Updated on June 25th, 2022
How are you feeling about being or turning 50? Daunted at the ‘Big 5-O’ ushering in thoughts of gentle decline into old age? Or excited about the start of your best years?
Having been around for half a century can feel like a watershed, particularly if you’re not where you were hoping to be in your life. Life can get tough in your fifties. Yet, even so: There’s never been a better time to make positive life changes than for 50-somethings – even, or particularly if, life gets tough .
For many women (and probably men, too), reaching the age of fifty is not a particularly appealing milestone. Our youth is behind us, our bodies and our looks change. For us women, the menopause might strike and we start feeling invisible in our society.
Unwanted challenges and changes might push into our life: Redundancy, burn out, empty nest syndrome, loved ones passing… We might find we’ve ended up in a place in life we don’t like, and get angry or bitter, as we look back at our life, and see the hopes, dreams, wishes and efforts we made that haven’t worked out for us.
Questions about the future emerge – will there still be new and interesting opportunities for us, now? Is a satisfying life even possible?
Our fifties can be tough. They can bring uncertainty and major life crises that are difficult to navigate.
If you’re in a challenging situation and could use a bit of encouragement, here’s the story of how I’ve lived through my own Fifties Crisis and what helped me get through:
But there’s good news, too, though that’s hard to appreciate when we’re in the midst of a difficult transition.
For crises often come about when a phase of our life is ending, and they clear the space for new things to begin. As such, they are helping us transform ourselves and our life.
When, in my own despair about how terribly my fifties had started, I researched this decade of life, I found a lot of positive aspects of being fifty-plus, that I hadn’t been able to see because I was so taken up in my own suffering.
I read about how our fifties can become a decade of feeling in our prime, of coming into our own. And how it is not too late to make changes in our life, create a life we love, even start afresh.
The more I read, the more I became convinced that our fifties are, in fact, the perfect time to change our life! My own Fifties Crisis brought about great change for me indeed, and the more I worked through it and started to feel better, the more I started seeing, appreciating and taking the opportunities my life then presented.
Finding a happy acceptance of our age
It was expert Sir Muir Grey’s who said that age is just a state of mind.
A happy acceptance of turning or being 50, and focusing on the opportunities this brings,
goes a long way to making this a decade of feeling in our prime, rather than on a downhill slide.
We’ve got better chances than ever before to make our fifties one of the best times of our life: Our self-acceptance, equanimity and contentment increase. Our worrying decreases. We’re fitter and healthier than ever before, and often have the means and knowledge to stay that way. Many people in the public eye are role-modelling how to be ‘fiftylicious’ and live their 5th decade to the full.
In fact, some scientists believe that for many of us, our fifties are going to be the beginning of a second life, if not a second career!
If we’re in a crisis or an un-easeful place, we have to deal with that first – head over to Living Through Unease and Crises in Your Fifties for (hopefully) some inspiration from my own story.
But then, amazing things can happen:
As I’m through the worst of my own crisis (and who knows if and when a next one will occur? Because that’s life…), as I have restored my energy and my health, and as I can now see the beginnings of my new fifties’ life, I am more able to appreciate how focusing on the good stuff about our age can further help me make this a decade of feeling in my prime…
Coming into our own
As we’re coming into our own, we say good-bye to youth and embrace the start of a new age – maturity – with its own, beautiful opportunities:
Being more experienced, wiser, more acceptant and relaxed about things. Living more consciously. Appreciating life more deeply. Stripping from our life what’s distracting and unnecessary. Doing things differently, in ways that suit us better – based on previous experience.
Our Lifetime Clock seems to tick louder, and it becomes more important now than ever to focus on what really matters to us. It’s the perfect time to evaluate our life: What are we really about? What are we here to do, anyway? Are we doing what we want to do? Are we living a life we love – a life that’s joyful, meaningful, true to ourselves, and right for us? Have we done in our life what we hoped to do? If not, what do we want to do about that?
