The midlife years have long been associated with the notion of a “midlife crisis,” a period marked by upheaval, uncertainty, disorientation. But midlife is also chock full of opportunities for growth, fulfillment, and positive change. Let’s consider some of the pathways to personal development, reinvention, and happiness during this life stage.
Rediscovering Passion and Purpose
Midlife offers a chance to reevaluate one’s passions, interests, and career goals. Many people find they have more free time as their children become independent or their careers stabilize. This can be an excellent opportunity to pursue those interests and passions that were previously put on hold, or explore entirely new interests. By embracing these passions, individuals can rediscover a sense of purpose and invigorate their lives.
Career Reinvention
Rather than succumbing to feelings of stagnation, midlife can be the ideal time for a career shift. The knowledge and experience accumulated over the years can be leveraged to explore new career avenues: e.g. start a business, transition to a different industry, become a mentor to others, provide consulting services for an industry. Embracing changes like these can excite and renew one’s sense of direction and purpose.
Personal Growth
Midlife is far from the end of personal growth — the personal growth that C. G. Jung called “individuation” or that Abraham Maslow called “self-actualization” is a life long engagement, growing increasingly rich with age. That process will be different for everyone, but frequently, the side of one’s personality that was firmed up in the first half of life will serve as the foundation for developing other attributes. It is not unusual for someone who was highly introverted in the first half of life to develop more extraverted interests in the second half.
Georgia O’Keefe was highly introverted and reclusive painter, but in the last years of her life, she became an adventurer, exploring the world with international travel. Alternatively, a highly extraverted individual may find the more introverted side intriguing. Winston Churchill is famously the bold, tenacious leader who saved the UK from occupation during WWII; yet he was also a passionate and talented painter, and wrote the four-volume History of the English Speaking People.
Midlife can be a time of heightened self-awareness and balance. Lifelong learning induces growth, reading, meeting new people, following new interests, paying attention to those urges and promptings from the inner life, paying attention to what draws your interest in the world. Life is swarming with clues from within and without about pathways to growth.
Health and Wellness
Midlife is a good opportunity to establish healthy habits, paying attention to the literature on health-sustaining practices — the habit of regular exercise, healthful diet, balanced living, mindfulness practices. This is an optimal phase of life to adopt healthier lifestyles. Regular exercise, healthy nutrition, and mindfulness practices improve physical well-being and contribute to mental and emotional wellness.
Relationships
Midlife is a good opportunity to strengthen existing relationships and forge new connections. With more time and a deeper understanding of oneself, people can cultivate more meaningful and fulfilling relationships with partners, family, friends and also new relationships with people who might have been outside of their circle of natural friendships in the first half. Individuation, as Carl Jung famously said, does not occur on Mount Everest. Relationships are a key component of the personal growth that is a preeminent purpose of life. We get clues from our admiration and connections with others about the personal growth that is seeking expression in our own lives.
Individuation not Individualism
Individuation, as Jung described it, is distinctly different from individualism. They sound the same but they are as different as a horse chestnut from a chestnut horse. Individuation — profound and robust personal growth, requires attending to the needs and values of others. Ultimately the value of our lives is in the value of our contribution to others. Individualism is self-centered attention to oneself — it can be highly egoistic and selfish, more of an insulating narcissistic inclination than a call to a full life. Individuation connects us with others, it engages the love for others that is a key pathway to growth. If we shut down that love, we are shutting out our spiritual connection to what is true, real, and good; we are losing our soul. And the ancient timeless question must be asked: “What does it profit us to gain the whole world if, in the process, we lose our soul?” The soul is eternal; the ego temporal.
Adventure and Exploration
Midlife doesn’t mean an end to adventure. Quite the opposite, it is the foundation for new adventure. It is a great time for exploration or travel — see new places, getting acquainted with different cultures. Or the exploration might be in adopting friendships with new people, and taking an interest in their interests. Or it may be the exploration of new books or films — novels, history, philosophy — each are opportunities for adventure and exploration, without leaving an armchair! Midlife can be a prime opportunity to step out of the comfort zones that have defined our lives, and in stepping out, life becomes richer and imbued with a new sense of adventure and exploration.
How is your midlife transition? Is it plagued with feelings of stagnation, turmoil, or discontent? These can be the clues that prompt you to move on to the midlife opportunities that will renew, fulfill, and fuel your personal growth — the adventure of a lifetime.
J G Johnston
Author of Jung’s Indispensable Compass
9/1/2023