It’s The Life In Your Years
Stories, anecdotes: mine, yours, theirs
Stories, anecdotes: mine, yours, theirs
I’m not hanging around here much these days – hopefully you’ve noticed!
After I turned 60 I faltered.
It was like… Crap! What the hell is going on? I woke up that day with a complete and overwhelming feeling of doom.
I guess it’s the “big” ones that do the most damage to most people’s psyches… but I had always breezed through birthdays. In fact, I remain, to this day, immensely proud of the fact that the police raided my 50th birthday! (Not as exciting as it might sound – some neighbour decided that Barry White crooning at 9:45 p.m. was over the top!)
I woke up on my 60th birthday with the illuminating awareness that I now had less time moving forward than I had behind me. **Yes, even at 50 – I come from a long line of long livers – I felt I still had half my life left to live!
But at 60 I felt that I’d pissed away so many years, farting around, convincing myself I’d get there… wherever “there” might be…
My business ideas went flat, my motivation died.
Don’t get me wrong. I got out of bed, I continued to show up in my business, I kept moving the mouse around the monitor and my fingers around the keyboard. I was treading water, but that’s about all. I now know it’s called busy-work.
I am nothing if not a survivor, however… and I was determined it was a slump and I could ride the storm as long as I had some help.
I called on all the motivators who had helped me develop my business: Brendon Burchard, Les Brown, Tony Robbins, Vishen Lakhiani (yes, I am well aware that most of the motivators in this online space are men!) – I read their books and I watched their videos… they were sort of my lifeline to the world I wanted but had lost my footing on the path to.
I took up habits I had never tried before: I meditated, I scheduled, I posted affirmations on my walls, I accounted for my time and my wins, I journaled anything that looked like a success in my day. I posted positivity memes on Facebook daily.
And finally I felt myself coming out of my slump. The words of my motivators were becoming louder than the voices in my head. I started getting a response that was positive. I started hearing from other people who had had the exact same 60th birthday experience.
It was a relief to realize I wasn’t alone in my plight.
My path was set. My light had come on. I found my mission.
I couldn’t coach mid-life women to create something positive for themselves if they were in the doldrums. If they had settled for their lot in life, for their incomplete lot in life… if they had decided there was not enough time left to make their mark, to realize their dreams… then they wouldn’t care what I might be able to teach them about an online business.
I went back to my motivators. The other habit I didn’t mention was the fact that I read books with a highlighter in my hand. They’re my books and if something moves me, strikes a chord within me, then I highlight it.
I spent days and nights reviewing my highlights. I made notes and wrote down ideas, and I began to believe that my greatest work was not only still in my future, but also it would be a work greater than any of my earlier dreams, and that my 60s were the perfect (read obvious!) years to create it and bring it to you.
And now let’s talk about you.
Have you accomplished even a few of the hopes and dreams you had as a young woman?
Have you had the career of choice? If yes, was it the success you hoped for?
What else was in your high school yearbook?
∞ Did you travel?
∞ Did you marry the person of your dreams? Was it what you planned?
∞ Did you make a difference in someone’s life?
∞ Did you create something?
∞ Did you accomplish something?
My plan here is not to depress you! I want you to remember the high hopes you had way back when. AND, to the contrary of depressing you, I want to reignite that passion you had for your future!
Sure! Some people have the “perfect” life! Or appear to.
But most of us get caught up in the day-to-day reality of paying the rent, feeding the family, getting our asses out of bed each day… and this status quo that we never thought would happen to us becomes our life.
That’s okay! It’s the status quo for a reason! It is the reality, the life, of the majority!
I’m here, however, to tell you that it doesn’t have to be your life for the rest of your life!
If you have age-60 in the crosshairs, or even in the rear view… then this is the perfect time to recreate your life. You have a truckload of experiences to draw from that will help you decide what will be your desired route going forward!
Maybe you can’t see it yet. That was my reality! at first!
I had to spend months just treading water, clinging to motivational voices and words that seemed like my only lifeline. I spent hours listening to videos, reading and rereading books. And finally… remember what I said? The words of my motivators became louder than the voices in my head!
That’s what I will be for you! I am here to be your motivator, I have the necessary tools. All those theories, concepts, inspirations that I spent months researching, learning, collating and organizing are available for you here. I’ve done the heavy lifting. I’ve done the testing.
And you won’t be going it alone! You’ll have me on your personal team for 6 straight weeks! You’ll be part of a small group of equally determined and inspired women who share your dream of reconnecting with their conscious life, becoming vital again, being dynamic again, having passion for life again.
