This week’s guest blog post is by Kate Williams, Small & Local Business Champion who owns Social Biz Local Biz: Social media and internet marketing solutions for local businesses. www.SocialBizLocalBiz.com

I experienced the first half of my life as a journey out of the cold and darkness of an unguided childhood into my adult roles of worker, mother, friend and wife. Those roles gave me the gift of choices to make and a growing practical wisdom informed by the consequences of those choices.

Fortunately, I found some wise friends and teachers along the way, and supported my journey across many bridges over chasms of despair and depression with the gift of time to learn and competency, intelligence and curiosity.

Now, in the second half of my life, there are some new challenges (and some worn, familiar challenges) to be met in new ways. What I have discovered just recently is that time no longer feels like a gift that offers learning and growth and a journey with new views ahead and around every bend. The hourglass has been turned and now time feels more like it is offering a different and unfamiliar gift.

The knowledge and skills acquired in the first half of my life are not adequate to face and live the challenges of the second half.

In her book, The Second Half of Life: Opening the Eight Gates of Wisdom, Angeles Arrien conceptualizes the second half of life as “the ultimate initiation” with “four broad frontiers to face“:

• Retirement: from what, toward what?
• The possibility of becoming a mentor, a steward, or a grandparent.
• Coping with the natural challenges of maintaining the health of an aging body.
• Mortality: losing our loved ones, and the inevitability of our own death.

I’ve only barely begun a deep investigation of the four frontiers and eight gates of initiation Arrien describes, but even the beginning is full of opportunities to deepen the experience of life in these “second half” years of my life.

Knocking at the Gate of a New Beginning

“Perseverance is a great element of success.

If you only knock long enough and loud enough at the gate,

you are sure to wake up something or somebody.”

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I have come to this gate repeatedly in the past ten years, the years of my journey in my fifth decade, and find myself knocking boldly and then turning away. I find that I am frightened, not accepting. I am afraid of loneliness, loss, depression, and decline. I am not yet able to accept the aging of my body and mind. It is dismaying to me to face a future without the anticipation of the excitement I used to feel when the unknown seemed to promise new, fresh experience just around the corner.

The task for me now is to lean into this gate “connected to sources of hope and inspiration” and step across the threshold past the symptoms of my disconnection from what is meaningful and vital. I know that there are significant endings of things once so important to me:

• My professional career, always an island of competency and meaningful work as well as income (which seems to be ending no matter how mightily I grip it and dig my heels in to stay attached while it gallops away);
• A long term relationship turning from a gift of safety and security to an outgrown and constricting place of judgment;
• And, my role as mother, grandmother and friend where physical distance denies me my usual ways to stay connected and contributing.

The Fire of Mid-Life Transformation

I am only at the beginning of knocking at the gate of a new beginning and adventure. In Arrien’s Second Half of Life, she presents Clarissa Pinkola Estes’ graphic description of the fire of transformation:

“Deep in the wintry parts of our minds, we are hardy stock and know there is no such thing as work-free transformation. We know that we will have to burn to the ground in one way or another, and then sit right in the ashes of who we once thought we were and go on from there.”

Arriens describes the Gate as the challenge we encounter, opening the Gate as working with the barrier or challenge at the threshold and crossing the threshold as the process of Transformation, the fire. The first piece of work for me at the Gate seems to be a question for reflection.

The question that seems to call to me to be reflected upon at this stage is a question of “return”: What do I want to return to that I have found meaningful and effective in my work? How can I apply that effectiveness to the issues I face now (physical limitations, underemployment, loss of relationships)? What actions can be taken towards effective “return”?

What helps you to re-connect to your regenerative forces, sources of inspiration, hope and creativity? How do you stay connected? Please share that wisdom with me while I persevere in knocking at the Silver Gate.

• A Simple Question to Change Your Life – If You Embrace the Answer
• A Search for Significance
• Explorations on the Journey of Midlife

This week’s guest blog post is by Linda Mickle, Nurse Practitioner and trusted adviser who helps exhausted, stressed, burned out entrepreneurs shift from Symptoms to Solutions to Success. www.TheHealthyBusinessWoman.com.

Having turned 56 recently, broaching the topic of midlife seemed natural to me.  Typically around my birthday I look back at where the journey of my life has taken me, what I have accomplished and learned, and where I want the coming years to take me.  So here’s my retrospective.

