Pushing Ourselves Isn’t The Answer

Rushing around has become a way of life for many of us. We take more and more on, we have our blackberry/iPhone on us at all times, we run from one appointment to the next, we eat standing up, we yell ‘hurry up’ to the children in the morning and cannot survive without our multiple shots of caffeine throughout the day, we spend our entire year longing for our 2 weeks off in the sun in the summer. Doesn’t that make you feel breathless just reading it? How did we get here? This frenzied living has become a habit built up over many years. We are used to feeling stressed and on the verge of burn out a lot of the time. We want the beautiful home, the confident children, the rewarding job, the perfect relationship, all this and to feel happy…….in a way we’ve come to expect it. As I wrote in a previous blog it is often only at a time of crisis that we stop and take stock of where we are. Maybe it is when we get to midlife that we start to look at our lives, really look at them.  We’re half way through, how do we want to live the second half? Is it time for a change?

I suspect most of us fantasise about getting away from it all, packing a bag or rucksack and taking off or making a radical change and simplifying our lives. The problem with all this is that unless we change our thinking nothing else changes. How many people have you heard say that they don’t start to relax on holiday until the second week?

How great would it be if all the demands on our time from work, parents, children and friends could ease off and we’d have real space around us? We are however realistic enough to know that that isn’t going to happen anytime soon. The only thing we can do is look at how we create stress in our lives by our thought patterns…..we actually do think stress into our lives.

Here are some questions that I might ask a client who comes to see me because he or she is on the edge…..

• How do you create stress with your thinking habits?
• What could you do differently?
• How could you slow down?
• What activities or thoughts create a positive state in you?
• What is positive about the pace you live your life right now?
• What is the cost to you, your family and friends in maintaining this pace?

Why don’t you email me (hello@themidlifecoach.com) or post a comment when you’ve had a think about some of these questions?

Sign up for my 7 Top Tips for Midlife: Inspiring The Second Half of Your Life

You will also receive my popular Monday Morning Food for Thought emails and be the first to know of workshops and online programmes I’m creating. 

SUBSCRIBE