Beyond Comparison: 2 Questions Every Midlife Woman Needs to Answer for Herself

You've checked all the boxes. Career? Crushing it. Family? Thriving. House, vacations, car? Got 'em. So why does it feel like something is still missing?

On this week's episode, I get real about the internal disconnect so many of us feel. We have everything we thought we wanted, yet still feel unfulfilled.

The secret to moving from hollow success to deep fulfillment lies in answering two simple but profound questions:

- What do YOU want?
- How do YOU define "success"?

Key insights:

- How chasing ever-higher goals to impress others only leads to burnout
- Why "climbing the ladder" often lacks meaning if it's not your ladder
- How to tune out society's definitions of "success" and get clear on your own
- Why there's no better time than right now to start making changes toward fulfillment

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School of Midlife Podcast: Why Setting Healthy Boundaries Is So Hard -- But Important -- for Midlife Women

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Transcript

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when we are in this comparison loop, when it comes to success and we are measuring. Our life and our happiness and our achievements and our emotions by the standards that society or someone else has given us without actually figuring out how we define success. Then we are always going to be in this comparison loop. We will never get out of it. Welcome to the School of Midlife podcast. I'm Laurie Reynoldson, former award-winning attorney turned high performance coach for midlife women. I designed this podcast is your go-to place for weekly midlife inspiration, where I'll be sharing, inspiring stories, providing step-by-step actionable coaching and introducing you to some incredible women who are absolutely crushing it at the midlife game. And you'd better believe we'll also be having candid conversations about mid-life relationships, career moves, money, menopause, and so much more. So take out your reading glasses and notebooks. My friends, because the School of Midlife is in session. Well, Hey there friends. Welcome back to another episode of the school of mid-life podcast. Today. We. I want to talk about the thing. That so many midlife women wrestle with, and that is what am I doing with my life? Aye. Like me, so many other women kind of joke about the. I got to figure out what I'm going to do with, when I grow up, like, what am I gonna do with my, who do I want to be? What do I want to be when I grow up? And they say things like. I mean, I'm happy. I have a great life. I just feel like something's missing. And they don't know what it is. And they don't know why they feel that way. I mean. They are absolutely crushing it. At the office and that can either be in a traditional office setting where they have successfully climbed the corporate ladder. Um, they have reached the pinnacle of their career. They have been wildly successful. And they've worked hard to make a name for themselves. Or it could be that they are the CEO of their household, where they work all the hours of the day and all the hours of the night and don't get paid for it. But there's this common feeling that there. They're crushing it in their professional life, but they're feeling so adrift in their personal life. And I know I've mentioned this before, but so many of the women that I talk with and work with. Admit that. They are happy that they have a great life. But they're profoundly unfulfilled. At their words, not mine. Um, they're happy, but profoundly unfulfilled. And it's. Again, they have a great life. It's just that they thought that they would feel. Differently. Once they got to this point in their life. And I find that the answer to this midlife angst we'll call it. It's not a midlife crisis, so let's call it the midlife angst. Can be found in the answer to two questions. How do I know these questions work? Because. After figuring out how to answer these questions. My clients say things like I'm finally living the life. I was meant to live. Or I'm finally doing something I've wanted to do for over 15 years. I'm excited to finally live the life. I want to live. I've finally become the person. I was always meant to be. Isn't it interesting how the word finally, or the idea that they there's this turning point where they have decided that they're going to do things differently. Moving forward. In all four of those statements there, four different women. Four different experiences for different. Lives that they have lived up until now. But they're finally making changes to be the person that they want to be to live the life they were meant to live. Which is pretty incredible, right. So. You're probably wondering what are those two questions? Let's start with question number one. What do you want? And I know that that sounds easy enough. Doesn't it? But. Almost across the board. One of the biggest struggles for most women. Is figuring out what they want. And when I say, what do you want? I mean, you. Like, what do you actually want? Not what you've been conditioned to want, not what your parents wanted for you growing up. But