Ep 63. Your Entire Life is Ahead of You

I am Kym Showers, and this is Reinvented After 40, episode number 63: Your Entire Life is Ahead of You.

Hey, friends. Welcome to Reinvented After 40, a podcast for all you women in the second half of life who are ready to take responsibility for your own wellbeing and create a life you love living.

I’m your host, Kym Showers, and after spending the first 40 years of my life people-pleasing and following all the rules, I was exhausted and ready for a change. I reinvented myself. I stopped outsourcing my happiness. And I’ve been brave enough to live a different kind of life.

I’ll be here each week to help you do the same thing. It’s going to be fun. Let’s go.

Well, hello everyone and happy Thanksgiving Day. This episode comes out on Thanksgiving 2022. I am so excited. I’m excited about everything. I’m excited about everything in my future. I hope you are too because my entire life is ahead of me, and your entire life is ahead of you. It’s such a helpful thought to think that it makes everything extremely exciting. If you’re me, this is way I like to think. I like to let go of thoughts that don’t serve me. And I like to add thoughts that do serve me, and this is one of them.

And I realized it this week when I was coaching, and I was coaching a client. And she said, “I have never heard anyone your age say my entire life is ahead of me.” And I thought, oh my gosh, it’s so important that we know this, that we say this, that we believe this. I think this is one of my most inspiring thoughts, my most motivating thoughts. So that’s what I wanted to remind you of today on this beautiful Thanksgiving Day. So I am just a lover of the holidays, I always have been, and I always will be.

My Christmas tree is up and ready to go. I think it’s the most beautiful Christmas tree I’ve ever had. I can’t get real Christmas trees because they just dry out too fast and especially they’re usually always next to my fireplace. And this fireplace that I have in this house is the biggest fireplace and probably the hottest fireplace I’ve ever had. So a real tree would just dry out super quick. So this year I went to Costco, and I bought a gigantic pre-lit Christmas tree. It even has, I love all the white lights, but it even has all the old fashioned colored lights.

And I like putting those on too, a little remote control just snaps on my lights first thing in the morning when I get up. So it is just festive here all day long every day from November through January. So happy thanksgiving, I definitely love thanksgiving and everything thanksgiving means. But I have always felt like Christmas just needs to come earlier so every year I just keep starting it earlier. And we celebrate thanksgiving and Christmas on Thanksgiving Day because they are kind of all the same.

So I hope that this day is your happiest day yet and you are totally enjoying it with the people that you love the most. I know that I will be. Family will be here and I’m just so excited about that. My brother and my brother-in-law are flying in from Germany for thanksgiving. I mean come on, they are so committed. I have the best family. I’m going to remind you of shortly, this is going to be a short and sweet little episode but it’s going to be very enthusiastic and very positive, extremely optimistic.

I listen to this podcast called A Bit of Optimism and I just love that title because I think this is what my podcast is absolutely a bit of optimism for you and for me. I kind of changed the way that I record it. I moved kind of my whole setup upstairs. And so I sit here at my table staring at the ocean now and just holding the mic and talking as if I’m talking to you. Because I used to record it downstairs. I have a bedroom downstairs, a good little setup downstairs but I can’t see the ocean very well. It felt like, I don’t know, the feng shui wasn’t optimal.

And I just have so much energy up here in this space. It’s my dining room/office. This is where I do all of my coaching during the week. And I love this space so much. It has so much great energy. My bedroom downstairs is so peaceful obviously because I sleep so well in that space. And then this space up here is totally different. I just have so much more energy up here. So I decided to start recording my podcasts up here. And I just look forward to it so much more. So I changed the circumstance and that has suited me well.

So I want to remind you of that too, if something’s getting old, change the circumstance and set yourself up in a different space. And you’ll find yourself enjoying it so much more like I do. I’m always trying new things. So my entire life is ahead of me and that’s what I used to think. That’s what all the grownups told me when I was in my teens and in my 20s, “Your entire life’s ahead of you. What are you going to do?” I had no idea what I was going to do. But I didn’t really need to know.

But when you get to your second half of life, for some reason the prominent sentence that everyone says our best years are behind us, most of our life is behind us. I don’t think those are useful thoughts, or useful sentences, or anything useful to tell each other. Let’s stop saying that. Let’s stop thinking that because our thoughts become things. We create our reality with the things that we’re thinking and the words that we’re speaking.

We create the house we live in. So if we want to live in an abundant, amazing, energetic, motivating house, beautiful home, expansive space we’ve got to know, everything we want is ahead of us. My entire life is ahead of me. It feels so good to think like that. I really do believe it. I’m only 61, you guys, I’m already 61, it went so fast.

