would you be more cautious and save some more and take out only that which you need to go take a modest break ensuring you always have some cash for unexpected financial events.

Take this to an extreme:

if we all lived for today as if we were off to die tomorrow soon we would have nothing of our lives left anyway. Our families, our assets and our health.

So how do we balance living for today and considering the future?

Well, consider some thoughts I have on the subject. Eating a fattening cake for example is about pleasing yourself today at the cost of tomorrow, unless you have a great routine of being able to eat a cake on one day a week and not indulging until the same time next week. Its easy to feed our troubled self-esteem’s with short term stimulants than actually getting around to working through what we need to do to build up our well-being and be happy and fully content.

Its about making sure that you don’t live for today in a way that costs too much for tomorrow, in terms of health, relationships & your well being. You gain the extra bonus of building up your self-esteem again too.

Often hear of those brave enough to sell up their house and travel the world. The are confident enough to expect that they will have a job when they need one in reasonable time. This is a great example of how people choose to make a big difference to their self fulfillment whilst carefully managing the plan for the future.

Do go travelling and seeing the world they have to manage their finances to make sure they don’t end up at a financial cliff edge with no where to go. Those that do this well return a few years down the line far more fulfilled than those that they left behind. The comparisons sometimes are very telling. Others who stayed home look to defend themselves by saying how much they have done whilst actually have just clocked up a couple more years of living for each day with no thought for the future. They are a bit older and a bit fatter too.

Sure the travellers are a little less financially well off, and lost out on some promotions, but then these guys have really lived and have probably had a lot of great meaningful experiences you would not be able to replicate by jetting off somewhere for a couple of weeks with your Blackberry and laptop still in your bag.

Don’t get me wrong, if someone is genuinely content with their lives and dont want to go hunting out adventures then I can accept and praise that. But you will find that many people, if they really understood themselves, would have a desire to do something exciting or at least exilerating for themselves. If only they could admit it and then decide how.

Drugs and alcohol are good examples of living for today at the cost of tomorrow. Addicts can not think of anything but the next drink or the next fix. They know somewhere in them it isn’t doing them any good long terms but the feeling they get today and the way it probably helps them deal with their own demons keeps them coming back for more.

On a lesser scale…

What about smoking?

People smoke to please the habit. Smokers tell me it’s a calming experience and if they don’t smoke they will be more anxious. There cant be anyone around that doesn’t understand how it will affect their long term health and so will likely reduce the length of their life. Some will argue they know people who have smoked all their lives and are living at a ripe old age now, as a way to help them feel that it is not all certain death at the hands of lung cancer.. “and besides”, they say, “you could get in your car and die of a car accident tomorrow” as a way to help them further with their denial. For smokers its very much about living for today with their habit, and leaving the issue of responsibility for some time in the distant, but out of sight tomorrow.

Now I’m not just having a go at smokers here, but since we all know smoking kills, and kills more than planes, cars, alligators, hail stones and martians it’s a pretty good example to start to consider the balance of living for today at the cost of tomorrow. So, lets consider this way of thinking with some more things that those of us at midlife might want to consider and possibly review to re-set ourselves some balance in our lives.

What about your weight?

Here’s a good one. For all my thirties I was overweight. My weight changed but only to increase and not decrease. I always felt like a thin guy in a fat butt. That was because I always thought I could loose the weight whenever I wanted to, but never got around to doing so. Then one day my wife left and I lost a lot. I’ve put some back on now I am content again but its no excuse, I need to get out and exercise rather than typing all day. I need to watch what I eat, it never feels like I am pigging out, I never eat cakes, so its much about the little piece of chocolate that is pleasing me in the hear and now and is ignored and forgotten at the end of the week when I look back on what I have eaten.

What about your health & fitness?

Are you old enough for a heart attack or a stroke yet? Shouldn’t you be looking after yourself a little better? Imagine what would happen if you had a stroke tomorrow. It could mean you wouldn’t be able to speak or do stuff you love doing, even typing on your computer might be a thing of the past. Why don’t you get up at lunch time and go for a walk. Our bodies were not designed to be so stationary.

We were designed to cross continents each season. Eating berries, fruits and vegetables as well as meats. Nowadays anything processed you have on your place is just going to fill you up, nothing more. Not enough goodness to keep you healthy and the viruses and carcinogens away. So why delay? Make a little change today and soon it will add up.

What about that change of career?

Is your mind getting a bit soggy because you haven’t pushed it for years now. Something new and exiting can awaken you like you are in your twenties again. Sitting in the same old job is too easy. You can get lazy and stop being interested until the day you choose to change your future by leaving or someone else does it for you by firing you.

Take some time to think about what would really excite you and build up your self-esteem. Its not about promotion and getting more money. I remember dreaming of a lower paid job closer to home. I would have more time with my family, I wouldn’t feel so alien with them and I would have less stress and more sleep. I would also have time to take up some after work activities rather than spending most of my time in the evening traveling home.

What about your relationship?

Is it stagnant? Have you forgotten the fun of your relationship? Consider what your relationship is about today as opposed to when you first got together. There is no reason why you can’t try to get that feeling back to some degree, even if you are loaded up with new responsibilities. Either sort it out or move on or you risk staring infidelity in the face one day.

If you are not happy then have some integrity by saying you are not happy. Say it like it is (respectfully) and open it up for a discussion about what can be done to make some changes for the best. If you both don’t find a solution then maybe its time to consider when to break up. If you have kids make sure the effects are minimized, or accept living together for a longer period whilst the kids get through some important stages of their lives, although the kids will be affected by a love-less marriage.

What about your kids?

Do you see them enough? Are they turning out the way you had hoped? Are you doing things that means they will be in a better place than when you were their age? Are you transferring too many of your band habits and behaviors onto them? Do you spend enough time with them?

Children are one of the most obvious changes you will see over time. You might one day look back and find it hard to remember anything about their early lives. If that’s you, then make a change today. Get out and plan some activities with them in the evenings or weekends. If you don’t get a lot of spare time seriously consider what your priorities are. If you cant find the time for your kids then maybe you shouldn’t have been a parent in the first place. Harsh but true. Take some time to think about this.

What about your own personal fulfillment?

Are you where you wanted to be? Is what you aspire to only focused on material things when you ask yourself that question? What about your own self worth, do you need the big car and impressive house to convince others that you are important? Or can you imagine that standing with just your own life’s achievements is enough to make you feel content, and so others will probably agree too if they wish.

Those of us in midlife (and older) know better than some how our time on this planet is finite, and what that really feels like. So why don’t we just take some time out to sit and think about what is really important to us. What would we like to think at 70 or 80 about our life achievements? What would we want to see that we had done?

Well, now’s your chance. Stop denying and making excuses. Get up, set out a plan to bring the things into your life that you want to have achieved. If you don’t plan and bring them in, you will never get them done. If you delay them there will always be an excuse.

Have you got any advice you would like to share about your situation? Post a comment below.

Guy

If you feel this article has been useful to you then please donate something to help me keep this site alive for others. Thank you.
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©2012 Discover Aid: The Challenges Of Living In Your Midlife. All Rights Reserved.