you. What do you actually want? And why do you want it? And that question is so hard for women because we are. Accustomed to making things. Comfortable for those around us. I mean, I've talked about the birthday dinner example before, but as a refresher, As an experiment, if you want to. Find out that women have a hard time expressing what they want. Ask a midlife woman, what she wants to do on her birthday. Where does she want to go to dinner? In fact, let's not even, let's not even figure out what kind of activities she wants. Let's just narrow it down to. Where does she want to go for dinner? And in her mind. In her heart. She knows exactly where she wants to go. She wants to go to that cool new Italian place down the street. The one that's super hard to get into. She loves the cacio y pepe there or the spaghetti and meatballs. It just depends on her mood. She loves the crusty bread. They have these, this great fresh salad and loves the, the menu and the wine list. And. There. Oftentimes is a piano player that is just adding to the candle lit on Beonce there's a terrace outside that has the, the perfectly strong bistro lights. She knows exactly where she wants to go for dinner. But instead of saying, she wants to go to the swanky new Italian place. She defers to everyone else. Why does she do that? Because in her mind, she's going through these mental gymnastics. On my birthday, the kids have a soccer game, so I know that we're going to be late. Let's let's just do something quick so that we can all get home and. You know, they can get their homework done and then we can go to bed. Or they know that their mother-in-law's friend has told her that it's too expensive and she just knows that there's going to be this fight over the check at the end. And the mother-in-law's going to roll her eyes and, you know, think that she's just all that, that, that for wanting to go to this expensive place when they could go to Applebee's or the, you know, some other restaurant or the mother-in-law could even cook. I mean, she's a, mother-in-law's a great cook. Why doesn't you like my food? Why doesn't she want to eat at my house? The birthday girl also knows that in order to get into the cool new Italian restaurant, you need reservations. And she knows her husband has had a busy week and. She's. Pretty convinced just because of how this has played out previously in, in their marriage. The he is forgotten to make reservations. So while she wants. To go to the Italian restaurant. She just settles for doing whatever. Everybody else wants to do, might be pizza might be burgers on the way home, nothing special, nothing fancy, nothing that says. We're celebrating your birthday in the way that you want to. Why, why do we do that? I mean on the one hand. It's because we want to make everyone else around us. Happy. To feel good. Because. So much of our identity is tied to the roles that we play in the lives of others. Mom wife. Daughter sister. Employee employer manager. The list goes on and on. And the last thing we want to do. Is to somehow. Fail. Fails, not the right word, but. Not live up to the expectations that everyone has of us. To play the roles that we play in their life. And they have those expectations because we've actually taught them how to treat us in those relationships. Which is, which is why boundaries are so hard for women. And if you haven't listened to the. Boundary podcast, the boundary setting podcast. I will link it here so that you can go back and take a listen. In fact, it's a pretty good one. Even if you have listened to it. It might be, you might be ready for a refresher on that one. But so we've got this need to make everyone else feel comfortable and loved and appreciated. And then on the other hand, it's hard for us because of our conditioning. This started at home with our parents. And they told us, you know, how we should make money and what our life should look like. And, and then we've got society telling us what we should want because of the advertisements on TV. And the magazines that we receive in the mail, although. I feel like we're receiving fewer and fewer magazines in the mail. I loved going to the pool in the summertime with the latest in the style issue. And I know you can get all of that information online now. But. It's it's different. Right? There was something so great about a magazine. But I digress anyway. So we've got, we've got our parents telling us what we should want. We've got society telling us what we should want. We've got influencers on social media. I mean, there are so many messages coming at us from every single direction. Which is why. It's hard for us to know. What w. We actually want. Because. We can't really drown out. All of the voices. It's hard to. Figure out. What is our voice? And what is coming from other people. Because we just. It's hard. Right. If we can't figure out. What we want. Then what we're going to fall into is that pattern that we have been living for the longest time, which is. When we say, do what others want us to do, or we. Look better to them because our choices. More align with what it is they want us to do. Then it's like we, we were trying to make ourselves feel better or more