I usually write one of my more thought driven posts at this time of year, generally triggered by a couple of weeks away on holiday with time to think. That hasn’t happened this year because we had our big trip to Colombia in February but ever since my May birthday post where we talked about looking back from the perspective of your 80 year-old self, I’ve been focusing on the new stage of life that a lot of us are moving towards. I’m not going to call it retirement because not all of us are ready to retire – and maybe never will be. It’s a mindshifting time nevertheless as we become aware that we’re reaching what many call the Third Act. I don’t particularly like that term so I’ll give you a new one later in the post but first I want to recap on the re-evaluation that I’ve been doing over the last few years and then look ahead as I start to ask “what does the future hold?”
Fulfilment can’t begin until you come to terms with who you really are
Recently I’ve realised that for the first time in my life I know exactly who I am. I no longer feel I have to apologise for personality traits that I used to hide such as my bookishness, outgoing introversion or tendency to overthink. Instead I’m appreciating them as strengths and reframing them as a desire for continual learning, an appreciation of when I need to recharge and a curious and enquiring mind.
Funnily enough having to deal with trolls over the years since I started writing my blog has only made me stronger – in many ways it’s a compliment, I’ve learned to be glad that I provoke opinions. And I remind myself that anybody who gets themselves whipped up about what somebody they’ve never even met is doing, wearing or thinking clearly has a huge emptiness in their life that they’re trying to fill. No happy person ever went around looking for people to criticise. So I find myself feeling psychologically resilient and yet when I look ahead, I realise that I haven’t worked out what to aim for next.
For the last decade I’ve focused on self-identity, as well as personal development I’ve trained hard physically and so my body’s the strongest it’s ever been…
… and then of course there’s been style which is, as we know, all about how you present your inner being to the rest of the world. I feel my groundwork on most of all this is done – not that I’ll stop thinking or training or looking at the shops but I’m no longer in the working-it-out stage. I know what I like and what suits me.
Refining what you enjoy doing
Over the last five years as you know Mal and I have also been looking quite forensically at where our pleasures come from. We’ve worked out what kind of music events we enjoy most… we’ve expanded the joy we get from dancing into salsa which is easier than disco to take into our older years…
… we’ve identified how we like to travel and where. We’ve accepted the things we’ll never be – foodies, keen gardeners, campers, hikers, marathon runners… and that’s ok, I’m glad that I no longer have to force myself to spend time and money on things that I know I don’t enjoy just because other people do. We’ve realised the importance of having separate interests that are so different that the other is confounded by them. We’ve quietly acknowledged that some old friends are growing in a different direction to us and so while we’ll always be fond of them, we’ll spend less time with them – and the good thing about that is that it’s opened up time and space for new people with similar mindsets to ours. And at the same time we’ve reconnected with old friends who’d drifted because of distance or lifestage and that’s been an enormous pleasure.
I’ve been deliberately focusing on this foundation work since the boys left home when I realised that after all the years of putting them at the centre of my life I now had to rediscover myself. It’s been important because now I finally feel ready to move forwards towards new opportunities. I can sense that there’s a new stage of life ahead and although I’m not deliberately changing the way I work, partly through choice and partly as a result of the economic climate I find I’m working less (or I should say billing less because I still spend the same amount of time at my desk but that’s something that needs to change!).
Moving into a new stage of life
You won’t be surprised to hear that I’ve been doing some research into what is academically termed gerontology but I’m going to call it ageing well. It began with a retail consultancy project that I was asked to deliver on the post-midlife mindset and since then I’ve just kept digging into it so let’s talk about that a bit. It begins, as always, with the question of when does midlife end? And the important thing to understand is that there isn’t a date. It’s a completely attitudinal thing affected by (amongst other things) our upbringing, our peers, our economic circumstances and also just by our intrinsic selves. Some people already have an elderly attitude in their mid 20s, others are still attitudinally teenagers at 90. So although I’m going to use age brackets for average guidance on energy levels, let’s not get too hung up on the specifics of age today, let’s frame it within lifestages instead.
The Fulfilment Era
Of course there are different of ways of curating lifestages too because we don’t all live in the same way with the same approach but the majority of people in western society tend to progress through three which is where this concept of the Third Act comes from. They are:
Foundation: the years of education, skill-building, early career and identity formation.
Expansion: career growth, family building (for some); financial and asset accumulation and broad experiences
Fulfilment: purpose-driven living, lifestyle redesign, legacy, exploration, pleasure and mentorship
And doesn’t “I’m moving into my Fulfilment Era” sound a whole lot better than “I’m getting old”?!
You can see now why none of these stages should be attached to specific age bands because everyone moves through them at different rates. It’s going to be even more fluid for the generations below us because they may have a number of different careers, their lives may be less linear and they may keep switching from Foundation to Expansion and then back again. That, though, is a future them problem, today we’re focusing on ourselves.
As I’ve been looking at both quantitative and qualitative research into these stages the big, in fact huge thing that’s struck me is how few people move into their Fulfilment Era proactively. And it’s understandable because a generation ago retirement was the very brief period when you finally sat down for a couple of years after working very hard and then probably didn’t have time to get up again. Now though thanks to the advances in modern medicine and increased awareness of a healthy lifestyle we have the opportunity to extend our Third Act over decades. Current midlifers are very likely to live into their mid 90s if not longer. But still, so many people assume that at some point they’ll stop working and then they’ll work everything else out after that. It reminds me very much of the focus in pregnancy on giving birth and the shock you had when you arrived back home with a baby and only then realised how different the next 18 years were going to look!