Scary questions? Maybe. There’s opportunity in them, too, if we answer them honestly to ourselves. For it’s never too late to make changes for the better in our life – in small and bigger ways.
Don’t want to keep doing what you’re doing? It’s not too late to change!
We can continue to change and grow.
Your opportunity to change your life – finding, designing and creating a life you truly love to live – is now, whether you’re in your fifties or not.
And if you are in your fifties, or beyond, and wondering if it’s perhaps too late, or you’re too old to change your life for the better, then consider my…
10 reasons why 50 is the perfect time to change your life
1. You’re old enough to know what you’re about
So you’ve lived a while. Half a century, to be precise – congratulations!
Hopefully, you know yourself quite well by now (if not, why not spend some time considering this?): What makes you tick. What works for you, and what doesn’t. What makes you happy. What you love. What your strengths are. And your challenges. And so on.
What perfect pre-requisites to take the reins of your life into your own hands, and make conscious, wanted, positive changes. And design a life that really suits who you are!
2. You’re young enough to make it happen
When my Italian grandmother came to visit us for my First Communion, we stood up in church, so she, the old woman that she was, could sit. She would have been around fifty at the time.
But then she had lived through two World Wars, known a lot of hardship, and borne 8 children, two of whom died. A tough life like that will inevitably leave its mark.
How different things are for us today! When have you ever stood up on the tube or train for someone who’s fifty? And if the fifty-year-old is you: Do you need people to stand up so you can sit down?
Thought so. Fact is that today’s fifty-year-olds are more youthful, fitter and healthier than ever. Or certainly have the means and knowledge to be(come) so.
Therefore, you’re definitely young enough to change your life, if you want to.
3. You’re too old for the rat race
It’s not just a question of boredom. It’s also a question of pace.
The rat race is called like that for a reason: It’s inherently fast-paced, relentless, and stressful. No matter how fast we run, the hamster wheel keeps turning and turning with ever more and more stuff for us to do.
We might (mostly) cope with that kind of pace when we’re younger, relying on fast regeneration when we get tired. We might even get a buzz of exhilaration at the steep learning curve this provides us with.
But at fifty, we’re less bright-eyed and eager, having experienced a few things in our career. And we’ll definitely notice that we need to pace ourselves, to keep at the top of our game. Even when we’re fit and healthy.
Now, if you adore the rat race, good for you, and by all means keep with it.
But if you feel that you’re too old for it: Know that you can change your life. And slowing the pace of your work and life, in order to free up time for other important things, can be your perfect motivation.
4. You’re too young to retire
Having said what I said under point 3, fifty is too young for the classic idea of retirement – as in living a comfortable armchair or cruise ship existence.
We’ve got things to share and pass on. We’ve got some energy to do stuff. We’ve got the ability to change. But when in younger years, perhaps, we’ve made compromises or played it safe, we now want whatever we do to be right for us. And we want our life to matter.
So what better time to think about what that is, and how we can do that?
5. You (can) have more time
For yourself, that is.
Quite a few of my ‘fiftylicious’ clients whose children have flown the nest come to me for help in exploring what to do with their own life, now they’ve got more time on their hands.
Others, who are high-powered professional women (and men, too), start their life change by creating more time and space for themselves:
Taking a sabbatical to come down from the fast pace of their work, look after themselves, and explore themselves or their interests. Or starting to work part time, and pursuing other priorities on their free day(s). Others again leave their work altogether, to set up the business of their dreams.
Always wanted to take up Flamenco or Salsa dancing, travel the world, find a new life partner, learn Spanish, or re-train as a garden designer?
Well, now is the time!
6. You have a sense of urgency
That’s ’cause you’ve now got some life time to look back on. And you realise that the years behind you may be more than the ones you’ve still got ahead of you. You might notice that your body is starting to give in places, even though you’re keeping fit. And that more serious health issues can strike you, or your friends and acquaintances.
At the same time, you might feel a longing to live your life with more meaning – and purposefully. Catch up on the things you always wanted to experience, but never got ’round to. And have a keen sense that if you are going to do that, the time is now or never.