important. And if all we're doing is continuing those roles that were established for us when we were younger. Then. If we're not getting to the root of what, what we want. Then we shouldn't expect a different outcome than what we have right now. Right. I mean, you can chase a different goal. But if you're honest, you're just putting something else on the list for the sake of putting something else on the list so that you can achieve it so that you can. Look around and get the external validation that you have always been seeking. And what I'm saying here is if you don't change your approach to how you are doing things. The things around you, the feelings that you're having. Your outcome. Those aren't going to change either. So. The first question and. The one that should be the easiest, although feels a little difficult is what do you want? The second question is, how do you define success? Most of us would say we're successful, or I guess you should ask yourself, are you successful? And if the answer is yes, then I want you to follow it up with. By whose standard or measure. Because if we go back to the conditioning with the parents and the society, Success has become this yardstick by which we, that we use to compare ourselves to everyone else around us. And it perpetuates this dangerous unproductive loop. Which is we can only be successful if we're successful by societal measures. We earned a degree. We got a job. We got married. We had kids, we bought a house. We drive beautiful fancy cars. We have a vacation home. It's this constant comparison. This keeping up with the Joneses. And we're always looking around, comparing ourselves with. Our parents, are we more successful than they are? What about our siblings or our neighbors? Uh, our friends we're comparing ourselves even to our frenemies. I mean, that's, that's another gift from social media, right? Those people you didn't even talk to in high school. Now you can compare your life to theirs, but I mean, who cares? Why do you care that. Um, Anne the let's the cheerleader from high school, the one you had nothing in common with and who wasn't particularly nice to you. Why do you care that she has a new car? Or a new vacation home. Or that she just got divorced. I mean all you're really doing it. If you think about it is. Your. Comparing yourself to other people's lives. In an effort to make yourself. Feel better about yourself? Right. I mean, we were constantly in this state of judging and comparing how we are doing compared to other people. Because we then, instead of thinking about what's important to us and how we define success, we're using other people. As our measuring stick. Which then be gets this whole issue about, we can be very successful and still not feel that way. And what I mean by that is so many successful midlife women. Carry around. They're there walking around with a lot of guilt. Not that they're going to tell you about it, but they're feeling guilt. And shame, but again, they're silently. Dealing with it because they don't want to admit that it's an issue for them. Right. I mean, they're feeling guilty because why can't I just be happy with everything I have. They, you know, they've got these great lives. But they're just not happy and they don't know why. And then other, other, or sometimes even the same woman. Feel some shame because they have everything they ever thought they always wanted. And it's not enough. They don't know why, they're not sure what's missing. They just know that there is something missing. So when we are in this comparison loop, when it comes to success and we are measuring. Our life and our happiness and our achievements and our emotions by the standards that society or someone else has given us without actually figuring out how we define success. Then we are always going to be in this comparison loop. We will never get out of it. We, we we'll just find ourselves working harder. Hoping that we will find more satisfaction when the, the comparison just keeps piling up. It keeps ratcheting up. And we will never get to where we want to be. We will never feel what we want to feel. Here's here's another reason to figure out how you define success. You're probably more successful than you think. hear me when I say this. If your definition of success is a job you love. A spouse or a partner you love. you can take time off to have a vacation every year. If that's your definition of success? You're probably already successful. You don't have to live an elaborate or exorbitant lifestyle. Or expensive to be successful. In fact. More likely than not the simpler, your definition of successes. The more likely you. Will. The more likely you are to be. Uh, successful. Air quotes around the successful. And I'm not saying that you have to lower your standards. But if you take an inventory of your life and you realize that you already have everything you want. Everything you actually want, not what you've been conditioned to want, but if you. Take an inventory and you have everything you already you've always wanted and it makes you happy. Do you really need to take on more responsibilities or projects at work? Do you need to move to the bigger house or buy the