Week 10 - 49 years 2 months 1 week

Happy Monday!

Here we are at part 3 of this 3 part series. For now this will be the last installment of “Lessons for My Kids”. It has been fun, but I have a lot of other things I want to talk about pertaining to The Edge of 50. After all, we are much more than just mothers and caretakers. We are whole entire women, and we have shit to do that has very little, if anything, to do with our kids. So let’s get on with it, shall we?

11. Don’t take advice from people who don’t have what you want. Despite their good intentions, people who are telling you what you should do but don’t have what you want can fuck off. If that sounds a bit harsh, good. I feel strongly about this. 

I remember driving with my daughter one day, and she was stressed because someone she respects told her what she “should be doing” regarding the stress in her life. I asked her, “Does So and So live the kind of life you want for yourself?” I knew the answer was No. That person lived with chronic stress and worry, a lot of pessimism, and a pretty significant victim mentality. And yet, this was a person my daughter loved, as well as respected for the myriad other wonderful qualities that they posses. 

I asked her why, if So and So’s current stress game isn’t what she aspires to, is she taking advice from them on how to manage stress. She paused for a moment and said, “I don’t know”

Just because someone is worthy of your respect, kindness, even love, doesn’t mean that you have to take advice from them. I mean, think about it. If you’re going to listen to anyone outside of your own intuition, it better be someone who has accomplished what you want to accomplish in a way that you want to accomplish it. 

You may want to be wealthy, and your cousin Sal may be wealthy. But if he got his wealth from selling sneakers that “fell off the truck”, and that goes against your morals and values, maybe don’t take his advice about how to make money. 

I have listened to dozens of coaches with thriving businesses talk about how hard they hustle and how many hours they work in order to keep their businesses going. And while I definitely want my business to thrive, I do not want to hustle and grind, and work more hours than I enjoy. I will not be  following their advice on how to grow and run my business. Instead, I have intentionally sought out women who are running thriving businesses and enjoying plenty of down time as my role models.

If they don’t have what you want how you want it, they don’t have good advice for you. You can listen to them ramble on about what you “should” be doing if you want to, but don’t take it to heart. And for the love of beach days, don’t allow yourself to feel stressed or not good enough because you don’t want to do things their way. 

You have your own guidance system for a reason. Use it!

12. Surround yourself with people who are further along than you. If you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room, as they say. The company you keep has a much bigger impact on you than you might think. 

It’s absolutely exhausting to be surrounded by derelicts all the time. My best friend and I had this conversation recently. She had had a particularly difficult week, and was commenting about how good it was to have recently been around members of her family that were deeply invested in and committed to having a positive impact on the world. This is in stark contrast to the population of people she is often surrounded by at work. 

My best friend has an incredibly challenging job. There are sincerely very few people in the world who can do what she does, as well as she does it. And she does it with grace and dignity and poise. Most impressively, she does it without letting the bitterness of the people around her sour her zest for life. She has tough days, of course, but she is still the same lively, shining, bubbly, beautiful person she was when we met 44 years ago. 

How can she do this, you ask? Great question… I don’t know for sure how she’d answer it, but I’m going to submit that it has a lot to do with the incredible family and friends she is surrounded by outside of work. She has one of the most supportive, loving families I’ve ever known. And while not everyone has a family like hers, it’s important to find someone in your life who IS that supportive and loving, even if it’s not your family.

You need to be around like minded people on a regular basis to help keep you focused on your vision. To help pick you up when you fall. To remind you who the fuck you are when you question everything about the person looking back at you in the mirror. 

You need to be around people who can relate to your dreams and support them, even if they don’t fully understand them. It’s so easy to let the naysayers get the last word when your dreams and aspirations include things they don’t believe are possible. So make sure that the people around you are dreaming dreams at least as big as yours, if not bigger. 

The people you surround yourself with can also be a helpful reflection of where you are. Your vibe attracts your tribe; cliche but true. Let the people around you give you a reason to reflect and gain awareness about what you’ve really got going on in terms of mindset. 

If the people around you spend most of their time complaining and feeling sorry for themselves, you may want to get some new people. Or at least one new person to counterbalance the pity party with some positivity. 

Don’t underestimate the power of the people around you. For better or worse, you are heading in the same direction as them.

13. You only need 51% belief to get the momentum started. I feel like I talk a lot about Doubt vs Belief, and how your belief needs to be stronger than your doubt in order to realize your dreams and desires. And this is definitely true. That said, I often see people give up and walk away or never start in the first place because their doubt feels much stronger than their belief. 

This is a huge misstep because you don’t have to have absolute belief in what you’re doing in order to begin. In fact, you won’t completely believe in your abilities until after you’ve accomplished the thing. And even then you may question whether or not it was a fluke!

Beliefs are like waves; they gain momentum and power the longer they are able to travel uninterrupted. You only need slightly more belief in the possibility of what you want than you have doubt. If you doubt yourself 49%, but you believe in yourself 51%, you can take that 51% belief, allow it to flow uninterrupted and it will gain power and momentum. Eventually it will become 65% belief, and then 79% and maybe even 98%. 