Sass & Savvy is designed for women on either side of 60. Women who can’t imagine the next 20 years being a repeat of the last 20 years. Women who won’t give in to their history, who know they still have a spark, a mission, a message for someone else the world!
Sass & Savvy has the tools to carry you forward for a full 365 days. It comes with a lifetime membership to an amazing community. It is your GPS to Growth, Passion {or Purpose} and Success {read: Satisfaction}.
All you need to do is show up, do the work, take charge.
Click the picture below and come check out my new home!
These days we talk a lot about “being open to the universe”.
Last year when I decided to put my house on the market, I decided I was going to be open to the universe. Not much changed in my life last year.
I started this year with an impulse offer to an acquaintance. It worked out. In the last six months it seems one thing has led to another and there is currently every possibility that my life will be totally different – a complete redesign – by the end of the year.
What was the difference?
I now firmly believe there is a distinct difference between saying “I am going to be open to the universe.” which has a suggestion of a future action… and just saying “Yes!” to universe.
I just got back from a trip to Spain, where my daughter got married, and my motto there was “Just say Yes”. I ate things I wouldn’t never normally eat, I saw things I would never normally see, I met people I would never normally meet.
(As I write this I’m thinking I need to dump that word “normal”!)
I realize now that to have the trust to say Yes! is what it means to “be open to the universe”. When you make plans to be open, you are not really fully open.
I won’t know for another week if I will be redesigning my life imminently or not, but the unfolding of the last six months has shown me the possibilities. On a go-forward basis, my choices will be different. It’s quite exciting!
Stay tuned for my recent insight on “bucket lists” – it’s not a term I completely align with, but you get the idea.
I’m in Madrid!
According to my laptop it’s 9:00 p.m.
According to my iPhone it’s 6:00 a.m.
I arrived yesterday after 24 hours of flying and hanging out in airports. Last night was a huge reunion dinner. At this moment my body is just kinda confused.
Despite the very long day and the evening of camaraderie and sangria, I woke up at 4 a.m. local time, wide awake and feeling great.
I felt like a glass of the beautiful red Spanish wine sitting on the counter of our downtown hotel, but of course the logical person in me wondered what time the café across the street would be open for an espresso.
I lay there going through several of the relaxation tapes I have committed to memory, tried unsuccessfully to meditate myself back to sleep, the operative word in both cases is “unsuccessful”.
I’m sharing the suite with my daughter and her family so I did need to be considerate…
That is why I am curled up in a corner of a beautiful recliner sofa, dim lamp glowing over my left shoulder, laptop on my lap (imagine that!) sitting red wine.
I decided logic was indeed the best course! No point in lying abed wide awake. If I look at my laptop, a glass of wine is indeed in order. If I look at my iPhone, no one would raise an eye if I had a Mimosa – nix the Mimosa, hello wine!
With age does indeed come wisdom!!
Pre-Rees are people who know they want to, need to, or should retire, and have started at least thinking about what that life would look like!
Are you a Pre-Ree?
Instead of the usual Vision Board I have created a Retirement Dream Catcher.
Click the link below to claim yours:
http://agnesknowles.ca/retirementdreamcatcher/
There are many advantages to having a home based business.
In this video I explain one of the very best reasons I have!!! and if this teachers’ strike continues, I may get to do this again in September!
It really is Win / Win in my book!!
What your life would look like if you were own Boss! What would be top on your list of benefits?
Sometimes in our lives, things get busy, or “stuff” just happens… we sort of lose track of different aspects.
This hit home for me this week as I decided to do a major clean-up of my fun rides. I have allowed circumstances to dictate certain parts of my life that I loved! I didn’t realize how much I missed the Agnes who loved her fun rides!
Learn from my mistake!
My posts this week have been pretty depressing.
I sort of apologize but I sort of don’t – it’s information you need, and you need to know it before you get too close to retirement.
I want to end the week with something lighter. This is a fun video I made some time ago about my retirement dreams.
I hope you enjoy it, and I especially hope you leave a message below and tell me a little about your retirement dreams.
I have been writing a letter tonight.
It has taken some time as I needed to look back at almost 25 years of friendship and pull out just a few highlights.
On Christmas Eve, my friends celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary. It is the same day he celebrates his 60th birthday. I can’t attend the celebrations as I live just far enough away now to make travel that close to Christmas too hard to orchestrate.
We met 24 years and 8 months ago – they bought our old house and on possession day he walked in the back door to check out their new house just as I was cleaning my way down the back stairs. 24 years and 8 months later he still does not let me forget his first view of their first home!