newest car? Or do you. Really need to constantly be trading up for the latest and greatest. I mean. If you're only working harder, so you can earn more money to have what you already have. Right. I mean. You think that if you get to another point, you're going to be more successful, but if your definition of success. If you already have that, then. How is working harder or taking out more responsibilities or having a bigger house? How is that going to make you feel any. Better or different. And you have to ask yourself, is it even worth it to be putting all that time and energy? In when I already have exactly. What I have always been working for. And look, I don't, I don't know how you define success. Um, I don't know what your answer is to does it. Does it make sense to take on more responsibilities at work or move to the bigger house or buy the newest car? Constantly be trading up for this, you know, the best new thing, the latest and greatest, the shiny new objects. I don't know if that's going to make you feel differently. Oh, only you do. But again, it goes back to what do you want? And why do you want it? And how do you define success? why figure out. What you want and how you define success. Then my friends, you can create a life that not only makes you happy. But also makes you feel the filled and satisfied and. And joyful and grateful all of those things that you've been chasing for most of us, we chase our entire life. Right. Our success and fulfillment is not measured. By the dollars in our bank account. It's not measured by our annual salary or the title that we have at work. It's measured by the amount of life satisfaction in life fulfillment and the beautiful life that that we have created and, and being grateful for that experience and those opportunities. So once we know what it is we actually want and how we define success. Then we can take it one step further. I mean, The, the figuring out what you want and what success means to you. That is the foundation. And here's where it gets beautiful. Once you have that foundation. Then you can figure out what your dream looks like. What I mean by that is when you close your eyes. And you imagine your dream life. What does it look like? If you're a successful woman, I understand that you always have a target that you're working towards. It's it's like one of those big thermometers for a sales or a fundraising goal. You know, the one that I'm talking about, it's on parchment paper, with a black outline and then different. Um, dollar amounts in black ink written all the way up. And as those dollar amounts are achieved, then it's filled it usually in red, sometimes a different color, but you keep filling, you keep coloring in the thermometer until you reach your goal. We we have these visual goals and these targets. For everything. I mean, Even if we don't put it on a piece of poster board or parchment paper and actually draw out the thermometer. We know as successful women, we know what we're working towards. So. When we talk about when I talk. So when I talk about having a dream life, You have to know what that looks like to you. I remember a coach once asked me what I dreamt about as a child. And honestly, I couldn't answer her. And I know that this is going to sound absolutely ridiculous. But it turns out as a child. I didn't allow myself to dream because get this. It felt childish. I'm a kid. I, but it, it feels, it felt too childish at the time for me to dream. Aye. That's bananas, isn't it. But I felt like dreaming was, was almost like a waste of time that there were things to do. Um, and as even as an eight or a 10 year old of Hayne, I had things to do. I was smart and driven and I didn't want to waste my time on dreaming. You, some of you might remember. Um, In the school of rock. Jack Black says those who can't do teach those who can't teach, teach gym. And that is a riff off a George Bernard Shaw quote from his, uh, play the man and Superman. Of course, I didn't know any of this, but it was like at some point. I had already adopted this. Almost mantra that. Those who can't do dream. Because for some, those who can't produce. Dream, because for some reason, I have no idea why, but. I was under this impression that dreaming was for those who couldn't do, who couldn't produce. So. I mean, when I think about it now. It's. I just can't even wrap my head around it. I mean, I was a kid. So talk about somebody adopting a people pleasing box checking tendencies. Early, very early on. And I'm not saying it was healthy. I'm just sharing that. I wasn't somebody who dreamed of becoming, I don't know, a princess riding a unicorn. Or an actress with a star on the Hollywood walk of fame. I remember exactly. Where I was in Ms. Grace's class in fifth grade, when I said I'm going to become an attorney. So I did. And what, what that I guess freed me up to do is I didn't have to worry about dreaming anymore. I was just set on doing. So. I mean, I started that pattern very early on, you know? The state, the goal worked my ass off, smashed the goal. Thank you next shampoo, rinse, repeat on and on and on for decades. All because I believed that dreams were for people without structure that, that for