The Early Forties

I started thinking back on what I was doing in my mid-forties. In some ways it seems like just yesterday. I had ended a long term relationship and was taking stock of what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.

I decided to return to graduate school to obtain a Master’s Degree in Nursing as a Nurse Practitioner. I had been working full time in a hospital as a RN since I was twenty and could clearly see that I wanted more autonomy with my career over the long term.  It seemed like a natural progression.

So off to school I went, and within a short three years I was a NP.  Then came the learning curve of taking on all the responsibility that a NP takes on, and boy was that an awakening.  I wanted autonomy and I surely got it.  Baptism by fire they call it.

The Mid Forties

Soon after I started working as a Nurse Practitioner I started to have health challenges – not uncommon for women at this age.  I’d been dealing with a genetic kidney disease since my mid-twenties and then I really started having health setbacks and soon found myself on dialysis.  I was working a full time job and did the type of dialysis you do at home.  And I commuted two hours a day to work.  And I tried to have a social life and some semblance of normalcy.  And I did that for five years – yes, five years. One foot in front of the other.  Onward ho!  P.S. I don’t recommend pushing yourself as hard as I pushed myself during this time.

The Late Forties

Then I received the blessing of a kidney transplant.  I thought that would be the be-all-and-end-all of my problems, yet it brought on its own set of challenges and I was unable to return to work due to complications after the surgery.

Wow!  That knocked me on my proverbial butt!  Girl, did I struggle with “who am I if I am not the nurse practitioner that takes care of patients and shows up for work every day ready to solve problems for others?”  It was now time for me to show up for ME and solve my OWN problems and figure out who I was. This time was a true journey of the Dark Night of the Soul for me.  It was a true Sacred Pause.

I went on a journey to find myself.  Now mind you, while I was in the midst of the process, I thought this was the worst possible thing that could have happened to me.  Then, slowly but surely, I began to find my way, a new way to my new self.  Not the nurse, not the sick person, but the full me.  Therein was the gift.

The Early Fifties

I joined a Women’s Group, did 1:1 therapy.  I learned about the Enneagram and my personality type.  I learned Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction.  I became a HeartMath Instructor.  I did massage, Reiki, craniosacral, acupuncture, and Chi Gong. I went to sweat lodges and worked with a Shaman.  I went to church. I traveled and explored nature.  I played with my dogs. I became a volunteer for Hospice. I went back to school and became a Certified Life Coach.

The Mid Fifties

It hasn’t been until now that I find myself able to synthesize all of my experiences to come to a place of wisdom, a place of experience and knowing. Somehow things seemed to come together to a place of peace and serenity, and most importantly, a true knowing of my purpose on this planet and how I plan to move forward to bring that to fruition.

Lessons Learned

I share this story with you in hopes that you will see there was no linear path, no straight line that I followed to get from where I was to where I am today.  The best advice I can give you about midlife is to be open to what shows up, listen to your heart, be curious, try new things, ask yourself questions, check out your responses, follow your intuition and trust yourself.

These are the qualities I called upon in the midst of meandering along my path, and I am quite pleased with where I have landed. I love my life and am grateful for all of my experiences, the good, the bad, and the challenging. They all make me who I am today. I wonder what’s next?…

• Midlife in Your Face: Me Versus Reality and the Stunning Shocker of Who Won the Fight
• Dare I Talk About the “Midlife FAT Cell”?
• Midlife – A “Do Over” for Career Women

This week’s guest blog post is by Sandy Martini, Small Business Mentor and Strategic Marketing Expert. Sandy brings her years of hands-on business and marketing experience to help passionate, yet struggling, small business owners realize their dreams of creating a business which supports their desired lifestyle. More time. More profits. More life. www.sandramartini.com.

It’s amazing. . .when we’re little kids, lots of people ask what/who we want to be when we grow up.

And then the question stops.

Whether we’ve gone to college and picked something, or got a job straight out of high school, many stop asking “What/who do I want to be when I grow up?”

And often, when approaching (or having reached) middle age, we think it’s too late to change.  Too late to embrace the dreams we had as a little girl. Too late even for the dreams we formed more recently when we decided we didn’t want to be a lawyer, executive, whatever.

What if we embraced each day with the question “Who am I?” not defined by our job or business, but rather by our values, our integrity, our innermost desires and dreams?

• Who would you be today?
• How would things change?

