Clock's Ticking: Time to Stop Waiting to Live Your Best Life

Have you ever noticed that your priorities immediately shift when you experience a life-altering event? Or receive life-changing news about yourself, a friend or loved one?

In this week's episode, Laurie explains why you can't afford to wait until the time is right, or perfect or someday to start living your best life. So many of us are waiting to make ourselves a priority in our own lives.

But as Laurie discusses, it's time to stop waiting and start living. We don't have to delay living our best lives until after we receive news or experience something that rocks us to the core. We can start now.

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Transcript

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In this week's episode, I'm grabbing you by the shoulders, shaking you Metaphorically of course and begging you to stop waiting to live the life you want to live. it's time to stop waiting and it's time to get busy living. Welcome to the School of Midlife podcast. I'm your host, Laurie Reynoldson. This is the podcast for the midlife woman who starting to ask herself big life questions. Like, what do I want? Is it too late for me? And what's my legacy beyond my family and my work. Each week we're answering these questions and more. At the School of Midlife, we're learning all of the life lessons they didn't teach us in school and we're figuring out finally what it is we want to be when we grow up. Let's make midlife your best life Hey friends. Welcome back to the school of midlife podcast. I am your host, Laurie Reynoldson and I am thrilled to have you here today. I have been thinking about this topic for a while now. It's one that has just been rattling around, like something that I, I feel like we need to talk about. But other things have come up and this, this topic has kind of gotten pushed aside, which is ironic because I'm talking about the need to stop waiting to live your life. But then it also seemed like there were more pressing issues that we needed to talk about on the podcast. And again, so ironic because as high performing midlife women, Yeah, we think that we want to finally start putting ourselves first in our own life. We finally want to start making decisions that align with the life that we want to live. And then something comes up. Doesn't it. Whether that is. A sick parent or. One of our kids needs us at school or something comes up at work. There is always something that comes up. And what happens is we continue to wait. We think that we have all of the time in the world to do what it is we want to do. And we figure, you know what, I'm going to work until whatever age it is. You, you say that. You're going to work until whether that's 55 or 60 or 65, whatever you choose. Maybe you decide that you're going to work until you have a certain amount of money in your retirement account. We really romanticize retirement in the U S Don't we. In my opinion. Retirement is kind of like the biggest snow job ever. It's it's really, it feels like a raw deal because in the us, the expectation is we're going to work until we're 65. And then we will retire and all of the things that we wanted to go and do and see, and learn and become all of that is going to happen after retirement. If we work really hard and we save up our money. Then we get to retirement and we get to. Ty this great bow on this idea of retirement, this romanticized idea of retirement. But here's the thing. None of us are promised a long and healthy retirement. In fact, The average lifespan in the us for women. Is about 80 years old and it's trending downward. So let's just play this out. It's even less for men. So if you're, if you're a guy listening to this, sorry, but you've got even less time. But you work till 65, say you you have 15 good years. If your average. If you're lucky. And, you know sure. Some get more. Some get less, but for the ones that get more, I think we also want to talk about quality over quantity, right? I mean, If you can live to 90 or a hundred, that's really not a big prize. If we're not mobile or mentally competent or healthy, it doesn't matter. So, what we're doing then is we are working almost our entire lives to have enough money. To have enough time. To go and do the things we want to do in life. Which seems like a bummer. 15 years, if we're lucky. And let's be honest too. Not every one of those 15 years is equal. Your ability to move, even if you were super healthy. That is going to decline as you get older. I mean, just think about midlife. How many times have you woken up in the morning and been like, how did I hurt my back? Well, I was sleeping. How, how is it? My hip hurts this morning when I get up. And that's just from sleeping. That's not from say you want to go, I don't know, climb Mount Kilimanjaro. You're probably not going to do it at 79 or 80. I mean, maybe you will, but the average person. Is going to continue to slow down and not be as physically able, the older that they get. So if we spend our. Best years. Working and giving our time away to someone else. The trade-off is yes, we