Finding Your Purpose in Midlife

For the past few years, I have been struggling to figure out what I am going to do with the next stage of my life. I closed my business, and my daughter will be leaving for college in a year and a half. A new season of my life is dawning and I am feeling lost.

The last time I felt like this was when my daughter was a toddler. I was winding down my career as a business consultant, looking for ways to live that allowed me to be the primary caregiver for my daughter and still feel fulfilled. It was an uncomfortable time, and I spent the first two years of her life flailing around, trying to find my purpose.

The thing that saved me, that set my life back on track all those years ago, was reading The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. I worked through the twelve-week program and came out of it an artist. It is fair to say that it completely changed my life and served me well for a good fifteen years.

Now here I am again, feeling another momentous change is on the horizon and I am unsure of what is next for me. I have been sitting in this discomfort for a few years and finally realized the answers were in the same place I looked last time-in Julia Cameron’s writings.

I recently discovered that she has a book called It’s Never Too Late to Begin Again , written just for this stage in my life. Many of the exercises in it are like the ones in The Artist’s Way, but there is less work in reconnecting to your creativity and more about figuring out what’s next as you age and your responsibilities change.

It is a twelve-week program. There are morning pages, artist’s dates, and solitary walks as the basic tools to help you prepare your mind for the work ahead. There is an added addition to the process, that Julia calls “Memoir”, where you look at all the years of your life over the course of the program, and there are questions and tasks each week to work through some sticking points.

I have to say that I am only in the first week and I already feel a sense of relief. If nothing else, I now have “work” to do each day. I am planning artist’s dates. I am planning walks. I work on the written exercises. I have a sense of purpose for the next twelve weeks at least. I trust that the work I do, will bring clarity to the next chapter in my life. 

Tell Me What You Think

If you are in the same boat as I am, what are you doing to figure out who you will be in the next stage of your life? I would love to get your suggestions for tools that you have used to find meaning and purpose in your work and life.

Explore More

• My friend, Lori Roberts of Little Truths Studio, has an e-course all about exploring midlife through journaling. You can sign-up for The Unfolding here.
  
• I recently re-watched the documentary, Advanced Style (Amazon Prime), and was inspired by not only the fashion sense of the women featured but also their philosophies on life.
• My Kitchen Year by Ruth Reichl is a great memoir/cookbook about Ruth's search for purpose when Gourmet Magazine folded and she lost her job as editor.