Let’s take it a step further.  The average person spends most of her waking hours at work/business or preparing for it/commuting.   Does your job/business support who you truly are?  If not, what needs to change to embrace your inner most self?

What’s your first step?

Are you smiling yet?  Smiling with the thought of allowing yourself to be who you truly are?

• When Did I Become the Oldest Woman in the Room?
• Alchemist, Gardener or Vagabond Traveler – What Do I Want to Be When I Grow Up (Again)?
• A Search for Significance

This week’s guest post is by Entrepreneur Mentor, Marie-Jeanne Juilland. You can find her on Twitter: @mjjuilland and LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/mariejeannejuilland.

As a mentor for corporate escapees who’ve now opted to pursue the entrepreneurial life, I don’t usually advise on menopause. But I do talk a lot about self-care with my clients. And as I’m finding out myself at age 51 – and as I head toward menopause – self care is all the more critical at this time in our life.

So let me ask you: Anyone besides me finding they’ve suddenly put on 10, maybe 15lbs without any changes in their diet or exercise? And that weight is not budging even if you double your exercise and cut back on your food.  What on earth is going on?

Enter the Midlife FAT Cell.

What I’ve now learned is that the role of our fat cells is absolutely key to our self care at midlife. Why? Simple biology: our ovaries are no longer producing estrogen like they used to – and estrogen is not just for fertility, it’s key for womens’ brains, bones, skin, heart and many other organs. So when our ovaries slow down – who comes to the rescue? You guessed it, FAT cells. These lovelies are also designed to produce estrogen, but to do so there need to be more of them. And so, we find ourselves now with an extra 10 lbs – or more – that won’t budge like it used to when we diet or step up our exercise.

Here’s where the confusion continues: We’ve grown up in a time when societal norms dictated that being slim was “in”, dieting was a requirement. I should know. In fact, at different times in my youth I was an extreme althete/dancer, you might say nearly anorexic.

Dieting, however, is in fact the worst thing we can do at this time in our lives. When we diet, we stress our fat cells and they fight back even harder trying to do their job of taking care of us.

Instead of fighting those FAT cells; embrace them. “Stop dieting and start exercising.” That’s the mantra of Debra Waterhouse, author of Outsmarting the Female Fat Cell, one of the best books I’ve read of late. And ever since I followed her advice, my perimenopausal symptoms have backed way off. I’m learning to love that extra 10 lbs!

My new mindset, and one I’d recommend for many of us amazing women at this point in our lives: Love your FAT cells!

They look out for your mental and physical well being. They are your body’s natural way of self care.

Yes, ladies, we are in a period of menopausal zest!, as Margaret Mead, I believe called it. Some of my new role models: Whoopi Goldberg, Sophia Loren, Meryl Streep – and any naturally healthy midlife woman in my neighborhood or workplace.  As Debra Waterhouse says: “These are women who exercise, don’t diet and eat instinctively. They move freely and feel comfortable in their maturing bodies.”

That’s the “club” I want to join!  See you there too?

• Midlife – A “Do Over” for Career Women
• Midlife in Your Face: Me Versus Reality and the Stunning Shocker of Who Won the Fight
• Alchemist, Gardener or Vagabond Traveler – What Do I Want to Be When I Grow Up (Again)?

This week’s guest post is by Nancy Marmolejo, who teaches entrepreneurs how to position their businesses in the spotlight so they get more clients, opportunities, and hold a higher perceived value. Trainers, consultants, coaches, speakers, authors and others have upped their worth and made more money by following Nancy’s creative yet strategic advice on getting known. Get her free download “21 Online Visibility Tips” by visiting http://VivaVisibilityBlog.com

When I turned 40, I basked in the “40’s is the new 20′s” glow. I felt great, looked great, couldn’t ask for anything more. Then as my forties set in, life set in and for the first time ever, I noticed that time started to go by faster, healing seemed to take longer, and my patience dwindled at breakneck speed.

After decades of pushing myself and treating my energy supply like a credit card with an endless limit (when in reality it had a cap that I’d met and exceeded), I finally hit the wall. Physically, my body broke down and gave me not-so-subtle hints that major lifestyle changes needed to take place. Emotionally, I found myself exhausted and frustrated. I spent a good couple of years in denial; after all I’m a non-drinker, an avid vitamin consumer, and known as a health nut. I figured I just needed a few more supplements, maybe see another alternative practitioner to boost my energy loss, and I’d be fine.

