Having life sorted at 50, right?
Fifty, five decades, half a century, halfway to a telegram from the Queen - however you say it, it's frickin’ old! I recently reached that milestone (and hence have been a bit quiet - in recovery LOL!). Did I think I would have life all sussed and in control by 50? Yep. Do I think I have ? Nope. Does it bother me? No. And here is why………..
I feel like I am on the right path for the next half a century. It’s long, it's meandering, sometimes I get a bit lost and I don’t totally know the destination but I know that I am going in the right direction.
As an organisation design consultant I spent many, many days helping clients articulate their “North star” and it's something I now work with my coaching clients on. But the same rules apply to our lives as apply in business - it's very hard to figure out where you are going if you do not know where you are. In consulting terms we call that the “As Is”.
One of the most powerful actions I took back into 2019 was to engage a financial adviser to help do a financial review and plan for my retirement. You see my mother put the fear of retirement and pensions into me like some horror movie on repeat from an early age, totally understandable given our family didn't have money and grafting hard was a way of life. So work hard my siblings and I did, we worked our way out of Northern England, away from the manual work in dockyards and railways of our grandparents and into good corporate jobs which paid well. With our working class, strong work ethic we worked our butts off so when I stopped to take a look at it I was actually more financially secure than I had realised. That allowed me to stop and really assess - what do I have, what do I need and what do I want to do in this next 10 - 15 years of work? Is the money the most important criteria in the work choices I make going forward? Money can often appease the ego but it does not always keep the soul happy.
So this is my challenge to you in my new half century - do you know where you really are? Because if you don’t then how do you know if you are making the right choices moving forward? Your north star may look a whole lot different if you understood what position you are now in because:
“You cannot know where you are going until you know where you are”
I have a nifty little assessment tool I send to my new clients to help them understand where they are in different parts of their life, if you would like a copy then just drop me an email at helen@helenotoolecoaching.com
And, as ever, if you know anyone who will benefit from reading this then feel free to forward it with the options below
Take care and stay sane :)
Helen x
