Midlife isn’t a crisis. It’s a wake-up call.
There’s a moment that comes for many of us. Sometimes quietly, sometimes like a freight train.
You look up from the life you built — career, family, responsibilities — and realise you’re not in it anymore. Not fully. You’re performing it. Living on autopilot. Doing all the things that made sense ten years ago but feel strangely hollow now. And still, you keep going. Because that’s what we were taught to do.
But what if this moment — this disconnection, this fatigue, this low hum of “Is this really it?” — isn’t a problem to fix?
What if it’s the prompt you’ve been waiting for?
The midlife lie we’ve all inhaled
For decades, we’ve been sold a version of midlife that sounds like this: "Hold it all together. Smile. Keep going. Everyone feels like this."
The unspoken part? "And don’t you dare fall apart."
With the inherited narrative underpinning this belief: “This is just how it has to be when you’re a woman.”
But here’s the truth, whispered through 155 podcast conversations I’ve hosted, shouted in the moments I fell apart, and gently spoken in the messages women send me every single week:
You are allowed to fall apart.
In fact, sometimes, you have to. Because it’s only when the version of life you’ve been holding up crumbles that the real one — the one that fits now, not ten years ago — can begin to emerge.
My wake-up call (And why I’m glad it came)
If you’ve followed my podcast or blog for a while, you’ll know my turning point didn’t come wrapped in clarity and confidence. It came after the sudden loss of my mum. It came when I was made redundant from the company I’d given 20 years to. It came during a pandemic, in a hospital bed, recovering from a traumatic injury.
There wasn’t a neat reset button. There was grief. Fear. Fog. And then, quietly, a new kind of clarity: I couldn’t keep doing life on someone else’s terms. Not if I wanted to feel like myself again.
And maybe that’s where you are, too.
Maybe you haven’t hit rock bottom. Maybe you're not sure if you're “bad enough” to need change. But you feel it — the inner friction, the energy drain, the sense that something is shifting.
That is your wake-up call.
What I’ve learned from 3 years of listening to women
Hosting my podcast for the past 3 years has been like earning a masters degree in women’s health, identity and reinvention. More than that, it’s been an honour to hear what happens before the change.
Not the shiny after photos. Not the 5am routines. But the moment a woman says:
"I can’t keep living like this."
And then? She chooses something different.
From stories of burnout, divorce, and illness to the quiet realisations in the middle of an ordinary Tuesday — this is what I know now:
Most women wait until something breaks.
You don’t have to.
Health is the starting point, not the end goal.
We don’t make changes because of the symptoms. We make changes because we no longer recognise the version of ourselves staring back in the mirror.
Sound familiar?
From firefighting to leading yourself
You can keep waiting for the crash. You can keep firefighting, throwing water on the latest flame of fatigue, anxiety, or frustration.
Or — you can decide to stop the fire before it starts.
Midlife and menopause can be a slow burn into burnout. Or it can be the moment you draw a line in the sand and say:
"This gets to feel different."
That doesn’t mean a complete overhaul. It means one breath before the emails. One choice to rest instead of pushing through. One habit built not from guilt, but from self-respect.
Small shifts. Big ripples.
You are the author now
There’s a reason the message I come back to, again and again, is this: You are the CEO of your life.
Because when you stop outsourcing your power — to the to-do list, the job title, the diet plan, the expectations — you remember:
You get to write this next chapter.
And that chapter? It doesn’t begin with burnout. It begins with one brave choice to listen to yourself. Maybe that starts with a conversation. A podcast episode. A quiz that gives you clarity on where to begin. Wherever you are, let this be your starting line.
Not because something broke. But because you decided to begin.
Listen to this special 3rd birthday episode for more life lessons the podcast has taught me:
Ready to feel more like you again?
You don’t need to overhaul your whole life to start feeling clearer, stronger and more in control. Sometimes, the shift begins with one small, intentional step — like pressing pause and asking yourself what you really need right now.
✨ The Midlife Reset Quiz is your first step.
In just a few minutes, you’ll discover which area of your wellbeing needs the most support — and how to gently begin that reset with clarity and confidence.
Because this isn’t about fixing yourself. It’s about coming home to yourself.
💛 Take the quiz and find your starting point today.