What made the situation more “interesting” (I’m being very euphemistic here, just play along with me, OK?) is that I became a first-time mother a month before my 38^th birthday and my husband’s diabetes spiraled out of control just a few years later. While juggling running my business and taking her to and from her many activities, his frequent hospitalizations and surgeries got added into the mix.

The cocktail of my burnout along with caring for a child and having a chronically ill spouse in the house made mid-life the most unwelcome visitor in my life. There were no relatives close by, no village to lean on. It was me (with limited energy), a child, and an adult who at times felt like a 6 foot 2 inch tall child.

I longed for the days of fewer responsibilities. When I could go out at night, sleep all day, do what I wanted when I wanted. But that wasn’t my life, and I finally saw the wisdom of Byron Katie’s advice to “stop fighting reality.”

When the pain outweighed the fear, I finally made the decision to take off the boxing gloves and step out of the ring. Reality, you win. I concede to you and accept my humanness.

For years people had been telling me to slow down. I said “Yes, as soon as I finish X”.

I was advised to leave my marriage, as it had turned into a caretaking relationship and not a loving relationship built on mutual love and respect.  It was killing me. “Yes, as soon as he gets better”, I said.

I was told to weed out energy sucking people from my life and business, to set firmer boundaries, and to NOT accept the unacceptable. “I will, but this person paid me so I need to be there.”

And with each bad choice, my life force drained more and more. Midlife had turned into a prison cell where I happily rearranged the furniture instead of busting out.

The road to accepting reality isn’t an expressway. For people like me, it’s a slow moving country lane. Refusing to accept anything that didn’t operate at lightning speed is tough for Type-A, Alpha Female, Enneagram 3’s.  But that’s exactly what needed to happen and if I can jump straight to the happy ending, I will share that my life is 180 degrees different than it was just a short while ago.

First of all, I streamlined my life. That meant saying no to things that would or could drain me. I applied that to my business and chose not to host live seminars during the year, even though I’d hosted two the previous year to great success. My body just couldn’t sustain it.

Next I had to reach out and seek help with my child. Her dad was ill and couldn’t be the father figure I wanted him to be. I got her involved in activities where strong male role models played a huge part. We surrounded ourselves with loving, understanding, and nurturing people.

And finally, I left my husband. That was a tough one, especially because of his health conditions. It was when the 100^th person pointed out how I was the on the verge of collapse that I saw clearly what was going on. He’s not a bad person; I just put caring for his needs so far ahead of caring for my own that I was spiraling downward. Our relationship ended years before and was now more caretaking than caring. The reality hit me when I thought of my daughter. How will her life be with two sick and deteriorating parents?

Since activating these changes in my life, everything has changed with it. My business is successful and profitable and I’m not stressing over pleasing the world. What I consider “okay” or “good enough” is actually exceptional compared to others and I can give myself a break.

My daughter is witnessing me take positive strides, even though it has had difficulties around it. Through that she’s learning about boundaries and self care which I hope she carries with her into her adult life.

And my husband has reached out to people other than me to help him. He’s reconnected with his grown children and looked for support from his church. I know deep within that this is the nudge his life needed to fully embrace his power.

I look at my upcoming birthday and realize I’m now closer to 50 than I am to 40. With the excitement of a 20 year old about to turn 21 and enter a whole new world, I look forward to the mid-century mark. Releasing the drains from my life has given me renewed energy to fulfill the path God put me on. It took me many years to unhook my claws from the reality I so clung to, but once I gave up the fight, it all fell into place.

Only through life experience and trudging through decades of struggle could I have come to such a strong place in my life. Call me a slow learner, but I finally got here and I’m loving the view.

• Midlife Fiesta
• When Did I Become the Oldest Woman in the Room?
• Midlife – A “Do Over” for Career Women

This week’s guest post is by Therese Skelly. Therese works with service professionals who love what they do, but haven’t gotten their work out in the world in the biggest way possible.  She blends her background of being a psychotherapist, strategist, and business consultant to work on both the inner game challenges and the outer game tactics, and is passionate about helping people create businesses they will love. She is a contributing author in the Amazon Best-selling book – Millionaire Mom’s in the Making.  Learn more at www.HappyInBusiness.com.