We were talking, in some of my groups this week we were talking about how life just sneaks up on us because everybody that I coach, most everybody that I coach, 90% of the women that I coach are in the second half of life, 40 or beyond. And this is this podcast, Reinvented After 40, reinventing ourselves, reinventing our mind, reinventing our mindset, the things that we believe. Everything can change for the better when we’re in the second half of life if we intentionally decide to.

So I intend to live for sure another 40 years. I for sure have set my sights on being 101 years old because I know it’s possible, because everything is possible for me. I’m treating myself in such a way that I will live another 40 years. And I want you to start thinking that way too so that you can start creating whatever you want. 40 years is a long time, that means that every decade we can completely reinvent ourselves and create something completely new.

Reaching not only our dreams and our goals right now that we have in our mind that we’ve been just swirling around in our mind, maybe your entire life you’ve been having these same dreams that you haven’t really taken action on. I want to be the one that motivates you to take action on your dreams. It is not too late, and you are not too old. Your entire life is ahead of you, and you have every single thing you need inside of you to create whatever you want. And that just is super exciting to me, and I hope it is for you too. It was for my clients this week.

So it just shifts our brain a little bit. So I don’t think I’ve told you this because I don’t really talk about my clients, but I think this is worth talking about for this episode. So when I first started coaching a few years ago I coached men as well as women. I coached couples and then just some kind of random men that had women in their life had recommended me as a life coach to them. And it was super fun coaching men. Men are really good to coach because they’re very for the most part non-emotional.

So they get the model. They get that our thoughts create our feelings, that our circumstances don’t. So this gentleman in particular was super great to coach and I really enjoyed, I think it was back when I just did eight week sessions. And he made great progress, and he was an amazing client. Well, I hadn’t heard from him in all these years. But a few months ago he reached out to me via text and just said how much coaching had helped him during a time in his life when he needed, it was a transitional time in his life, he needed coaching.

And he had never been coached before, but he said, “Coaching helped me so much.” And he said, “I have a 17 year old daughter and she is interested in having a life coach. She is really wanting to grow her self-confidence. She’s going to be going away to college next year and she’s a senior in high school this year.” And normally I don’t coach young women. But after he and I talked about it a little bit, I was like, “You know what, if she’s all in then I’m all in.” And you guys, I am so glad I said yes to this client. Oh my goodness, she has made so much progress. She’s so coachable.

And she went from someone, I mean honestly, every week it was like talking to a different person. It’s just like something opened up in her and she just kept showing up every week. She shows up exactly on time. She does all of her homework every week. And she’s so enthusiastic about this process of growing not only her self-confidence but her self-concept, the way that she thinks and feels about herself, the way that she shows up every day to her life.

She wanted to easily be able to make new friends and to not be shy in groups, and not let her fear stop her from creating the social life that she really wanted and to set herself up to go away to college next year. And to be able to show up in a way that she’s so proud of being her. And she has are these people telling her, her whole life’s ahead of her. And of course, her whole life is ahead of her, and she has gotten such a jumpstart on it by saying yes to life coaching and by showing up every week and working on what she really wants to get better at.

So I gave her this homework, she’s working on a 100 qualities about herself that she loves and being able to show up on her sessions and tell me what they are confidently. Being able to explain herself, and confidently to me and to the world, but mostly to herself, know who she is and own who she is. And then keep remembering her qualities that she loves. That’s how we do it. That’s what growing our self-concept is, knowing who we are, stepping into our future self, the one who has accomplished everything, how confident she is.

We just show up as her now by acknowledging what we love about ourself, what our qualities are. Women in the second half of life are bad at this. We do not have a lot of practice at this. That’s why that was our first order of business with this beautiful now very confident 17 year old young woman who has her entire life ahead of her. So I’m just borrowing that thought from her. You guys, listen to me, you have your entire life ahead of you.

You start practicing all the beautiful qualities about yourself that you admire, that you appreciate, that you love and then step into all of those qualities and own them and show them off to the world. You will attract all the best people, all the best circumstances, all your dream life to you. That’s what I have done but you have to own who you are and then start getting to work practicing your best possible self because you have everything in front of you.

I want you to borrow that belief and start thinking like that, and feeling like that, and showing up that way. That’s the practice. That’s your homework for this week. I want you to know for sure that you have your entire life ahead of you. So stop hesitating on the things that you really want, go for them. Take a chance, don’t let fear hold you back. Don’t let any kind of scarcity hold you back. Don’t let being afraid of anyone’s judgment hold you back. None of that is worthy of your higher self, and your best self, and your dream life for the next 40 years if you’re like me.

Come along with me. You know what? I’m probably going to be the first 100 year old life coach. I’m going to still be coaching until I die, I will be coaching, I will be a little bit of optimism in your ear every single week until the day I die I promise you, I love it so much. I love sitting here staring at the ocean and talking to you about everything that’s possible for us in the second half of life. And so if you know someone, I am just dying to meet women who are older than me.