get paid. Yes, we can put more money in our retirement account, but to what end. That's the whole idea of when is enough enough? Do you have a number? Do you know, have you sat down with your financial advisor to figure out how much money you're actually going to need in retirement? Health issues aside. I think most financial planners will tell you. You actually probably need less money than you think. And yet we just continue working because we want to max out our social security benefits, or we don't want a penalty from withdrawing, from our retirement accounts too early, or we think, you know, what if I just work another couple years and. And I get that next promotion. Then my retirement benefits are going to be so much more. I'll get more on a monthly basis or, you know, my social security checks will be higher. But does that really matter if you have already saved enough, your accounts are big enough that they will. Support you for the rest of your life. How long are you going to continue working? The biggest issue here though, is. We think we have so much time. We think that. We will work until we're ready to retire. And then we are one of the ones that are going to have this long, healthy retirement. And that might be. But what's so interesting is your life can change on a dime. You could go to the doctor one day. Walk out with. Uh, diagnosis that changes everything for you. You could. Lose. A friend or a spouse or a parent overnight. Those kind of dramatic. Turns in your life. They almost always. Are coupled with change that happens. Very fast. Like a sudden shuffle of your priorities. All of a sudden, you might find yourself saying no more freely. Maybe you want to spend more time with your family and friends and you do it work. It's like that. Tim McGraw song live like you were dying. Which is, if you got that sort of. Diagnosis or something that changed your life dramatically in an instant. You're probably going to change the way that you're living your life. When either you get that diagnosis or you have experienced a death in the family. Or. Maybe you've dodged a diagnosis. And. What I want to talk about here is how can you live that way with that urgency? With that. Healthy prioritization of what really matters in your life. How can you do that? Without the cancer diagnosis. Without the terminal illness without waiting until your life is. Shake it. Without a late life divorce that you didn't see coming. How can we be more mindful of creating the life that we want to live? Without having to. Have that. Car accident or divorce or death in the family or diagnosis. Why is it that we, as high performing women. Why are we so comfortable? On autopilot living the same day every day, assuming that at some point we will. I focus on ourselves That'll be the cherry on top. That'll be the bow at the, on the present someday. We will get there, but not yet because other people need us. We have other responsibilities. We are so good at overloading our calendar. And our daily to do's and just our daily life. With priorities. That are important to other people. And we keep thinking. Someday. When the time is right when the time is perfect after the kids leave. Once I get my parents settled. We have this. Constant. Delaying. That we have become accustomed to. I want to take you by the shoulders and shake you and just say, stop waiting. Let's create the change in the life that you want to be living. And let's do the hat before. Something catastrophic happens that all of the sudden you realize. I only get one shot at this life. I would have done this differently. Why did I work so long? Why did I stay in that relationship so long when it wasn't serving me? Why did I stay at that job for so long sure it paid the bills, but man, from. A stress perspective, a burnout perspective I don't know if it was worth it. I have had a number of people. Over the years asked me. How, how is it that you stay so motivated? Because motivation is an emotion. Sometimes you're motivated. Sometimes you're not, which means it comes and it goes. Like you can't go to target. Go to the motivation aisle. Fill up on it. I put it in the cart checkout. And then all of a sudden you have more motivation. You can't do that. It's something that comes from within you. Most of the time, it is impacted by the circumstances around you, but it comes and it goes. The one thing that has kept me. More motivated than not. Is, I know that I'm dying. You're dying. We're all dying. Literally from the moment we are born. And I don't mean that in a macabre sense. I mean it. It's factual. None of us are getting out of here alive. There will always come a time. Where we don't have any more time. But for most high performing women. We seem to assume that that's going to happen much, much, much later. So there are a couple of things that have worked for me to help me stay motivated stay focused on the life. I want to live moving forward. Same exercise I do with my coaching clients. I have all of them create a top 100. And those are the life experiences. They want to have as someone who is living their best life. So when they think of