Ok, that was weird.  I recently spoke at an event with 8 other speakers, and at one point we were all on stage sharing our secrets to growing a business.  So I had a point of direct comparison.

And I noticed that all the other brilliant women were in their 30’s and 40’s.

But mostly I noticed that I spoke from a very different place than they did.

Sure….I talked about the steps I took to get my business built and my name out there, but what was profoundly different was the depth I brought.

Not that the 30 – 40 something’s didn’t have depth.  I’m not saying that at all.   What I’m saying is that as a 52-year old, I had the COURAGE to share from a much deeper place.

At this age I’ve come to experience a profound desire to be real, to be free, and to speak the truth that when I was ‘pre- midlife’ I didn’t have access to.  Now maybe some 30-year olds come fully formed, but I wasn’t one of them.  No.  This has been a journey to the center of my core.  At times a very painful one.  And the thing that has really quickened that?  Time.  Actually the pursuit of wisdom and growth that only aging can bring.

So when I was on the stage with those younger women who were sharing all their amazing business savvy, my #1 thought wasn’t to impress or educate.  It was to inspire and connect.  The stage is a platform for me to tell my story of struggle and transformation.  And in the story is the solution.  But the solution to a 30-year old is very different than the solution for the midlife woman.

Why?  Because the thoughts of trying to look the part, or fit in, or be accepted have a much easier time receding when you have battled enough of life to know that really, none of that matters.

By the time you reach mid-life you have discovered that even though there are a few more wrinkles and a little bit extra around the waistline, there is also access to wisdom and places within that may have previously eluded you.

So let’s look at my top tips for how to connect to yourself more deeply:

• Surrender to what’s breaking down.  There’s nothing more powerful than this, but it’s the thing we most fight.  Yes, your looks break down, as do other external aspects of your body, but it’s more the ego states and old ways of being that begin to crumble.  Let me give you an example – maybe you were an overachiever and could just hit the gas all day.  But driving with very male energy now will burn out your adrenals and leave you tired and overwhelmed.  The secret?  Allow the old to crumble.  Look at nature.  Every year the trees lose their leaves.  Then there is the period of dormancy until in the spring, new life emerges.  Why would we be any different than nature?  But unlike the trees who gracefully surrender, we label this process for us as ‘bad’ or scary or dysfunctional somehow.  We fight it, and it’s in the resistance that we meet the most pain. Remember this…the way out is through.  So if there is a part of your life that is no longer working, apply gentleness to this place and let it go.

• Stay in the day.  In this moment you have all you need.  Really!  But our minds tend to go to what needs to happen next month or what may go wrong, etc.  You have to force the crazy animal that is your mind to quiet, calm, and just stay present to what is right in front of you right now.  So if you are worried about money, notice that you have a roof over your head and food enough for TODAY.  And if you are feeling less than prosperous, look to nature to show you just how plentiful things are.

• Get support.  Trust me…when you are in the ‘breakdown to breakthrough’ process, it feels crazy.  You can feel out of control.  (Which for most of us ‘super woman’ types means that we attempt to assert MORE control which will just prolong the process.)  Finding a trusted mentor who has walked the path and can shine the light on the journey is critical.  Having those loving girlfriends who are in it with you through thick and thin is what will allow you to step fully into this mid-life journey with ease and grace, because on the other side…it’s a very sweet thing!

So if you look around and notice that there are much younger women in the room than you are, instead of begrudging the fact, celebrate it!  Delight in the knowledge that Life has given you gifts and strengths that can only come about with age and experience.  Instead of looking at what you don’t have, shift your focus to what you now have access to that you previously didn’t.

• A Search for Significance
• Alchemist, Gardener or Vagabond Traveler – What Do I Want to Be When I Grow Up (Again)?
• Following Your Bliss as a High-Achieving Career Woman Requires Getting Nekked

This week’s guest blog post is by Carol Hess, www.StarPolisher.com,  a writer, survivor, blogger, cat lover, and star polisher – not necessarily in that order. She works with overweight women, helping them discover and polish their stars, and she is currently writing The Fat Lady Sings, the story of how she stopped “weighting” for life and started living it instead.

“Carol, do you realize you’re middle-aged?” My mother posed the surprising question rather aggressively.

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are.”

“Well, if I’m middle-aged, then what does that make you?”

My mother paused a moment and then answered emphatically, “Old!”