Many people get a second wind in their fifties. And become much more radical in getting on with what they really want to do in their life.
If that’s not urgency to change, I don’t know what is!
7. You have the means
You don’t have to be a multi-millionaire to have the means to change your life. There are many creative ways to do so significantly and meaningfully.
What it takes is looking – very practically – at the financial reality of your desired change: What you’ll need for the life you want to live, and for transitioning into it. What you already have on the side. And what you’ll have to top up, and how.
Many of my clients have a real light-bulb moment when we do this exercise: They notice that they have more than enough resources to move into and live a life they love. Or they find that actually, it would be quite easy for them to live on less money, at least for a while. That the new life they want is simpler and cheaper than their current life, anyway. Or that it wouldn’t be that difficult for them to save up enough money to get started with their change.
What may well help you on this front when you’re in your fifties, is that your life likely becomes cheaper through lower mortgage payments, downsizing the family home, or your kids flying the nest and starting work.
So really, there’s no excuse for not changing your life, in your fifties, nor any time: Chances are that you’ll have the means. Or that you can find them!
8. You’re (more) immune to others’ judgements
Coming into your own, and accepting yourself, will increase your confidence. And the more you’re confidently yourself, the less you’ll be affected by other people’s opinions or judgements – on yourself or on what you do.
So take advantage of that: Go ahead with your life change. And happily let others’ opinions be!
9. You make more conscious choices
This is a benefit of being older and wiser:
Not only do you know yourself better, but you’ve now also got experience. You’ve learnt to trust yourself and your gut feeling. You’re less scared of taking (calculated) risks, because you know what you can do. Or you’ve done it before. And you also know that, if things go wrong, you can come through.
So chances are that all this will inform your choices when changing your life. You’ll choose more consciously and purposefully now than when you were younger.
Which will make for a smoother life change, and increase your chances of arriving in that life that is really right for you.
10. You have something to give
Our first 40 or so years are spent developing and becoming fully ourselves, and we do that by taking in stuff – learning points, rules, behaviours, skills, observations, advice and mentorship, experience – and assimilating it.
Then as we mature, we find that we have all of that, filtered through our own life and views, to give back to the next generation of young ones. We go from child to parent. From student to teacher. From mentee to mentor. From taking in the lessons to handing them out.
Sharing our experience – in formal and informal ways, paid or unpaid – is satisfying and meaningful. Some form of it is always part of the lives my clients create for themselves with my help, whether it be in the form of volunteering, educating, teaching, mentoring, upskilling, speaking, writing, exhibiting or discussing.
At fifty, you are ideally placed to harness this kind of satisfaction, and change your life to make it an integral part of it. So do it. Do it now!
Want to read more about celebrating your fiftieth birthday, and your fifties?
Head over to my four-part series 50 Ways to Celebrate Your Fifties
Over to you now
What are your experiences of turning 50?
What’s your life like in your 5th decade? What are its joys and challenges?
What do you want it to be like?
I’d love to read your comments, please share them below – thanks!
Want some help with your life change?
Consider working with me. I offer tailored coaching programmes for every need and budget. And if you’ve got questions, just book yourself an informal chat with me. It’s free!
Photos: Pixabay
Comments
This is all great if things have been working out moderately well for you in your life… But seriously, what about those of us who things haven’t worked out for at all, in spite of our best efforts, in spite of being an A+ honours student, in spite of being conscientious & ethical, in spite of being exceptional in quality of work, in spite of having a decent and well-rounded blend of experience in Management, training, and operations, in spite of having been in the top hand full of workers in most of my work situations (some I was not suited to and I didn’t do well…), in spite of regularly offering WAY MORE than basic job requirements, in spite of volunteering regularly in the community… My work life has been degenerating… It is hard to feel happy and fulfilled when you are the best at what you do in the area but you can only make $15k per year. Your post seems to look at life through rose tinted glasses, and cherry picks good situations and positive ambitions, but what about when you’ve done EVERYTHING you can with positivity and kindness, and you still end up in a garbage situation…?? And you mention retirement… What a joke!!! I’ll expire before I retire!!