I’m 61 and I’d love to meet women in their 60s, and in their 70s, and in their 80s who have this optimistic view of life and who are doing big things in the world and who love their own style and love their best self, love their relationships, love who they’re being in their relationships.

Okay, that’s one more thing I want to tell you before I let you go on this Thanksgiving Day. I probably should have talked to you about this last week before, but you still have Christmas ahead of you to practice. So whoever you’re with for the holidays I want you just to love them. So I have a trick and I teach my clients this trick when they need it. But I taught my 17 year old client this trick in the last few weeks. And she’s been practicing it and it has been working beautifully for her.

So when you don’t like who you’re being with the people you love the most, so kind of naturally for some reason we are not our best selves with the people we love the most. So I want you to notice that about yourself, which you probably already have. So I started this trick a long time ago. I started this trick, I kind of made up this trick when my kids were teenagers.

I noticed and I may have told you this before, but I’ve noticed I was so much happier, and happy go lucky, and positive when I was around their friends and my friends kids because I wasn’t afraid. My friends’ kids and my kids’ friends were all neutral to me. I just loved them. I thought they were great, so I could just have fun with them, and be curious about them, and be silly with them.

But then I noticed that I wouldn’t take that lightheartedness into my relationship with my own kids because I carried this weight, like I needed to parent them, like I needed to be afraid, maybe they were doing things wrong. And I needed to make sure that I knew they were doing things wrong. I don’t know. But for whatever reason I did not like who I was being with my teenage kids. So I took note, I borrowed my best self which I’m calling myself, that I was when I was with my friends’ kids and my kids’ friends.

I took her and I just decided to be her with my own kids. So I kind of pretended, I kind of tricked myself, I kind of tricked my brain. And I have been using that little trick ever since. So when my client was saying, “I don’t like who I’m being with my sister.” I said, “Well, I’m going to teach you a little trick right now. If you want to be better, your best self with your sister. I want you to think about your best friend. “Because I asked her, “Who do you love, who are you your best self with?”

She said, “Definitely my best friend.” So I said, “Okay, I want you to pretend that your sister is your best friend whenever you’re with her, in the morning going to school, afternoon coming home from school, at the dinner table, whenever you’re hanging out with her. And instead of being annoyed,” because she told me she was rarely ever annoyed with her best friend. “I want you to pretend that you’re with your best friend, be silly, be funny, be your best self. Just pretend your sister is your best friend and see if that doesn’t change things, because I know it will. It will definitely change things.”

It will change her experience. It changes our experience when we show up as our highest self with the people maybe that normally annoy us. If we just break that whole cycle like I’ve told you in the past about stop doing that same dance with your husband. When you start doing a different dance in any relationship, when you start being your best self and you kind of trick yourself into – I even coached a client not too long ago, that she doesn’t like who’s she’s being when she’s with her parents.

And I said, “You know what I do? I just pretend like I’ve never known them before, like I’m with them for the first time.” And I just get really excited about meeting new people. I’m always my best self when I’m meeting new people. So I show up as her with the people I love the most who I know really, really well. And I just pretend like I’m meeting them for the first time. And I start asking them tons of questions and get super curious about their life. Because I can change my perspective and I can trick myself. And then I end up having a super good time with them. You see how that can work?

So I want you to practice that at the holidays. I think it’s a super good trick. I think it’s fun to practice showing up as your best self and just pretending these are all super new, super cool fabulous people because they are, hello, they’re your people. So of course they’re cool and fabulous, they’re your favorite people on the planet. So just get curious and pretend you don’t know them. And stop doing the same old dance that feels hard to you or feels annoying to you. Let it feel fresh and new. Pretend you don’t know them.

As silly as that sounds, I want you to practice it because it works. Alright, I hope you had the best thanksgiving if you’re listening to this the night of, or the morning after, or even on the weekend, or the week after, it doesn’t matter. It’s time to put your Christmas tree up and start celebrating all the good things about your life. And everything that your life is going to offer you in the next 40 and 50 years, everything is ahead of you. Your entire life is ahead of you and that is very exciting news.

Alright, well, I love, love, love you, I am most thankful for all of you podcast listeners who have been listening faithfully to me and sharing these episodes with your family and friends. Oh my gosh, I don’t know if I told you this but I’m well over 50,000 downloads. That has been a goal of mine. I’m so happy about it and it just spurs me on to doing bigger and better things. And I just love my life so much. I want you to borrow my enthusiasm and love your life so much and your life will love you back, I promise you. Okay, have the best week and I will see you next Thursday.

Thanks for listening to Reinvented After 40. If you want more information or resources from the podcast, please visit KymShowersLifeCoach.com.