We burst out laughing, and that was the end of our conversation. I don’t know what prompted my mother to remind me how old I was. Perhaps I wasn’t acting the way she thought a woman at mid-life should act.

I’ve always been a late bloomer. Maybe that’s why I hadn’t given my age and how much time I have left much thought until a couple of years ago, when a medical crisis reminded me I was going to die someday.

Later the same day my mother declared me middle-aged and herself old, I was sitting at my desk at home, looking through the Help Wanted ads.  (This was years before the internet and LinkedIn.)  And I had an epiphany.  I no longer wanted a corporate job.

Then I had a second, related epiphany.  I didn’t want to continue my corporate career, because it wasn’t me.  I had just pursued it because I thought I “should.”  It was the path of least resistance.  A passive decision by default.

Then came epiphany number three.  (It was a big day for epiphanies.)  I didn’t have to define myself by the work I did unless I chose to do so.  Wow!  That was a stunner.  That one rocked me back on my heels.

I’m sure you don’t find my epiphanies in the least bit startling.  You’ve probably experienced similar ah ha moments or perhaps you have had it all figured out from the get go.  In which case, congratulations!  I’m envious.

That day sitting at my desk was a turning point in my life.  It was the day I took my first tentative and tottering step toward accepting responsibility for who I was and the life I was leading.  With that intimidating responsibility, came the giddiness and joy of empowerment.

My turning point was a long time coming, perhaps even overdue.  But it was one helluva way to kick off the second half of my life.

• 7 Days to Know if You’re at Your Turning Point – Day 4: Simone’s Story
• 7 Days to Know if You’re at Your Turning Point – Day 6: Marilyn’s Story
• 7 Days to Know if You’re at Your Turning Point – Day 7: Mindy’s Story

From the Vintage Vault. This blog post was originally published on October 9, 2009. Comments were hot and heavy then. Ready to add yours to the conversation? I’d love for you to leave your insights and gems in the comment section below…

For women, the second half of life brings with it many career choices and questions. For some women, continuing in a current career doesn’t fulfill personal, spiritual or financial needs as it once did. For others, re-entering the workforce has become a necessity due to the changes in the economy.

In either case, a ReCareer may be the answer. What is a ReCareer? According to Dr. Richard P. Johnson, nationally renowned expert on maturing adult development and founder of ReCareer, Inc. it is: “Personally authentic work that feeds your mind, your heart, and your spirit.”

Women at midlife who are “seekers” want something deeper out of life. They want more personal purpose, more meaning, and want their efforts to align more closely with their core beliefs. They seek a more authentic way of living. To these women seekers, who may be 45, 55, 65 or older, age holds no meaning. What does hold meaning for them comes from work and interactions that renew their life purpose, revitalize their passion, reignite their soul, and reinvigorate their inner desires.

One of my closest friends is a seeker. She was courageous enough to listen to that persistent voice inside her that said she needed to take a new career path. For the past several years she has commuted back and forth between the home she shares with her husband in Pennsylvania and her apartment in New York City where she runs her own executive coaching business. She was in her mid 50s when she made this change.

Largely because of seekers like my friend, there has been a fundamental shift in how we perceive getting older. Previous assumptions about life’s second half are becoming passé as a new set of beliefs are giving birth to what it means to live optimally. Aging is no longer viewed as a forced march down a path of decline and constriction, a path that narrows the older we get. The path we’re on now is one of expansion, with an accent on gaining new wisdom, and discovering a new authenticity and significance greater than anything previously experienced.

Certainly the goals of working over our lifespan have changed. Our former jobs provided a financial foundation. They paid the mortgage, put the kids through school, and got us through the daily expenses of living. All of this was necessary, but for many reasons women are now searching for something more; something that gives rise to that still small voice within longing for achievement of a different type – something that feeds their very being.

There are relatively few, if any, clear cut directions for women in midlife who are seeking that blending of career and life passion, so how do they begin this ReCareer journey? The first thing is to commit to a personal assessment, a personal excavation of sorts. A ReCareer represents much more than a set of skills and functions, it’s a woman’s personal response to her inner call; it’s her investment in the mission of her life. A ReCareer determines much of a woman’s total environment: physical, social, mental, psychological, and even spiritual arenas of living.