Hi ‘Dead Man Walking’, thanks for your comment. I’m really sorry to read about your work life, that’s not where you’d want it to be, despite your hard work, excellence in training and work, and your conscientious, ethical positive and kind behaviour. And you’re right – this post focuses on the positive side of being fifty, BECAUSE many of us (and that includes me) might feel angry, bitter or hopeless at times, about our life, and challenges or crises we face, when we reach our fifties. Because it isn’t an easy decade of life for most of us.
However, your comment made me think that I really want to acknowledge more the tough situations many of us go through in our fifties. I have therefore written another post on the subject: LIVING THROUGH UNEASE AND CRISES IN YOUR FIFTIES .
I cannot offer you a ready-made solution for your situation, but I can share my own story and the things that helped me, and hope that this can be of use.
Life can be unfair at times, and many things that happen to us we have no control over. I have found that processing what’s happened, and working to let go of the anger, disappointment and bitterness that this can naturally cause us, is a difficult, yet important first task, because such feelings keep us stuck in what hasn’t worked, clouding our view on our life and ourselves, and blocking us from wanting to move forward.
I have also found, in my own Fifties Crisis, that, if I work on the things that I DO have control over, and start feeling better in myself, I am more likely to find positive changes I can make that improve my situation. I give myself a chance to find my very own way of moving through the crisis and the difficult feelings it produces.
Perhaps my post can give you useful nuggets of inspiration, or even practical ideas. I do hope and wish for you to find your very own way through!
I enjoyed your piece. For a long time now, I’ve been aware of the years whizzing past me and life feels to have passed me by. It literally seems 5 minutes since I was “celebrating” my 40th birthday! At 50 now, I’m constantly reflecting on the past and what I could have done better or just generally feeling sad for the past, good times and how fast it has gone. I lost my mum in March this year and my father 9 months before that. I miss them both dearly – especially my mum as I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye. I have a partner and he has helped me a lot though these tough times but I don’t know what it is – I feel stuck in a rut and generally dissatisfied with my lot. Not all the time, I might add. I do find joy and happiness sometimes – in simple things like enjoying a lovely meal or playing with the cats. I do tend to dwell on negatives instead of positives but also try to focus on the right here, right now – but it’s hard sometimes. I wonder if many other men feel the same at my age – almost always conscious that time is running out?
Dear Martin, thank you for sharing where you’re at, at 50.
You know, I believe (and I know from clients and myself) that a lot of people around 50 – both men an women – feel the same way! Having reached mid life and a bit beyond, there’s certainly a process of taking stock going on – reflecting on where we’ve come to in our life; what we’ve gone through, both good and bad; and what we’ve achieved, or which dreams we’ve not (yet) realised… We might want to celebrate the good times we’ve had, voice gratitude for what’s been fabulous and amazing, give ourselves a pat on the back for what we’ve achieved so far. More difficult feelings might come up, too: Regret for what we haven’t achieved, or for when we haven’t responded to a situation or a person in the best possible way. Sadness for the time that has gone by, for our youth that is ending, for the things that are now not open to us anymore, or more difficult to do. And yes – a feeling of urgency at the realisation that the time we have left in this life is now less than it used to be, and therefore precious. We might feel the need to spend it well.
It is important to acknowledge, honour, celebrate and even mourn our past when we’re at a watershed like entering our 50ies. (I often start my coaching with a new client there, as it is helpful, if you’re stuck, to do this process with an impartial, supportive person such as a coach.) And then it’s also important to let go of the past, and let it be the past, and make your peace with it as an integral part of yourself that has shaped you, but doesn’t need to define you. Then look at where you’re at now, and what you like and dislike about your life now. What fulfills you and gives you joy, and what irritates you and drags you down. Then from there, spend a bit of time envisioning how you’d like to live from now on, in the precious time that you’ve got ahead of you. How might you live, so that it feels right for you, is meaningful, and feels like your time is well spent? And then consciously make the changes you need in order to create and move towards this live.
