Alright, it’s Monday and I’m traveling again. And in my line of work, I seem to see a lot more than most. Here’s some midlife wisdom from bits and pieces along the way.
When you come to your midlife-crisis fork in the road, take it.
But don’t stop for dinner at the Midlife Crisis Cafe, nobody goes there anymore, it’s too crowded.
MBA’s and Blogging are both overrated, and their similarities are different.
People call my friend a midlife old man, because back in his day, they called amphibians showoffs.
And when they said someone was a little green around the gills, they actually meant it.
Anyway, happy Monday. It’s amazing the stuff you can think of when you think of stuff.
That last one is the only original. All the others are on consignment.
Please welcome back to Mid Life Celebration, Miss America Lorie Sheffer, from Central Pennsylvania. Lorie has been here before and her wit, wisdom and candor are refreshing, and inspiring. Take it away Lorie:
It comes as a surprise to some of my friends when they discover my dream of a crown. Doesn’t really fit the personality of a woman who is politically active, has taken part in a massive march on Washington and who doesn’t put much importance on outward appearances. But ever since I was a little girl, I’ve been besotted. I’ve never missed a Miss America pageant. I get misty when high schools crown their homecoming queen, and I won’t even try to explain how I felt about Princess Diana. Show me a crown and I turn into a star struck six year old. I think when I was younger, it came out of a desire to be “the best”.
I was the girl who sat home dateless almost every weekend. I had boy friends, but not boyfriends. I tried out for cheerleading a total of six times and only made the squad once, for 8th grade wrestling. We had to sit in the bleachers the whole time, wearing home sewn uniforms, as the “good squads” got the good uniforms. Clearly, we were not “the best”. Every year, I would sit in front of the TV and see Miss America walk down the runway, crown on her head, and think how it must feel to be told you are a winner. I always envisioned her as a benevolent queen who was adored by everyone. In my eyes she was kind and gracious and empathetic.
Part of the scoring for Miss America is based on talent, and back in the day when I was eligible that amounted to 40% of the total score. I can’t carry a tune in a bucket, fall if my feet leave the ground, and cannot play an instrument. I took baton lessons once, but my mom made me quit after I kept catching those high throws with my face. I tried ballet, and that ended about as well as the baton lessons. If pie baking was an acceptable talent I may have had a shot.
Years passed and as luck would have it, the same people who ran my daughter’s ballet company were also the directors of our local Miss America preliminary. (My daughter’s natural grace is one of life’s greatest mysteries to me.) I once heard “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.” All of those years of pageant obsession paid off! I volunteered my time, became very active in the organization. Over the years I helped to prepare dozens of young women to compete on the local and state level, as well as helping two of them to prepare for Miss America. Last year alone, the Miss America Organization awarded over 45 million dollars in scholarship money to more than 12,000 young women.
I met one young woman whose parents had set aside money for her education, but instead had to spend it on nursing home care for her grandmother. The scholarships she won paid for her final semesters of college. Another young woman paid for her master’s degree entirely with pageant winnings. Where else but in the pageant world would I become good friends with a young lady who holds a Masters in neurobiology from Johns Hopkins and a PhD in neuroscience from UCLA? It felt good to be able to volunteer my time to help make the dreams of those remarkable young women come true.
Over the years, I realized that I didn’t need someone else to tell me I was good enough. When our pageant board discovered that one of the crowns we had ordered was missing a stone, I bought it instead of having our director send it back. I didn’t care if it was one rhinestone short of perfection. I cleared a spot in my grandmother’s antique breakfront, where I can see my crown every day. I don’t need a panel of judges to tell me I’m good enough. I may have “aged out” of the pageant over 25 years ago, but I earned every rhinestone in that crown, and don’t even notice its imperfection.
As we go through life, we have obvious opportunities and some not so obvious. Have you ever considered this as part of your reality?
Many of the biggest opportunities happen at midlife. What we do when they arrive makes all the difference.
And the most overlooked, and inexpensive, opportunity to keep motivation alive is to celebrate milestones along the way. They come in three sizes: small, medium and large.
Yesterday I promised a few of mine, in an effort to practice the preaching. And by the way, all within the past 72 hours:
309 pages of raw content (not blog related)
Met with CPA
Ran 5 miles without any foot pain
Eight hours of sleep for 7 consecutive days
347 straight days of starting each day on my knees
Do you find time to celebrate your milestones, no matter their size? What if you did.
Happy Friday everyone and thank you for visiting Mid Life Celebration. Ever work really hard for a really long time and wonder how you’ll keep your pace going?
What many great leaders do is celebrate the journey, not just reaching the final goal. They learn the power of celebrating milestones.
In our personal and professional lives, we face this same challenge. How to keep a fast and steady pace to accomplish all that’s expected of us.
The secret? Celebrate milestones. Are you familiar with this concept?
Milestones are what you make them. There is no science to it, other than to simply find things to celebrate and feel good about, because the goal is to keep your midlife pace going.
The alternative is to lose interest and quit.
Tomorrow, I’ll share a few Mid Life Celebration milestones and invite you to share some of your own.