There are 5 essential competencies that women need to tackle before they can successfully launch themselves into a ReCareer. This journey of discovery will bring them personal fulfillment as well as meet their individual needs, and put them solidly on the path to ReCareer success:

ReCareer Identity: is defined as the degree to which women derive a personal sense of identity and definition from their work. How much of their personal identity, their unique definition of self, comes from their career? In addition, it’s important to look at attitudes, beliefs, and feelings women hold about themselves and determine if they are still true or if they are self-limiting. It’s also important to construct a personal definition of their potential ReCareer (new career), and to assess each of their formerly held positions in terms of skills and functions performed, and any personal feelings generated by these positions.

ReCareer Self-Assessment: helps women identify their ReCareer values, interests and skills. Do they know their inner values, motivated skills, and most cherished interests well enough to accurately translate what’s truly best for them in their ReCareer process?

Transition Hardiness: The definition of “hardiness” is the ability to be adaptable and flexible – two qualities that are critical to successfully engaging in Recareer life change. Women need to determine if they have developed the necessary inner qualities of hardiness: commitment, control, challenge, and connectedness which will enable them to better achieve their ReCareer goals. By looking at past career and personal life experiences women can assess these qualities and work on those areas that may need shoring up.

ReCareer Success Perception: looks at women’s personal and career worlds and how well they can perceive the events in their career and personal life as self-enhancing and self-affirming. That’s done by uncovering and analyzing the successes women have achieved in their personal and career life to date. Success perception is the foundation of a positive self-esteem. Without a positive self-esteem, women are denying their innate power – the energy that calls them to their ReCareer Success. It’s important for women to define what “success” means to them, and to ask themselves if they have successfully clarified their unique formula for ReCareer success.

Setting ReCareer Goals and Making ReCareer Decisions: The purpose of this focus is to help women establish ReCareer and life goals that can assist them in pursuing a clear ReCareer direction. To do this, it’s important to look at all of the life arenas: work, family, relationships, self, leisure, and spiritual to assess how well women exercise solid decision-making skills and what areas they need to address in order to formulate the most compelling ReCareer goals and bring these into reality.

• Finding Personal Meaning Is An Inside Job: 5 Essential Competencies Women Need To Tackle To Successfully Launch A ReCareer
• Alchemist, Gardener or Vagabond Traveler – What Do I Want to Be When I Grow Up (Again)?
• A Search for Significance

Photo courtesy of Creative Commons license

On one Wednesday each month it’s Wordless Wednesday here on my blog. An opportunity to ‘read’ what’s framed within a photograph; to take just the briefest of moments to still yourself; to let yourself be open to whatever thoughts, memories, emotions an image can bring forth. Photos have stories. As do you. What is the story this photo is telling you? Leave a comment. Pretty please…

• Wordless Wednesdays – Week 3
• Wordless Wednesdays – Week 6
• Wordless Wednesdays – Week 5

Motivation:

You work with a trainer to lose some of that midlife, muffin-top weight, stay in shape, or like I did, to climb a mountain. What one of my closest friends so lovingly referred to as my “midlife crisis run amok in Africa.”  Achievement is thrilling. It’s satisfying.

Inspiration:

The climber’s high. That elemental knowing that my body simply has to move. To climb. To reach that summit. When I climb, I feel more connected to life. More reflected in the grace of wild things.

Motivation:

You write the blog, the article, the book to raise your entrepreneurial profile so you can sell and serve more people. You set a goal to write a 1000 words a day until you’ve completed all 16 chapters of your book. Way to go. Good for you for taking action.

Inspiration:

I have something to say that needs to be heard. When I write I experience freedom, connection, as if a higher power instills some primal, poetic verse deep within the recesses of my mind and sends it coursing through my hand and onto paper.  A wholly (and holy) visceral experience.

Motivation is what we need to get things done. That usually means lots of measuring and setting of goals. Checklists. Markers that tell us we’ve met our deadline and crossed the finish line.

But beyond finish lines and pats on the back for jobs well done, there’s a different reason for doing:

Inspiration

It’s magnetic and infinite and doesn’t always respond to reasoning. It responds to “I just have to do this.” It breaks you out of  the “should” cycle and into the realm of creation and possibility. It’s a totally different force of energy; of divine creativity.

What is motivating you?

What is inspiring you?

• Inspiration, Legacy & Your Ultimate Calling
• Alchemist, Gardener or Vagabond Traveler – What Do I Want to Be When I Grow Up (Again)?
• Following Your Bliss as a High-Achieving Career Woman Requires Getting Nekked