Protect your investments!!

This is the headline from this month’s Money magazine.
In fact the whole magazine is focused on how to keep your retirement intact for future years.
For me this is like saying, prepare for your death!!!
The opposite action is mandatory now, especially for those in their middle years.
This is the time to invest in yourself and your work.

External views are not useful now

It is critical to reject  the external perspective on how you should live your life with regards to your work. The only view now which is useful is the one  you have about yourself and what you really want to do now.

Just changing your perspective can give you new direction and energy for a more fulfilling life. It is easy to just take any job to survive and quickly become bored and burned out at work. Better to decide to look inside yourself and what is most important now. Start to examine what bothers you most with regards to your work and life and what you might do about it. As you became clear about what was most important, you will gain a new perspective.

The worst won’t happen

I doubt taking time now to reflect will make you homeless or die. I should point out  that a worthwhile exercise is to in fact envision your death. Only then can a person really start to live with passion each and every day. Last year I was nearly diagnosed with Cancer during a period of my life when I was very ill. I imagined the worst and during this time I also become at peace with my life and my work.

Others and their opinions don’t matter

So many of us are influenced by others and their views of us. We seek out external opinions first to see if our new choices make sense to others and only then do we venture forward. The sad thing is that it usually takes only a few external perspectives from those not even close to us to shut down our dreams as silly, not achievable, or not worthwhile. Then we go back with our head down to the same old job, hoping for someone to rescue us from job prison.

Instead, armed with a new self-awareness and new dreams, we can venture forward with a new view of ourselves despite what others might think.

Practice your passions

If you want to teach, print a business card that says, “Teacher.” Carry it around, and start to teach others what you know best, and what you are passionate about. Soon you will reshape a new vision and perspective of your life and your work.

Your life will never be the same! Sometimes it takes rocking the boat and changing your life completely to answer the call for a more authentic life.
When you start to believe that something is indeed possible for you in your vocational life, and you have the courage to follow your heart, magical things can happen. This takes courage and you must take a risk. There is a difference between just deciding to change your life and taking the action required to make the change. It takes a complete shift in thought, and in many cases, it involves over-turning the apple cart of your life. This is radical change, and not one most people are accustomed to. This is, however, just the right recipe for those over forty whose lives have become both predictable and secure.

Mid-life is a milestone for action

After the forty milestone, we need to put aside our egos. The ego is useful before age forty, but after forty, we need to replace ego with cause and integrity.

Life has a way of moving much faster in mid-life. This is not the time for pondering or worrying or over-analyzing. This is the time for action. Not just mindless action, but action that will lead to more joy, more happiness, and more meaning in your life.

This approach isn’t just for the most secure or the most fortunate; it is for everyone wishing to create a better life. Wonderful things can happen when your life is centered around your true vocation. Your work can determine who you are and who you become. Just think back to work you did in the past and how quickly it became the norm for you — you felt like this job was your life. This is how quickly our work can consume us.

Pay attention to yourself

If you don’t pay attention to your growing angst, your life can pass too quickly, and suddenly you find yourself talking about your past and what might have been. Thinking deeply now about new possibilities instead will fill your mind with new creativity, new energy, and the expectation of a fuller life centered around your work and passions. This great opportunity awaits everyone after forty. The ticket is yours to use or discard along the road to someday.

Your new possibilities await you now. All you have to do is take action.

As always I am cheering you on as you go - Craig Nathanson

Craig Nathanson is the author of "Don't JUST retire and die: A new approach to your life and work after 40" and he is a coaching expert who works with people over forty.

Visit Craig’s online community at http://www.thevocationalcoach.com where you can take a class, get more ideas through Craig Nathanson’s books and CD’s, get some private coaching over the phone or in Craig’s office, or read other stories of mid-life change and renewal.

Craig lives and works in Petaluma, California. His office is located at 921 Transport Way, Suite 3, Petaluma Ca, 94954. You can reach him at 707-775-4020 or at craig@thevocationalcoach.com.

A challenging time

This is a year of financial turmoil in which millions of people around the world have seen their retirement nest eggs shrink, and their houses decrease in value. For many, a generalized anxiety about their future keeps them up at night.

While I can appreciate this current state, in many ways this panic is self-induced by our society. I have never understood the concept of investing for the future when the present isn't providing a joyful and fulfilling life.