The thing is that even with an extended lifespan the Third Stage years aren’t limitless. Going back to the 80 year-old self post in May, within the Fulfilment Era we have three energy-defined periods: the go-go years, the slow-go years and then the no-go years. The go-go years are loosely the mid-50s to early 70s, the slow-goes are mid 70s to mid-80s and the no-goes hit after that. Most research shows that even if you are living optimally (and fortunately) in terms of managing your health, there’s a clear drop in energy levels in the early to mid-70s so if you have a lot of ‘one day’ plans (as in ‘one day I’ll go to Nauru’) – you need to start doing some serious planning. Ideally you’ll have a clear idea of what you hope to do years before you reach your Fulfilment Era.
And I know that someone will say in the comments that life doesn’t always follow plans, it’s true that curve balls are continually thrown up – but that isn’t a reason to live in stasis, it’s better to keep moving with defiant hope.
You won’t be surprised to hear that my project this summer has been all about looking ahead to my Fulfilment Era. Life’s been busier than expected so I haven’t got as far as I hoped but one thing I’ve realised is that if I want to achieve some of my travel dreams, I may need to crystallise my pension sooner than I’d imagined. If I follow the advice of my older siblings I only have 12 years of full energy left. I’m in no way qualified to give financial advice so I’m not going to talk about pension planning any more. The thing that’s shocked me though is how many of my ‘one day’ places I’ve had to cross off my list – because when you start being realistic about funds and energy levels you realise that you have to be very focused. I know that the more adventurous long haul trips need to happen in the next 12 years and so, as a result, I’ve shifted the dreams I had for extended stays in Europe to my 70s. It feels like a good, loose travel plan for now and it means my resources are concentrated.
It may seem surprising but I’m finding that big dreams are easier to schedule in, it’s the smaller, more everyday aspect of the Fulfilment Era that’s much harder to imagine. Let’s say that in 15 years time I wake up at home on a wet Tuesday morning in February – what would I like the day to look like? Or on a sunny Thursday in June… or an average Sunday in October? I know what I don’t want to do – I don’t want to spend the day in front of the television but beyond that I just can’t visualise ordinary days yet. I’d like to think that I’d wake up buzzing because there was something ahead that I was really looking forward to getting stuck into or somebody I wanted to see – but what is that thing and who is that person? And where is the house that I’m waking up in?
When I talk to friends who are the same age as me I find that they’re approaching their Fulfilment Era in one of two ways: either they’re not thinking about it because they see it as getting old so their fingers are firmly in their ears or, like me, they’re wondering how they can make it good. Because if you put it in the right context our Third Act could be the very best part of our whole lives. Hopefully for most of us we’ll have some degree of financial freedom, good health and the biggest limit on us will be our own imagination. The important thing in my view is to be ready to hit the ground running with some kind of plan because if we only have between 12 – 20 years of go-go we don’t want to waste the first 5 of them floundering.
The Midlifechic Retreat – plan your Fulfilment Era
Sorry – now sold out!
So you won’t be surprised to hear that I’m developing a framework and I’m hoping to do it with some of you. You see in January I’m going to be holding a Midlifechic Retreat. The focus will be on planning our Fulfilment Era or Third Act. Over the course of a weekend I’m hoping that 20 of us will get together in a cosy hotel on the edge of The Lake District and, guided by an MCIPD qualified coach, we’ll each work out a tailored plan that’s exactly right for each of us.
I’ll be running the course with Sharon Blake who spent her professional career as a coach at blue chip companies such as Nationwide and BNP Paribas, supporting employees by facilitating their personal development and individual growth. Since then she’s been coaching clients on an individual basis to help them get the most out of their lives and she has a particular passion for helping women at this stage of midlife. She’s been a Midlifechic reader for a long time and because she lives close to me I’ve also got to know her as a friend so I can vouch for her warmth, her bubbly energy and her deeply supportive approach. I feel very fortunate that she’s agreed to run this weekend with me and we’ve been working together to build a course that we feel is exactly what women at our stage of life need.
We’ll be spending the weekend at The Netherwood Hotel in Grange-over-Sands which is a cosy and rather luxurious old place, set in 15 acres of woodland with stunning views out across the sea.
You’ll have your own en suite room (I don’t believe in people having to share with strangers)…
… and it feels like the perfect place for us to huddle together as we work on this next stage of our lives in a positive, supportive group. There’s a Spa, gym and swimming pool for anyone who wants to feel pampered or let off steam…
…and of course very bracing walks in January if you need to blast any cobwebs away!
We’ll be spending our time with a mixture of talks mostly from Sharon but with input from me as well, coaching sessions, group work along with breakouts for individual planning – the aim is that you’ll leave with a very visual map as a guide to how you want to spend the years to come. In the evenings we’ll be relaxing over food and wine together and hopefully we’ll leave as a group of confidantes who will support each other and keep each other on track.
PLEASE NOTE THE RETREAT IS SOLD OUT
The dates are 30th January – 1st February which gives you time to recover from Christmas but is before the new year energy and aspirations start to dwindle.
If you’d like to know more you can find all of the Midlifechic Retreat details here. The aim is that by the end of the weekend we’ll all (me included) have a clear and individual idea of what will help us to feel as if we’re thriving throughout our Fulfilment Era. Plus we should have formed a group of friends who will continue to cheer each other on.
If you have any questions about the weekend you know where to find me. In the meantime have a great bank holiday weekend, we’re off to Newcastle which is looking chilly but I’m not complaining because we’ve had ten days of glorious warmth up here so we’ve finally had the chance to sit in the garden for a bit. It’ll be a Midlife Lately catch-up next week as we reach the end of another month… and then… I’m warning you – new season is looming. Change is in the air!
Disclosure: ‘Your Fulfilment Era – what does the future hold?’ is not a sponsored post
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