Why a Midlife Transition Takes Time, and You're Not Behind

You read the book. You had the idea. You've had it a hundred times now.

And you're still standing in roughly the same place, wondering what's wrong with you.

Nothing is wrong with you. A midlife transition asks you to change the way you've lived for four or five decades. That kind of change doesn't happen because you found the right book or heard the right idea at the right time. It takes time. More time than most of us expect, and more repetitions than we'd like.

If you're a woman in midlife who's been trying to make a change and feels like you should be further along by now, this is for you. Midlife change is slower than we've been told. It's also far less lonely than we think.

Why Midlife Change Takes Longer Than You Think

The beliefs that shaped how you show up took a long time to build.

The ones that decided what you'd say yes to, what you'd apologize for, and what you'd push through.

Decades of being rewarded for certain behaviours or quietly punished for others, and decades of watching what worked and then adjusting ourselves to fit in. 

You don't change that in a weekend. You can be inspired, and a new idea can show up a hundred times a day. Bringing it to life is another thing.

Think about a New Year's resolution. Say it's about movement. You commit to the gym, or a class, or a daily walk. Then you don't start. Or you start, miss a day, miss a couple more, and try again.

That isn't a character flaw. That's a change in your habits, a change in what you believe, and a new choice you're making, all at once. Every one of those has been hardwired into you over three, four, or five decades.

So change asks two things of us. Grace, because we're going to try and quite likely fail. And the willingness to decide to try again, and again, and probably again, as a beginner.

None of this is meant to discourage you. It's just important to be realistic about the timeline. Shifting how you think, act, or live takes practice and repetition. It takes being uncomfortable before it becomes your new normal. The repetitions will always be more than you think.

You're Not Behind, You're Comparing Day One to Day 500

When you start making a change, there's a phrase worth holding onto: you're not behind.

The unsettled feeling, that sense that you should have figured it out by now, that's not proof that you're failing.  

It's proof that you're finally paying attention to something you've spent years too busy to notice.  

A lot of women carry a quiet shame around this feeling. The sense that everyone else has already figured it out.

I assure you, they haven't.

No group of women finished all that work at 45 and is simply living the results now.  The women you admire, the ones whose lives look solid, are still noticing things about themselves. The noticing doesn't stop.

Here's where the feeling usually comes from. We compare our day one, or day two, to somebody else's day 500.

Or we had an idea in January, it's June now, and we realize we haven't really invested the time or the energy to make it stick. So we feel behind, because we're comparing our starting point to somebody else's outcome.

The next time you catch yourself thinking everyone else has it figured out, ask yourself one question.

What evidence do you have that that's true?

Most of the time, there isn't any.  There's just a story you've been telling yourself, because you're not inside her life. You're only watching her through her Instagram reel.

The Being Side of Change Needs More Time

When I first started getting to know myself, I wanted the process to go faster. I wanted all the steps.

I think that's normal for a lot of highly capable, highly productive women. We've always had a plan. We always knew the steps because usually we created them. 

So why would this be any different?

What I've learned is that I needed time to practice the thing, yes. But I also needed time for what was happening inside, the shifting of the beliefs that had gotten me to where I was.

Time to create space. Time to ask questions and then pause and ponder to see what came up. Time to understand what I really want now. Not what the 30-year-old version of me wanted. What I want today, at 54.

And you're doing all of that while you're deciding to start something new, because it's all rolled into one.

A decade later, I can still catch myself wanting to go faster.

I remember pushing my own coach for shortcuts more than once. Just tell me what to do differently, and I'll do it. She never gave me one, because there wasn't one.

What she gave me instead was permission to be exactly as far along as I was instead of where I thought I should be.  

That permission didn't feel like relief at first. It almost felt like giving up, like she wasn't pushing me hard enough.

It took me a while to understand that as a human being, I needed to focus as much on being as I did on doing.  

Think about any big decision. Changing careers, moving to another province, ending a relationship. You can write out the pros and cons. What the list can't capture is who you are while you make that change, and after.

If you move, it isn't only the logistics. It's who you are when you show up in a new neighbourhood, with a new daily routine, with new people around you, or maybe not that many people around you.

That being side needs a little longer than your to-do list. She always does. And you won't get through the whole list without bringing her along.

Why Navigating Change Alone Slows You Down

There's a belief running a lot of our lives. It says we can figure this all out alone, because we're capable. Because we're responsible. Because that's what we've been doing for so long.

That belief doesn't sit quietly in the background. It actively slows down everything else we're trying to change.

Real change, the kind we're talking about in midlife, usually needs someone else. Someone who can see the patterns you can't see from the inside. Someone who can reflect back the progress you're too close to notice. Or someone who will simply say, "I see you trying."

We're so good at judging ourselves and comparing ourselves. We're good at moving straight past what we just did and onto the next thing, without pausing to recognize what we did this week.

That happened to me a few weeks ago. I launched a podcast earlier this year, and I'm now over 20 episodes in. A friend asked me, do you remember this was on your goal list for this year? At the beginning of the year, you said you were going to launch a podcast, and now you're past 20 episodes.

I hadn't really stopped to recognize that it was a milestone. Thousands of people never get to episode 10, let alone episode 20.  

Just her helping me recognize that gave me goosebumps. It's something I've wanted for over two years, something I love, and I still needed the nudge. I needed somebody else to stop and remind me of what I'd already done.

Here's the part that stays with me. The belief that we have to do this alone protects itself. It makes the very thing that would break it, asking for help, feel like proof that the belief was right all along.

It wasn't right. It isn't.

How Women in Midlife Build Self-Trust Together

Along the way, one of the most important things we build is self-trust. And self-trust is built through evidence.

You might already know that part. What we talk about much less is how much easier that evidence is to notice when someone is there to reflect it back to you.

You do something brave. Something that was scaring you half to death. And you quietly dismiss it as almost nothing, until somebody says, "Hey, do you realize what you just did?"

That moment is so much of this work. Noticing your growth, recognizing it, claiming it. You're not starting from the same place you were yesterday.

All of us deserve to claim our wins. All of us deserve to share our courageous moments with someone else, to be celebrated and recognized. And every time we see that evidence, our self-trust grows a little more.

That's what I mean when I say self-trust isn't built alone. It's built in relationships.

It's built in the presence of people who can see you, who can mirror those things back to you.  

Change takes the time it takes. The repetitions take longer than you planned, and the being side of you needs a little more time than your list does. None of that means you're failing. It means you're in the middle of something real.

You were never meant to do it alone. So who's noticing your progress with you right now?

If you're ready to stop doing this alone and start doing it alongside other women navigating some of the same things you are, the Courageous Middle community is open. I'd love to have you: COMMUNITY LINK

Reminder: you have always been courageous for everyone else; it's time to turn that courage inward.