For my friends, it has been a busy 25 years: 2 beautiful daughters, a successful business, a vacation home, several rentals, a number of great trips – neither one of them were afraid of hard work or getting their hands dirty and they have the successes that come with focus, dedication and a plan.
As I look back over my own last 25 years, I can see quite clearly where I might have made better choices that would have afforded me a few more luxuries, or gotten me ahead in one area or another. The bottom line, however, is that I didn’t. As my mother would have said “it’s water under the bridge” and “there’s no point in crying over spilt milk”.
It is a fact we’re not able to change the past (and in all honesty I’m not sure I would – my history makes me who I am today and I’m ok with that). The ace I hold, however, is that I do have a plan on a go-forward basis. I have been developing this plan for two years now and I have great expectations about the next two years. 10 years from now I’m gonna be rockin’ it!! It’s a great combination of learning, fun, friendships, and ever-increasing income! I can see so many positives in my future and I am loving the life I’m creating! My retirement is going to be designed by me! and earned by me!!
How about you?
Are you on the path to the retirement you want?
Could you have made some different choices in the last 25 – 30 years and be ahead of where you are now?
Don’t worry about it! It’s done!
You can start thinking about your future though. You can make a plan; you can implement that plan; you can design your retirement and then go out and make it happen.
Life always moves ahead. Your future is always in front of you.
One week after my friends celebrate 25 successful years, it’s New Year’s Eve. Tradition suggests you make a resolution for yourself for the coming year.
Can you make a resolution to move toward a happier, more comfortable retirement? Will you make a resolution to research how to achieve that goal?
I’ll check my email on New Year’s Day and I hope I see something from you: agnes@agnesknowles.ca
In the meantime, have a lovely, peaceful season secure in the knowledge a better future is only a decision away.
For almost one full month now, I have loaded a post to my site here daily.
Five days a week, I wrote an article about developing on-line, about my experiences that I hope will help you, I tried to encourage and, in the case of my TEDx series, they were “Ideas Worth Sharing”. I spent more time looking for the right pictures to go with my posts. Two days a week I created picture quotes using the inspiration of others in the hopes it would brighten your day or give you food for thought.
All of my work has been created by me, for you, my reader. On top of “Life”, it made for a few late nights, it made for extra reading so I could be inspired enough to hopefully inspire you, it made for some serious thought processing so I could keep it fresh each day.
Why, you might wonder, would I add that work load to an already busy schedule?
Because… like my picture quote for today says: “we grow by challenging ourselves.”
This was a challenge, not a competition. There are no losers. We set ourselves a challenge and hopefully we met it.
My challenge to myself was to post daily for 30 days. Some of my colleagues might have wanted to post 3x week, others would be happy to get one really good post up each week. I succeeded with my challenge, and I hope my colleagues succeeded in theirs.
The nature of a challenge is push yourself to do something more than you usually do. Sometimes a lot more!
When you do not meet your goal, while you may feel disappointment, you have not “lost” a race. You have learned what you are capable of at this point in time; you may have learned that Life sometimes rears her head and wants feeding NOW! you will definitely have learned what else you need to do to fulfill the next challenge.
You need to remember that this not a “race”. No matter how competitive you are, a challenge is personal. My blog is my business and only I can decide what might be of value. Well, me and requests from my readers. If I get 6 comments on a post and my colleague only gets two, does that mean I win that day? Absolutely not! because the value of a post to a reader is impossible to measure. Some will respond, others not. My content is mine to control, or change, or mix up. Part of my own personal challenge is seeing what does interest my readers, and stimulate thought or create feedback.
Do you challenge yourself? Whether it is for fun or if it will really tax you, do you accept challenges so you can expand some part of your life? Sometimes it takes imagination to succeed, sometimes it takes a lot of hard work, often it takes both.
I want to challenge you now.
I challenge you to decide what you really want your retirement to look like.
And I mean tangibles like an extra $2k a month going in to the bank account.
Or debt-free within 5 years so most of your retirement income goes toward your Life, not your maintenance.
How about selling up where you are and living comfortably in a warmer climate?
Or my favourite: affording my own comfortable lifestyle with enough extra to gather my children and grandchildren somewhere fun for an annual family vacation that will not stretch the finances of my family.
Write it down in bold letters and post it somewhere that you will see it and be reminded every day. Keep it private if you wish but I would love it if you shared a piece of your retirement vision in the comments below.
Have a fabulous weekend!