their best life, What are the things they want to see and go and do and learn and experience. That will help create this best life that they are looking at. This is different than a bucket list. You might be familiar with a bucket list. And the bucket list is I've only got so much time left. These are the things I have to do. Cause I don't want to have regrets about them. It's different than that because of the intent, the intent isn't. I have a limited amount of time. What can I get done before? I'm done. Whereas the top 100. Is a collection of experiences that create the best life that you want to live. Once we. Create the top 100. We still have to prioritize. Just making the list. That's a great first step. But as anyone who knows that, making the to-do list. Making the plan making the schedule. That's only part of the process, right? The next piece is the action. So just because you sit down one day and figure out, okay, here are my top 100 that I. Want to. Do live experience, go B C all the things. Just because I created that doesn't mean that I actually. Like all of a sudden I'm living my best life. I have to be intentional about bringing that top 100. To life to make it a part of my life to make it my reality. And part of doing that. Is. Prioritizing. Bucketizing. Creating a timeline plan. For when. You're going to. Have those experiences. When are you actually going to go do the damn thing? I have a question for you. When was the last time you spend a day focused completely on yourself, away from the daily grind, the constant emails and text messages. The never ending question of what's for dinner tonight. Well, if a day sounds good to you. What about an entire 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'm thrilled to personally invite you to join me at the next best life retreat in world famous sun valley, Idaho, with an entire weekend of group coaching to figure out what you actually want in life. How you define success. And to help you lay the groundwork to create a life that not only makes you happy, but also leaves you personally fulfilled. There'll be incredible group activities like happy hour paint and sips, morning walks, a sunrise hike. Your choice of spa appointments and an award-winning spa. All wrapped up in 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 very best weekends of your entire life. To keep the retreat intimate, there are only eight spots available and when they're gone, they're gone. So go right now, click the link in the show notes and grab your space before they're gone. I can't wait to see you in Sun Valley. One of the things on your top 100 could be, you want to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. Do you understand that that probably needs to happen sooner than say if another thing on your to-do list is. Take an Alaskan cruise. You need to go climb the mountain. While you are still able-bodied while you can move while you are okay. Sleeping in a tent at base camp for a couple of nights. You need to do that earlier than taking Alaskan cruise. Because. All you got to do is get on the boat. If you're going to the Alaska cruise. You could literally be wheeled on a boot in a wheelchair. You, you don't have to sleep on the ground. You don't have to do a bunch of hiking. You could literally just get on the boat. And look out the window and you can experience from the boat from a seat on the boat. Everything that. You want to experience? Now. That doesn't mean that you might want to have some side excursions you might want to get off of the boat for the day. You might want to go hike around, but you can see how you have to be more physically able bodied to go climb a mountain than you do to take a cruise. Right. So when we're looking at our top 100 and we're prioritizing them and we are putting them in timelines. Climbing. Mount Kilimanjaro has to come before. A cruise to Alaska. Maybe other things that are on your list. You want to run a marathon? You want a winter and Arizona? Probably need to run the marathon earlier in your timeline, then wintering in Arizona. Sure. You could winter in Arizona now. You could run your marathon now. But can you run a marathon when you're 75 or 80? People do it. You don't know because your health is not promised to you. You don't know if you're going to be able to run a marathon at 75 or 80. So if that is something that best life you wants to do. You need to get. Motivated. There's that word again? To do it sooner than later, it just makes common sense. More thinking about. Creating our top 100. When we're thinking about not waiting to live our best life. A couple of things that you can. Ask yourself. Journal about, think about. What are your priorities? What's important to you. What do you want to do in your life? What's next for you? You've you've lived this wonderful life up until now. You've been wildly successful. What's next for you? What's your legacy? What do you hope to leave behind? What do you want? Two survive, you. And hopefully it is something more than she worked at the same job for 30 years. Hopefully it's something more than she had a couple of kids. Very laudable goals. Absolutely those are things to be celebrated. But I think most of us. Also want to be known for something more. We want to leave behind something more than the fact that we were a mother. And the fact that we were good at our job. Maybe ask yourself if money were no object, how would you spend your time? And coupled with that, think about this. Are there ways that you can retire early? One of the things that we did is Mike and I. Four years ago. Right after we finished remodeling our entire house. I mean, We'd lived in that house for 17 years. I think. 