somehow dreams or I don't know, ungrounded or. Pie in the sky reality for. People who couldn't otherwise. Produce or achieve. W what a bunch of crap, right? I mean it. I have no idea where I got that. I don't know why I adopted it. But when that coach asked me, what did you dream about? As a child. I couldn't answer her. And. I th I think that that's also why for most of my life. When I think about. Dreaming. And so there, I'm talking about visualization and manifestation. It hasn't come easily to me. I mean, Visualization and manifestation. They're like muscles, right? You. You have to work at it. You practice continues to build your skills. And that helps you to be better at it. But. Because I hadn't spent any time. Allowing myself, the luxury of figuring out what I wanted, how I define success, what my dream to look like. Then, if I did have a momentary, let's call it lapse for lack of a better term. But if I did find myself thinking about. What my future could look like. How would it be different? How could it be different if I did X, Y, or Z? Then there was always this. Propensity to self edit. Like the, the. Little person sitting on my right shoulder. Telling me. You know that little voice that's ridiculous or that doesn't make any sense or that's impossible. And it was like the person on the right side of me had to talk the other person into bringing me back to reality. Let's let's just buckle down. Let's get going. Let's do the thing we said we were going to do. Let's stop worrying about what things could be like. Let's let's just do what's in front of us. So. What I found once I finally took a step back. And allowed myself the time and this space. And. Without the criticism. That dreaming for me led to. Much more. Self-awareness and happiness and fulfillment And then I went from achieving a goal just for the sake of achieving the goal. And then. Wondering why I'd already spent the time on it, because it didn't make me feel any more successful after achieving it. So instead of doing that. Because I knew what the goal meant for me and how that would impact my life. I understood why I was working on it in the first place. And, and I was able to move out of that cycle of achieving the goal and then celebrating for just, gosh, it got to be like a hot minute and then feeling like I immediately had to move onto the next thing. Because, whatever void I was trying to fill with the over-scheduling and the overachieving and the packing, the schedule and the doing way, way too many things. Until I knew what I was actually working for until I knew what that dream life look like and why I was moving in that direction. Then that void that I was trying to fill with whatever achievement was next on the list. That void remained unfilled. Which meant. Even after achieving the goal. And celebrating for that hot minute. I still found myself unfulfilled. But also burned out. And stressed out. And like I wanted to press the reset button on my entire life. And it took me until well into my forties to figure out there has to be a different way to do life. Oh, call me a slow learner. I don't know, but it, you know, I, um, Squarely within midlife by the time. That I had to figure out. I have to do something different because what I have done up until this point. It doesn't seem to be serving me anymore. It's not really working out for me anymore. So instead of just. Making another to-do list for the sake of making another to-do list. I got busy figuring out what I wanted in life. How I defined a success. And what did my dream life look like? Part of that. It was. You know, three years ago, we sold the big house with the fancy address. Um, there are a couple of historical streets in Boise. And everybody knows where they are and we had a home on one of those streets. And when we decided to sell that house. Most people thought we were crazy because once you, once you get a house on that street, you, you don't actually move. And while I'll say that, we, we always used to joke that that, uh, We were in the poor part of warm Springs. Uh, because there are these. Like huge, large. Historical mansions that line, the street, and then you get to a certain point. And the houses are markedly smaller. Um, they're not quite as majestic. So we would always say that we'd lived on the poor part of the street, but we had a great house and we had an incredible yard and we. Remodeled every square inch of that house. So when we sold that house, On the fancy street. With, you know, the. Famous address. Most people thought we were crazy. But what that allowed us to do. Was we paid cash for our new house. We paid off mortgages on all of our other properties. We got to the point where we, we had zero debt. So. That far. The the. Mind set change went something like. Can I make the monthly payment to this, this freedom that I never expected to experience. Like in my whole life. Because I just always like. I, I just always thought that, of course you have a mortgage and of course you have car payments and of course, you know, you have credit card payments. And. I just got very comfortable with. With the credit cards, can I pay, can I pay them all off this month so that I didn't carry a