It feels to me that you’re still grieving – for your parents and for your past. Is that right? I am really sorry for your losses. Do take time to process them, and to heal from them. Nurture yourself, express your grief, get support to work through it, if that feels helpful.
You’ll know when you’ve grieved ‘enough’ to be ready to look at moving forward with your life. Sometimes, when we come out of grief, particularly when we’re having to re-orient ourselves after the loss of a loved one, this can be like starting over in our life, on a clean slate. Which can be tough, but is also a wonderful new opportunity to create a life that suits and fulfills us. I wish you well on your path – if and when you feel ready to start envisioning and creating this next phase of your life, do get in touch, as my coaching can really support you with that. xxx
I like reading the article..I’m still wondering what I should do to make my life more fulfilling . I’m a divorcee and m looking forward to find my goal in life.
Hello Karen, thanks for your response. I have a few posts on this blog that might be helpful for you, if you’re looking to create a more fulfilling life:
–> Lost For Purpose? Look In These 5 Places https://livealifeyoulove.co.uk/5-top-purpose-givers
–> 6 Steps to a Life You Love – change your life with ease and joy https://livealifeyoulove.co.uk/6-steps-to-a-life-you-love
–> Not Doing What You Want In Life? Adjust In 7 Simple Steps https://livealifeyoulove.co.uk/not-doing-what-want
If you don’t know what you want, there’s my free e-book HOW TO KNOW WHAT YOU WANT, which you can get here: https://livealifeyoulove.co.uk/lp-want
Finally, if you’d like some coaching help to set meaningful goals and create a more fulfilling life for yourself, drop me a line at monica@livealifeyoulove.co.uk, and we can talk about how to set that up!
Wishing you well!
Thanks for writing the article. I came across it by googling.. ‘ Where should a 53 yr old be in his life’?
I think if like myself you don’t have a partner or kids you start to question yourself. I hear the many arguments that the freedom singleton brings but I can’t stop thinking that maybe these adrenaline/adventure junkies use these distractions to compensate for not having the things are that are really Important in life
Thanks for your comment, Anthony – it sounds like you’re in a place of reflecting about your life at the moment. To me, there is no right or wrong of where anyone ‘SHOULD’ be in their fifties. What, to me, IS important, is that we move towards, or create, or live a life that suits who we feel we truly are. That we’re being very honest with ourselves in reflecting on what truly matters to us, what’s truly important to us in life. And then create a life that has enough of these people, things, experiences, or activities in it that matter to us. So that we live our life in tune with what we really value. For some people freedom is the most important thing – some find sufficient freedom with a partner and a family to feel happy. Others need greater personal freedom, which they find perhaps in adventures, and for this, they might choose to sacrifice the idea of being with a partner or having a family. (Which doesn’t mean they might not be giving to others in other ways.) For others again, family is the most important thing, and they are happy to renounce greater personal freedom for that, because giving themselves into a family makes them happy. I really don’t feel like judging one choice over the other. So, never mind other people: What’s most important for YOU, now that you’re in your fifties? To what extent do you have that in your life today? And if your answer is ‘not enough’ – what might you do to add more of that into your life? Wishing you very well in your journey, and thanks for reading and commenting!
I really enjoyed reading what you wrote. Unfortunately I cannot relate to the having children and the “empty nest” syndrome since I’m single, unmarried without children. A demographic I believe is still quite marginalized. So that’s one challenge aside from facing my 50th birthday this coming August 6, 2020
Glad you enjoyed the article, Liza! I too am single and have no children. I too feel there is challenge in that, as well as great opportunity to be free(er) in feeling into what we need and dream of for our fifties than if we had the needs of a family to take into account… I guess every circumstance has its beauty AND its challenge! How do you feel about your 50th birthday coming up? Might you mark the occasion or not?