18. Several years, 17, 18 years. We remodeled every square inch of it. And I'll be damned if we didn't sell it. Like right after we finished the last project around the house. It was the master bedroom, bathroom remodel, which I don't know why it is, but it seems like whenever we're doing remodels, it's always our personal space. That is the last one on the list. Right? You do the kitchen first and then you do the living room. Maybe you do the. The rec room. Or the basement where everybody hangs out. And then. Then you do the kids' rooms. Probably re landscape the yard. Maybe put in a pool. The last thing you do is the master bedroom and bathroom. And it was spectacular. I loved it. And then after COVID we sold it. So why would we do that? If we've spent 17, 18 years getting it exactly how we wanted it. Because we also knew that our best life. The life that we wanted to live. Made better sense for us to sell a house. And right size. So some people talk about downsizing and yes, we downsized technically, but we also right-sized. We. Moved into a brand new home. That is the perfect size for us. We use pretty much every square inch of it every day. It's fantastic. And here's the best part. We have no mortgage. We have way less yard work because someone else does it. It's part of the HOA where we live. We have. Virtually no yard work a little bit in a courtyard, but almost none. Whereas before our old house. We had an acre of land, completely landscaped, lots of lawn mowing. I mean, it was. Every weekend from probably. Middle to late April through the middle to end of October. There was a chunk of the weekend spent. Mowing the lawn doing the yard work. It was a lot. And. Because we right-sized. We have much less housework to do. Which means. We can travel more. Which means we don't have to come back from being away for the weekend. We don't have to come back early on Sunday so that we can do the yard work or so that we can clean the house. It is fantastic. We literally lock the house and leave. And we don't have to worry about yard work. We don't have to worry about coming back and. Doing a bunch of housework when we get back. It is the most beautiful thing. And the fact that we don't have a mortgage well, that is just more freedom in itself. But our motivation for doing that. Was, we got very intentional on the life that we wanted to live. We knew that. Best life, Laurie, best life, Mike. They're travelers. They like to go and do and see the things. And so we made decisions. That aligned with who it was that we wanted to be That was one of the biggest motivating factors for us. To move and it has been hands down the best decision we have made. In a long time. We could have remodeled the house. Finished it lived in it until it was time to retire. But we didn't because we didn't want to delay. Living the lives that we wanted to live until after retirement. I will say, I think both of us. We'll retire early. We are not working until we are 65. Which leads me to my next point. There are so many ways to make money. If you are able to transition to. Part-time or a consulting position or work remote. If you are able to retire early or change. The way in which you're working. So again, remote work. Go part-time become a consultant, an independent contractor. Something. Different. Then. Continuing to work in a position where you have to be in the office 40 to 60 hours a week. I did it for 20 years. When I walked away from the law, that was definitely one of the things I knew I didn't want to keep doing. I did not want to. Work so much during the week and take work home that I would fall asleep. With my laptop. And my. Documents open. But like, I, I took my work to bed with me. And I'd fall asleep. Because I was so tired. I'd work all weekend. Where's the fun in that. I mean, so. The. Somebody grabbing me by the shoulders and shaking me moment. It wasn't when. I landed myself in the emergency room twice in one day as an attorney. Because I was anxious. And I was having a panic attack twice in one day. Wasn't that? I wasn't smart enough to see the signs there. But it was when my dad died. At 66. Five months after he retired because he'd worked his entire life. To maximize the social security benefits to sock away as much money as he could in his retirement. And those social security benefits. He was so worried about, he received five of them. So everything he wanted to do in retirement. He didn't get a chance to do it.'cause like I said, at the beginning of the episode, none of us. Our guaranteed a long happy retirement. Which