An unhappy and unfulfilling life is the current state for millions of Americans, and according to my research, this proves true for most people over forty when it comes to work.

The majority of people just wait out their work years, until the time when their investments are big enough for them to finally retire, so they can do something else. The problem with this strategy, as we've seen in the economic crisis of 2008 and 2009, is that life gets in the way.

Retirement no longer makes sense

Retirement is no longer an idea that makes sense. People are living longer, in many cases well into their eighties, and the idea of simply retiring twenty, or even thirty, years earlier no longer makes sense. We have the word "retire" thanks to the French, and it originally meant to "slow down" or "crawl under." That is the last thing people want to do in mid-life.

As I write this article, I am fifty-two years old, and I feel like I am thirty-two. I have more energy now than I did in my younger years, and I have many projects planned. The thought of stopping my work feels no different to me than the thought of dying. And this is exactly what happens to most people when they stop working. They grow old and bored quickly, which leads to a focus on the past, followed by death.

The idea I would like to present is that at mid-life, we should stop working at "just a job," and starting living an authentic life.

Vocational Passion

In 2001, I trademarked the term "vocational passion." What I mean by vocational passion is to live your vocation doing work that aligns with your abilities and interests.

Vocation is work that is joyful, coherent with your integrity, and that provides meaning to your life. Vocation is work that never stops until you stop breathing.

Your best long term investment is to do work that fits you "just right." You can begin to take charge of your life and your work now, and stop waiting for Someday to come.

What can we learn from others who traveled this road of an authentic life?

When you have faith in yourself and others, magical things can happen in your life, despite the odds!

It is easy to become overwhelmed when life's challenges hit after forty. Many times life can suddenly feel like a game that is just too difficult to play.

Suddenly everything a person has come to define as success seems to crumble. This happens to many people. It can feel so overwhelming; some people decide to give up. The problem with this strategy is that there is no one who will come to the rescue. It takes a new strategy, one that may go against society's expectations of success or what you have been taught.

It is only when redefining what success after forty really means, and learning new ways of measuring success, that your authentic life filled with purpose can emerge.

It will not come all at once, but in pieces. One day you feel a little lighter on your feet, the next day new ideas emerge, and suddenly you realize your life is in your control and determined by your feelings, actions, and your desired direction.

Taking the time to reflect deeply about your needs and desires after forty is not only important for finding purpose, it is mandatory.

With a new sense of purpose you can start to lead a life that allows you to give back. You learn that you really do control more of your life than you are led to believe. Only then will your natural gifts and talents start to emerge, and your life will never be the same.

Life will be richer and deeper, and you will live it with more awareness.

Make a decision and action

Once you figure out what is most important to you, it takes a decision and action to move towards doing more of what you love in your vocational life. This can be challenging if you have fallen into a pattern of doing what you have always been good at.

After forty it is much better to follow a path of your passions and interests, and learn as you go, rather than continue down a road of doing work you are no longer interested in.

Take small steps

A new vocational path takes small steps. These steps can start from a simple new idea. This idea only comes from deep thought and the realization that what you are doing is no longer working. In fact, a deeper self-awareness brings new insight that your life doesn't fit anymore. As with those six year-old jeans still hanging in the closet, you need to make an effort to throw away the old. Only after the old is discarded do new possibilities emerge.

After forty, it is important to examine your abilities and interests, and focus where the alignment is just perfect. This can bring fulfillment, joy, and meaning back to your life.

Again, this must be a solo exercise; you must be free of external views and opinions.

Trial and error

Sometimes it takes trial and error before your life starts to work just right. Be patient with yourself while starting down the road to insight and self-discovery. With each new step, small pieces of evidence will emerge that this new life built around what you prize can actually work.

After forty, it is mandatory to be selfish about your life and work. Only then can a life of integrity and authenticity emerge.

I’ll be cheering you on as you go - Craig Nathanson

Craig Nathanson is the author of "Don't JUST retire and die: A new approach to your life and work after 40" and he is a coaching expert who works with people over forty.

Visit Craig’s online community at http://www.thevocationalcoach.com where you can take a class, get more ideas through Craig Nathanson’s books and CD’s, get some private coaching over the phone or in Craig’s office, or read other stories of mid-life change and renewal.

Craig lives and works in Petaluma, California. His office is located at 921 Transport Way, Suite 3, Petaluma Ca, 94954. You can reach him at 707-775-4020 or at craig@thevocationalcoach.com.