Embracing Ourselves at Fifty

Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night jolted by the fact that I am now 50 years old. For a brief moment, I think it’s all just a big mistake, a cosmic joke, and that I am really still only 35.

I seem to be able to see my former selves so clearly at 3am…there I am at 22, rushing towards my first job, at 30, clueless and having my first child, and at 45, stumbling into midlife. I begin to wonder if I’ve wasted years, lost opportunities, missed beauty, missed the point, and I almost move into panic when an unexpected calm arrives and I suddenly know for certain that it’s all been grist for the mill, it’s all really been about growth.

My own growth is what I take with me into these golden years, it is the constant that I get to keep as time passes and youth fades. In the middle of the night, it becomes clear that I was right where I needed to be at each decade. I needed to be driven in my twenties to know how to relax at 50, to be surprised by the challenges of motherhood in my thirties, so that I could rise to the occasion and meet them, to wrestle with midlife so that I could learn to let go of one stage of life and enter another.

It’s so easy, here at middle age, to begin to pine for our youth, to have regrets, to think we missed the mark, to beat up on our younger selves.  While there is loss, and necessary grief for things past, maybe something bigger is also going on… maybe life is always moving us towards something and aging is that movement along a giant learning curve.

Maybe we get to learn compassion for those younger selves who were doing the best that they could and bringing us to where we are right now. Maybe 50 is a grand culmination of all of those selves who fought so hard to get here. And maybe I can wake up in the middle of the night with relief that I have made it to 50 and am not 35 anymore.

Written by Amy Ruhlin

Excuses Expose Your Lack of Self-Confidence

Like many, I’m not a fan of, and I have little patience for, excuses.  A person who is full of excuses or always ready to give an excuse is clearly someone in my opinion who lacks self-confidence.  Confident people don’t make excuses – they take on the responsibility and hold themselves accountable.

So, what are excuses? Two most common types of excuses are the excuses we tell ourselves and excuses we tell other people.  Excuses are sometimes flat out lies, at times a twist on the truth and other times, a series of justification that logically explain why something did or did not happen or get done.

Why do we tell excuses?  We tell excuses because we want to avoid the truth.  We tell excuses to make ourselves feel better.  We tell excuses because we want to protect ourselves and avoid unpleasant circumstances. We tell ourselves, we tell excuses to protect other people when in reality – all excuses are a means of self-preservation. We tell excuses because we are weak of character and lack self-confidence and the ability to take accountability for our actions and inactions.

What’s real pathetic about excuses is that people who can’t stand them, more often than not –  are guilty of telling them.

Excuses We Tell Ourselves

Common excuses we tell ourselves normally fall into these areas: I don’t have enough time, I don’t have enough money, I don’t know how, it won’t matter anyway…etc. All of these types of excuses are rooted in not believing in yourself, or your abilities to create change, learn, have an impact or make a difference. A clear lack of self-confidence because as I constantly preach; confident people BELIEVE in themselves and their POTENTIAL. What you can’t do now has nothing to do with what you can do later if you believe you can and put in the hard work to achieve it.

I don’t know how becomes – I know I can learn because it’s truly important to me.

I don’t have enough time becomes – I will make the time because I know this is important and needs to be a priority.

I don’t have enough money becomes – I will figure out a way, make the money, borrow it…find it somehow or I’ll get creative and find another way.

It won’t matter becomes – Even if it doesn’t matter, it mattered to me and I will have given it my best.

If your internal dialogue is full of excuses, start building your self-confidence and those excuses will start going away.

Excuses We Tell Others

Poor, poor me, I’m full of excuses – feel bad for me, pity me. YUCK! Want respect – stop with the excuses. Got a justification why something isn’t done.  Please say so, but at the beginning of it all – take accountability for why it isn’t done.  Things out of our control happen but they should never be used to make excuses. “I’m sorry I didn’t finish the project. It’s fully my fault; I got interrupted by a fire burning down my house”. Not an excuse. Quite a good justification and the person you said that too will understand.

Don’t make excuses for your short comings. Bring light to them so you can start facing them and working on them. You start making excuses, much like lies (since they are probably lies) – it will take more excuses to cover them up. People aren’t perfect so we don’t need to make excuses for our imperfections – we need to deal with them head on.

Confident people know they aren’t perfect.  They aren’t afraid to let their weaknesses show. Our weaknesses can become our greatest strength. They certainly serve as our greatest teachers.

Use your excuses to learn about yourself. Listen to the excuses you tell yourself and you tell others. Get to the root of what those excuses are about, learn, grow and implement change.

Written byAnn Bernard