This works both ways, though. If you have 49% doubt and 51% brief, and you allow the doubt to flow uninterrupted, it will build power and momentum. Mind your thoughts and beliefs, and trust that the ones you focus on are the ones that will come to fruition. 

14. Staying positive doesn’t mean ignoring the shit pile that you just fell into, face first. It’s not a zero sum game. You can focus on the positive aspects of challenging situations without ignoring or denying the shit. I think when people are so adamant about toxic positivity and spiritual bypassing, it has more to do with their own attachment to their limits and victim stories than anything having to do with positivity. 

At the most basic level, one can find positivity in the fact that when they fall face first into a shit pile, they are now acutely aware of just how much they do not want to fall into a shit pile again. You can call it a negative aspect, but I think knowing for sure what you don’t want is as helpful as knowing what you do want. 

Maybe you want to say to me now, “Katie, I don’t need to fall into shit to know I don’t want to be there.” And yes, that’s true. I agree. But if you’ve already fallen into the shit, you can’t go back and un-fall. You are where you are. You can, however, use the opportunity to increase your awareness about whether or not it’s the smell or the squishy texture or the warm temperature that you’re most opposed to. That could be useful information moving forward. You’re definitely going to fall in shit again, eventually. Wouldn’t it be preferable to fall into the less shitty shit?

The fact of the matter is, once you’re in a challenging or difficult situation, you’re there. Somehow, some way, for some reason you created that situation for yourself. Probably not intentionally, but you did nonetheless. So why not allow yourself to benefit from the opportunity that exists in the mess, by looking for the positive aspect?

You don’t have to pretend you love it. You don’t have to pretend you’re happy about it. It’s quite appropriate and honest to say, “I hate this situation but I’m not going to let my suffering or displeasure be in vain. I’m going to find an opportunity or insight that I can use.” 

Life is a series of ebbs and flows. High tides and low tides. Rough seas and gentle breezes. Hurricanes and beach days. It will never be different. There will never be a time when challenges no longer present themselves. Actually, that might happen when we’re dead, but in this life there won’t be. 

Challenges are always opportunities to grow. Just how challenging they are depends on how willing we are to find the nuggets of opportunity. The longer we resist finding the treasure in the challenge, the more challenging it feels. 

We are not meant to sail through life without ever facing adversity. Franklin D. Roosevelt said “A smooth sea never made a skilled sailor,” because it’s in the challenges that the true opportunities for growth and expansion, and ultimately the greatest joys, lie. And fortunately for us, we always get to choose how we respond to those challenges. Complaining and feeling sorry for yourself is a choice. So is staying open to the positive aspects and the opportunities. If you ask me, positivity makes all the sense.

15. There’s a huge difference between Blame and Responsibility. Make sure you understand it. Let me tell you upfront that this particular lesson is going to be short. The reason being that in 2 weeks my entire blog post is about exactly this topic. I love talking about the difference between taking responsibility and blaming. When you get it, it’s a total game changer. So this is a bit of a teaser, and there will be more to come. 

So what is the difference between blame and responsibility, and why does it matter? 

In a word, Acceptance. Acceptance is the simple difference between blame and responsibility. When you accept a situation as it is, you open the path to take responsibility for what will become of it. When you are having a hard time accepting the situation as it is, you will find yourself looking for who is to blame. Who’s fault it is. 

Who did it? Why did they do it? What could they have done to prevent it? Why did they do it to you? All of these questions live in the past. They are all inquiries into something that has happened, is over, and can’t be changed retroactively. As such, they are also all questions that keep us stuck in the past and in the problem. They do not open any paths to direct what will happen moving forward.

I think without realizing it, we keep ourselves stuck in the problem because we think it’s so important to figure out who’s fault it is. But it’s not. Who the fuck cares who did it, or why they did it? It’s fucking done, and placing blame will not undo it. 

Instead, we could take responsibility for what happens next. If the goal is to move forward, then the first step is to acknowledge and accept where we are right now and figure out what’s next. Figuring out who’s to blame is nothing more than an excuse not to move forward. 

I do understand that sometimes knowing what went wrong helps to prevent the same mistakes in the future. But let’s be honest, when most of us are figuring out who to blame it's not for the sake of prevention. It’s to be able to point fingers and be right. And being right, will not move us forward either. So, when we can accept the situation as it is, and stop worrying about who to blame, we can begin to formulate what’s next.

It’s kind of like using the GPS in your car. The GPS has to identify where you are in order to give you directions to where you want to go. It doesn’t matter who drove the car to where it is. Who cares? That won’t help the satellite figure out how to get you where you want to go. 

Leave the blame alone. It’s a waste of energy. Focus forward. Focus on where you’re going. Allow yourself to accept where you are, so you can figure out what’s next. 

Blessings & beach days forever,

Katie