Break Free from the Mid-Life Crisis: Why It’s needed & How Men Can Reclaim Their Purpose
Life for men should be straightforward. we’re told to get a job, work hard, climb the ranks, and have fun by playing sport, and seeing friends. In our late 20s or 30s we get married, have children and life seems to be going well. but then suddenly we start feeling lousy, life feels like a trap and life becomes very unenjoyable.
Today I’m going to explore this trap of the mid-life crisis. I’m going to explore why it happens why solutions like; going out partying; getting promoted or changing job just don’t seem to work. I’ll reflect upon my experiences, and I’ll give some actionable solutions how to start makes sense of what’s happening to you to get yourself through this difficult part of life.
1. You’re on the hamster wheel
Life can feel like you’re stuck on a hamster wheel chasing money. You don’t remember getting on, but it feels increasingly exhausting. You know you need the money to keep your life going and support those around you, but you’re left with a deep sense unease. You may ask yourself ‘Is this it?’ ‘Is this what life is?’
One of the problems with chasing money is you trade your time for it. You start to work more and then drop other things which keep you healthy; exercising having fun; and seeing friends all go out the window. As a consequence you start to feel anxious, depressed, even suicidal. You’re not on your own; there are millions of men out there who are feeling the same as you.
2. Just ‘man up’ – life is hard. Work harder. Stop whinging.
Men often feel trapped in this situation, so try to escape. You might change company, going work for a competitor whom they pay you more. Or you might get a promotion or do a qualification. You might even try to rekindle your teenager years through drinking, taking drugs and having affairs. The issue is that you’re not dealing with the problem. In fact, you don’t even know what the problem is. Let’s look at the reasons why.
As a man you’re brought up with the male code around you. Don’t express emotion, just getting on with life. Unfortunately, this means you don’t understand yourself and therefore don’t understand what you need or what you want for a happy life.
Also, because of this stigma, men keep their fears and worries inside and don’t express them. This leads to a bottling up which can come out as anger or go inward as self-criticism. Both approaches is stop you from moving forward with your life in a healthy way.
Thirdly, all the messages around us tell us we need a quick fix for our problems, drink, drugs, the new car, a new phone, a new house, new wife, new everything. Sure these things make us feel better for a few seconds perhaps, by temporarily distracting from our deeper pains. We must acknowledge there is no quick fix for us to drop this habit.
Fourthly. a lot of men they are trapped by their finances. As they’ve earned more, they’ve spent more, things can feel out of control, and you can feel trapped as a result.
Finally because we’re told just to get on with things, we don’t learn the skills of stopping and reflecting. A better life is possible with these skills, but to stop, reflect and experiment, to try and find our way through our problems is often really new approach for men.
3. Burnout time
I’ve talked previously about my experiences of burnout. Looking back, one of the things that started that process was my desire to be a stand-up comedian. I did a course and several gigs followed that went well. Stand up comedy is an alcohol fuelled late night existence, and I was trying to combine it with being a GP partner, a university teacher, a dad, a husband as well as multiple other commitments. As I didn’t understand myself, and I didn’t understand my thoughts, or the messages of my body, everything coming crashing down.
4. Find your purpose, find yourself
I recognise that a lot of men struggle with this bit of their life like I did. I also know that men want to take time to try and understand themselves better but haven’t yet found a way or trying to explore the issues with the time and depth that they need.
With this in mind I’ve created my new online course: The Purpose Project – Redefining Midlife for Men. It’s a self-paced video course with actionable exercises for encourage you to look more in depth at your life, help you understand your mid-life, and start to take those first steps to move forwards to a better place.
Feedback so far has been encouraging from the men who have done it so far. It’s just finishing the beta testing phase, and I hope to release it very soon. Please sign up here if you would like to have free access to the course.
If you’d like to hear me talk more about these issues, I recently did a conversation on the Middle Man Podcast – take a listen https://linktr.ee/middlemanpodcast
Of, feel free to book in you want to have a free conversation with me to Master you Mind.
Until next week
Best wishes
Ed