balance, but with the cars and the houses, I just assumed that I'd be making monthly payments pretty much for the rest of my life. But, but I also knew that I wanted more freedom. In how I worked and where I worked. And I'll tell you what. There is a lot of freedom that comes with not having any mortgages and not having a single cent. Of debt. So when we sold that house, although everyone thought we were crazy. It came with that cell came this freedom and this ability to create the life I want to live. And it meant that I was finally living life. Which is successful by my own standards. And that's. It's a pretty great place to be. I'm not going to lie. It, it feels differently. When you are living the life that you have intentionally created for yourself. It feels. Much different than simply achieving another goal or buying another handbag. Or moving to a bigger house. Just because that's what society tells you, you should want. When you get very clear on. How you define success? And then you start living that way. It's. It's a level of fulfillment that most people. Didn't even think existed. Which is exactly why. I do what I do today. Which is help midlife women make midlife their best life. Because I'm a firm believer that midlife women don't need to work their whole lives. Making life comfortable for everyone else. I mean, there. There's going to come a time. When the kids have graduated and are out of the house or you've reached the pinnacle of your career. Or you you've checked everything off the list. And you're going to have to figure out then. What's next for you? That's when that right there is when you'll want to know. What do you want? And how, how do you find success? And what is your dream look like? I guess my question is. But why wait until say you get to the pinnacle of your career or the kids move out of the house or whatever it is that you're waiting. For to finally figure out. What's important to you. Why continue to wait when you can start living that life right now. Figuring out what you want, figuring out how you define success and figuring out what your dream life looks like. Those questions are the cornerstones of two programs that I've got coming very soon. One of them is the best life reset retreat in sun valley, Idaho, October 12th through the 15th. I've talked to that. Uh, talked about that a little bit. On this program. Um, before. But that's coming up. Another program is called. What? It's a new group coaching program to figure out what you want to be when you grow up. You know, w what do you want to do with the rest of your life? I mean. You've done everything you set out to do. Now what. You have everything you always thought you ever wanted. Now what. And there will be limited spots for founding members. It'll be launching in a couple of weeks. I will leave clickable links in the show notes for both the retreat and the new group coaching program, so that you can get a little bit more information about both. But what I will leave you with today. If, if nothing else. Spend a little bit of time. Figuring out the answer to those two foundational questions. One. What do you want? Too. How do you define success? And I'm telling you, friend, if you only answered those two questions and then you change. Your approach to how you're living your life so that you are living consistent to your answer. However you answer it. But you are living. Authentically. Congruently inline with your answer to those two questions. Then you will finally. Not only will you be happy? But you will feel joyful and fulfilled and satisfied, and your life will go from where you're living right now that happy but profoundly unfulfilled. To happy and successful. And joyful and grateful. And you will absolutely love the change. Thanks so much for being here i will see right back here next week when the school of midlife is back in session I have a question for you. When was the last time you spent a day focused completely on yourself. Away from the daily grind, the constant ding of text messages, the never ending question what's for dinner tonight. What about a weekend away. And before you start thinking that sounds a little too indulgent. Let me remind you that you can't take care of everyone else in your life. If you don't take care of yourself first. I am thrilled to personally invite you to join me at the best life reset retreat, October 12th, through the 15th. Four days and world famous sun valley, Idaho. With more than 10 hours of group coaching to figure out what you actually want in life. How you define success. And lay a groundwork for you to create a life that not only makes you happy, but also makes you feel personally fulfilled. There will be incredible group activities like happy hour paint and sips walks, hikes, a private yoga class. Your choice of spa appointments at an award-winning spa. Luxury accommodations, gourmet meals, premium drinks. And the best gift bag you have ever seen. I'm telling you this will be one of the best weekends of your life. To keep the retreat intimate. There are only 12 spots available and when they're gone, they're gone. So go right now, click the link in the show notes to grab your spot. See you in sun valley.