How to Stay Motivated in Midlife?

Do you often get the feeling that life is passing you by? Do you feel a sense of being short-changed in life? Don't feel down, you are not alone in experiencing these downside emotions. When we reach the golden year, many women are in a quandary what to expect in the coming years. At this stage, you may still have children in school, children in the workforce may be in the stage of marriage breakdown, in a happy relationship with your spouse or partner, with work or suddenly without work. Whatever situation you are in at this midlife stage, know that you are not alone in your journey.

DE-STRESS

These negative emotions you are feeling should not thrive on in your life. You have to conquer this negativity in your life or else it will consume you and lead to despair. Don't let it happen to you, you are in control of your life and if you want to be happy and positive, you have to push yourself out of the doldrums you are in. "Life is what you make it" is an old cliche but it holds a load of truths. If you want to be miserable and all you think about are miserable thoughts then life will indeed be miserable. If you think about good thoughts, positive thoughts then good things will come in your way. It's how the universe works, so don't invite negativism in your life. We have only one life to live and we have to live it to the fullest. Let us embrace life and everything that comes with it, life is not always a bed of roses but if the thorns in the roses happen to tear your skin, you have to soothe it and not let it alone to fester. Life is a season, it's not always winter, spring & summer will come. So if at present, there are bad things that are happening in your life, believe that it is only temporary, it is only a season and it too shall pass.

How to stay motivated in life? 

Here are ways you can ponder on to stay motivated and be happy & positive in your midlife.

1. Plan for your future - you may think it is odd planning for the future at 50, but the fact is there is a whole wide world in front of you. You have to be a brave soul to conquer all your wrong beliefs that planning for the future is for children or for young adults only. Look back. What do you want to do or what were you interested in when you were younger? What were your plans then, that you were not able to pursue? Maybe, you were interested in writing, but in college, you took a different path. This happens most of the time upon the advice of parents to their children. Now, is the time to dabble in what you really want to do. You don't have to abandon your present occupation if this is your bread & butter. What you can do, is to give yourself the freedom to be able to pursue your other dreams. Write, if you want to write. The internet is a wide platform to publish articles that can be read by thousands of people. People you have never met or will never meet at all, but through a global network, your thoughts can be read by people all over the world, from all walks of life. If you want to paint, paint then, if you want to work in a new field, do so. There are online courses available, look it up, this may be the answer to your prayers. Take baby steps to build up for a bigger change in the future. But to remain passive is not the path for you. Be proactive, do not wait for someone or something to make things happen for you.

2. Caring for yourself - this is the time to rediscover yourself. Caring for one's self is equal to rediscovering who you are. Do you believe that? It may have been many years that you are neglecting yourself because you are immersed in the myriads of responsibilities you have. Give yourself a break, breathe! You might have been running and running to win the race, to reach the goal line, that you forgot to breathe. Be kind to yourself, take a break from stress long enough for you to recover back any semblance of normalcy in your life. Take a day trip to somewhere you've always wanted to see. Pause to enjoy the sunlight, the flowers and the blue skies above you. In that "me" moment, get a pen and notebook, draw 2 columns. In the right column, list down all your achievements from as far you can remember, back in childhood up to present. In the left column, list down all the good & happy things that happened in your life as far back that you can remember. As you read it, you're now seeing a new you.  A "You", that has been set back all this time. You are rediscovering who you are. All this time, you might have felt a bit unworthy, worst, you might have felt, worthless, but as you read the list, you feel empowered and inspired by your achievements. A smile or laughter escapes from your lips as you recall happy memories. Experience the joy of loving your self all over again.

3.  Stop living with regrets - are you the type who dwells on the what-ifs or why not in your life? Stop it, it won't do you any good because we cannot bring back the time. You have to look forward, there' s no turning back. Sad to say, this is the favorite past time of midlife women. They like to relive the past and dissect each area of that past. They want to figure out, what they did wrong and what they should have done to make it better. Instead of living in regret, what you can do is to count your blessings. Each morning, you wake up to, is a great blessing. It is an opportunity to live a productive life, to serve God and simply enjoy life. In contemplation, you can assess your values. What do you value most? Your family? Your work? Your business? Your valuables? Your integrity? If you now have a complete picture of what you value, rank it from first to last. In this way, you can plan the activities that will fulfill your values. If you value most your family, then the activities you can line up to fulfill this value are: pray together as a family, eat together (be complete for a meal even if the available time you can all be together is at dinner only), stop using your gadgets and take time to really keep up a conversation with your family, watch a movie with the family, think of ways you & your family can bond together. One thing that will remain constant in your life, is your family. Move on.

4. Take action to accept the challenge - the challenge is: how to stay motivated in midlife? The course of action to take is to look at the positive side of any situation. You cannot control what will happen in your life but you can control how you respond to it. Just like a farmer, you plant the seeds in your field, you cultivate it by watering it each day, you weed it, you see to it they have a fair amount of sunshine. Day to day, you care for it, you see to it that all the care it needs to bear fruits was provided by you. You patiently wait, until harvest time. You gave your share to care for it, now you have to entrust to God the rest. If by some misfortune, a storm destroys your field before you can harvest, do not blame your self, blame others or blame God. You did all you can and what happened is beyond your control. Instead, take a day to rant or feel sorry but the following day, rise up, bounce back, for life goes on. Do not let any misfortune to mar your happiness.

You have only one life to live, live it to the fullest. Have you been in a situation that almost pulled you down, how were you able to stay motivated and rise up from it?

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Middle life is beautiful.

Till next time. God bless.