means we have to get busy living the life that we want to live. Right. Fucking now we can't keep waiting. We can't keep assuming that we're going to have all the time in the world. That. Yes, we'll work. We'll save our money. We can. Go and do all the things we want to do in retirement. And you might be able to do the, all those things. That is my greatest hope for you. But you can't count on it. Which means. Back to that motivation piece. We need to spend, stop spending time scrolling, social media. We need to not get all caught up in the political headlines of the day. We need to be a little selfish when it comes to. Doing things that we want to do. Even if they don't make sense to other people, even if we feel like. We're being self-indulgent that that's just shitty conditioning from a society that we grew up in that assumes that women will always sacrifice themselves for somebody else. That's crap. It's midlife. I mean the, they call it mid-life. For a reason. Which is, you know, we're kind of in the middle of it. Most of us. Probably on the backside of it. At least halfway through we'll call. I don't know about you. But I know what my best life looks like. I know what I want. I know how I define success. I know what's on my top 100. And I'm being very intentional about going and doing and seeing and experiencing all the things on that list, because I know that that. If I tie it up. In a bow, everything on that list. Contributes to me. Becoming. Best life Laurie. To me living my best life. And the question, I guess is what about you? Do you know what your bus life looks like? If you had to. And had to probably isn't the right word. If you sat down with a pen and paper, would you be able to come up with 100 things that you want to do? That you want to go and do that. You want to see. That you want to experience that you want to learn? Could you come up with a hundred? And then what do you do after you have the list? Do you just tuck it away in a journal? Tack it to your bulletin board. Slip it in a. Planner. What do you do with it? Once you've made the list? That's up to you. Of course. Honestly, I don't care. What's on your list. Only you should care about what's on your list. Let me, no, one's going to see it. No, one's going to judge you for what's on it. But. What I care about. Is that you take the time to make the list? And then you get very intentional about. Creating. Those experiences for yourself. That you start living into your top 100 list. And if you're someone who needs a little kick in the ass, You know, you, you do better with the community of like-minded women. I, I actually have a little something for you. The next. Cohort of the gap year is going to. Launch. Later the season, probably October, maybe November. And we'd love to have you join us. Women that are in it already right now. And the founding member cohort, they say things like. I love it because it's challenging me to think about things in a new way. I love it because I'm learning so much about myself. I now know what it is I want to be when I grow up. So, if you're looking for that kind of clarity, that kind of motivation. I'll drop a clickable link in the show notes. And you can add your name to the priority list. And you'll be the first to know when I have news about the gap year to share. Before we go though. I just want to. Implore. You. Stop waiting. Don't wait for the diagnosis. Don't wait until you have lost someone close to you. It's time to get busy living the life that you want to live. It's time to understand what that looks like. And it's time to intentionally breathe life into. Your very best life. But we have to stop waiting. We have to stop thinking that at some point there will be a sign. There will be, the time will be perfect. The time will be right. Everything will fall into line. Cause it won't happen. And if you're waiting for a sign. I just know from personal experience that the signs. Usually aren't of the. They're not signs that we want. They're signs that. We need. They're signs that. We need to do something a little different. So this is me grabbing you by the shoulders, giving you a little shake and telling you to stop waiting, start living your best life. And let's start that as soon as possible. Thank you so much for listening to the school of mid-life podcasts. It means so much to have you here each week. If you enjoyed this episode, could you do me the biggest favor and help us spread the word to other midlife women? There are a couple of easy ways for you to do that first. And most importantly, if you're not already following the show, would you please subscribe? That helps you because you'll never miss an episode. And it helps us because you'll never miss an episode. Second, if you'd be so kind to leave us a five-star rating, that would be absolutely incredible. And finally, I personally read each and every one of your reviews. So if you take a minute and say some nice things about the podcast, well, that's just good karma. Thanks again for listening. I'll see you right back here. Next week when the school of midlife is back in session until then take good care.