Midlife Transition: Women & Dreams
Midlife transition is full of challenges. One thing you tend to
do is start thinking about dreams. If you look back, you may
wonder what happened to your dreams. If you look ahead, you may
think the time has passed.
When you stop to reconsider the dreams of your youth, the dreams
from the first part of your life, make a list of them and then
ask yourself these questions:
1. Have you outgrown this dream? Does it no longer suit you? 2.
Who was this dream for? Was it really for you, or was it for
parents, peers, bosses, spouse or someone else? 3. Did one of
these dreams come true and turn out to be a nightmare? 4. Did
having this dream come true turn out to be transitory? 5. Did
having this dream come true turn out to be very different from
what you expected? 6. Was one of these dreams just a fantasy you
kept that you never really meant to have happen? 7. Did the core
of this dream come true, though not the particulars? 8. Was this
dream motivated by proving something to someone else rather than
by something you really wanted? 9. Is this dream something you'd
still like to have happen? If so, is it possible?
Because you're changing at midlife, it's a good time to take
stock, weed out dreams that no longer suit you, and start
planting the seeds for new dreams.
One of the best things you can do at this time of life is give
yourself permission to dream different dreams and forget about
the old ones that did or didn't come true.