Are You Having A Midlife Crisis?
I wonder how many of us would have chosen the life we have -- if we had been able to see how it would turn out to be.
Take a quick mental picture snapshot of your life right now. Now place that snapshot on the front of a puzzle box in the Store of Life. Would you have picked it up as a child or teen and said ...
"Wow! Yes! That's the life I want!"
If the answer is "no!", "Heck Noh!" or anything similar ... you have discovered why you are in the middle of a midlife crisis.
A midlife crisis occurs to wake you up and get you back on the right path if you have chosen the wrong goal in life or are not following your heart.
Signs of a Midlife Crisis
Everyone goes through rough spots and course corrections during their life. But a midlife crisis is more than that. It is a combination of several major problems that are all coming to the surface at the same time -- calling for you to re-evaluate and restructure your life to align it with your heart's desire and deepest callings.
Usually a midlife crisis comes in the middle of your adult or working life. But it can occur anytime you are seriously off course and need to wake up and make changes. Many times it is triggered by the ending of a career path or entering the Regenesis life stage.
So how do you know what to look for? Well, there are some very easy to spot signs ...
- A change in purchasing behavior, especially for big ticket items or items you dreamed of owning when you were a child
- A desire to radically change your lifestyle, especially for a more affluent one .. splurging to cover up the depression that a midlife crisis often brings .. or a more simple one
- Acting out of character ... being more angry over small, meaningless things ... or depressed
- A renewed interested in appearances and physical health
- Trying out a series of new things ... in a fast and furious search for meaning or a new lifestyle ... new foods, new religions, new hairstyles, new clothing
- Dusting off the dreams of your 20s and 30s ... and trying to pick up where you left off
- Focusing heavily on the past or future, instead of the present
What Are The Symptoms?
A midlife crisis manifests as a series of symptoms that something is wrong. Here are a few symptoms to look out for ....
- You wake up in the middle of the night feeling something is wrong with your life
- You lose interest in your life and taking responsibility for it
- Your lifetime hobbies no longer interest you
- Small things start to really irritate you that usually you would shrug off
- The death of a close friend, family member or acquaintance hits you really hard
- You lose interest in doing well at work or getting promoted
- You no longer are interested in learning new things
- You feel like someone has started to turn down the juice in your life or it is draining away
- You feel tired all the time and listless about the future
- You start to count the days to retirement, even though it is years away
- You start questioning your life choices
- You start living for the weekends and vacations
- You feel like your life does not belong to you
- You no longer recognize yourself or remember who you are
- You no longer dream of the great things you will do with your life
- You cannot remember your childhood dreams and what fascinated you about life
- You are losing (or have lost) touch with what inspires you
- Your life no longer feels meaningful
- You are no longer passionate about yourself, your future or the people in your life
- You cannot remember how you got to this point in your life
- You cannot see any opportunities for joy, delight, wonder or surprise in the future ahead of you
- You can plot out the rest of your life and you do not want to go there
- Life seems like it is filled with a series of pointless tasks that lead nowhere
- You feel like you have reached a dead end in your life
- You feel like you are on a unending wheel -- and Monday morning just starts a new round of the same old tasks
- You feel like you are on autopilot or sleepwalking through your life
- You feel like you are living the wrong life or someone else's life
What DO I Do About It?
The simple answer is wake up -- but that is very hard to do. Usually you have gotten so far off track you are deeply mired in a life that is not working for you. In effect, it has made you fall asleep at the wheel. And there is pain ahead if you are ready and willing to get out of the ditch.
The pain can be emotional, financial and spiritual. That painful pins and needles feeling when a part of you has fallen asleep is now felt throughout all the parts of your life that need to change.
There is also a lot of work, worthwhile in the end, that you need to do. For one, you need to get rid of all the baggage of past hurts and misunderstandings. All the emotional slights, damaging self talk, and blame shifting has to go. You have to take responsibility for bad life decisions. Incorrect assumptions about life and who you are have to be replaced with the truth about your life and what you want it to become.
If you were sold a bill of goods about what life was all about and what you could achieve -- they have to be thrown out of the window and you need to start over. Quick fixes, which temporarily stop the pain, have to be passed over for the real work of transforming your life. And a lot of people in your life may not understand, support or like what you are doing. It may be upsetting their own life plans.
And often this all starts happening when your kids reach the age of testing teenage boundaries and becoming self sufficient. Which means there is both added stress and less need to stay together as a family.
If you have chosen the wrong career path, life partner or life goal ... you may have to make significant changes to get back on track. And it could have a large financial impact -- as well as emotional toll.
Where Do I Get Help?
At a minimum, you want to understand what is going on so you know what to expect and can share and explain the process and where you are in it with close family and friends. Just having a name for what you are going through and an idea of what to expect can help enormously.
So I would start with doing a little research. There are great books to help you get started with what is holding you back, like this one.
If you feel like you need help, or become bogged down, consider finding a mentor, talking to a life coach or joining a support group. There is no need to waste time reinventing the wheel here. And the investment in finding expert advice and support could save you valuable time, reduce your stress levels and help you implement good changes.
The Emotional Toll of a Midlife Crisis
