I turned 50 and resigned. This is how that turned out.

Almost a year ago I turned 50. I marked this milestone year by resigning from a well paid job, with career growth and financial security to go backpacking around Europe.

It wasn’t a decision I took easily but once I did, I felt a million times lighter, like I was alive again. Four pretty punishing years prior to that involving divorce, a house move and starting from the bottom again career wise before climbing my way up, had drained me. Apparently the number of women this age who are leaving their careers is on the rise, burned out, menopausal and over it.

I’d like to say that I set off weighed down only by my ridiculously heavy backpack, but running away from life doesn’t mean challenges you face at home go away. I carried worries with me.

I tried to ignore them and blithely went about hopping from train to train, country to country, experience to experience. It was exhausting, exhilirating and wonderful. A gargantuan drive back from Montenegro to the UK, before a two week rafting trip through the Grand Canyon and that was it. Back to being a grown up.

Being a grown up sucks.

Particularly when you return to an economic recession, mass layoffs in the tech sector, marketing budget cuts, a rise in AI and a new generation desperate for jobs that all of a sudden seem foreign to someone who has worked in marketing and comms for over 25 years.

I found it impossible to get interviews or find jobs I wanted to apply for. Nothing seemed to excite me and those that did, were clearly popular with everyone else. My applications for jobs I didn’t really want anyway felt like getting stood up repeatedly by a dodgy bloke from an online dating site.

Couple this with some pretty challenging personal stuff that was going on, empty nest syndrome, loneliness, and a face that suddenly went from normal to crumpled-paper-creased overnight, and I faced a perfect storm for a self-esteem kicking.

Who am I now? What is my purpose? Am I good at anything? Am I a good person?

These questions swirled.

I think this is such a common problem for women this age. We reach a point in life where who were were — often mothers or career ladder climbers or both — shifts. We have to redefine ourselves. We know we still have at least 15 more years of work in us, but that work needs to make us feel good. We are too tired of all the bullshit. But we’re scared to shift into a new career direction because what if it goes wrong and we aren’t financially prepared enough for retirement. And then will we be too old to be re-employed?

The clock we hear ticking now is no longer our biological clock driving us to have children, but a mortality clock telling us to start living, rather than existing.

Changing course now also means starting back at the beginning and having to be a novice again. It’s harder to learn new things at 50 than it is at 20 and it’s harder still when you aren’t 100% sure what you want that thing to be. It can feel like there is both too much choice and too little choice all at once.

We’re torn between wanting security and wanting to feel alive.

But after four months of feeling as though I was blindly stumbling through a desert in search of water, and as 2024 rolled in, I decided, enough! I couldn’t keep this maelstrom in my mind stop me from moving forward with life. I leant into the problem to find a solution. Because one thing this journey of discovery has taught me is that I am a fixer.

Here’s what I am doing (including the tools I use — they are not sponsored links) — in case they are of use to anyone else in a similar situation:

1. Writing monthly goals: I use Futureme.org to write myself a letter saying what I want to achieve each month and schedule it to arrive on the last day of the month, forcing me to review the changes I’ve made, or not.
2. Writing a daily gratitude diary: I use the Six Minute Diary to help shift a negative mindset into a positive one. A big part of this is focusing on the daily joy, the little things, and trying to connect to more people.
3. Daily meditation: I listen to Calm every morning and a sleep story every evening. I also recite the ‘I am enough’ poem every day just to remind myself that I am only a human, not superwoman.
4. Regular exercise and good food: I use the Joe Wicks Body Coach app to eat heathily and exercise even when I don’t feel like it.
5. Giving back — and fresh air: I re-energised my women’s walking group Glamoraks and committed to planning a walk once a month to help me and other women feel happier with themselves.
6. I asked for help: Being vulnerable takes bravery. LinkedIn is not the usual place to showcase your vulnerabilities. In fact, as a platform for business, everyone typically shows their best self. But I opened up and the response was remarkable.
7. Got coaching: Following my LinkedIn post, I had two offers of free coaching, which I accepted one of the coaches kindly sent me his book on building self-esteem.
8. Asked for feedback to get clear on who I am: Someone else who saw my LinkedIn post suggested I ask people for feedback about how they see me and what brand I gave off. The responses I got back moved me to tears. When you feel lost, hearing how other people view you is remarkable, renews belief and helps you get clear on who you are.
9. Learning to love that person: Once you know who you are, you can lean into that and learn to love yourself, even the bits you find less loveable. This will take a while, but knowing who you are and learning to love that person is a must.
10. Be willing to change: Loving yourself is important, but if there are bits that you know could do with improvement, you need to be prepared to work on those. This takes daily habits because after 50 years, certain behaviours and mindsets are well entrenched. But daily catching of them and trying to shift them will eventually cause change, like sailing just one degree in a new direction will land you in a completely different destination.
11. More reading and podcasts: I realised that I hadn’t done nearly enough reading and learning for a while, so I’ve been reading thought-provoking books and listening to a number of podcasts that people had suggested to me. For anyone wondering how they came to be like they are, I recommend ‘What happened to you’ by Oprah Winfrey and Bruce Perry.
12. Got a therapist: One of the coaches recommended a therapist who could help me learn to love my inner child. That’s a work in progress but good progress. One of the most profound questions she asked me was: ‘What is your parenting style to your inner child?’ And as a parent who tries to be loving and kind to my own children, I realised how differently I parent my own inner child. In fact, social services should have been called in a while ago to remove my inner child from my care!
13. Listened to my gut: Our brains are pretty powerful things. But our gut is where the truth lies. And for a long time, my actions have been ruled by my brain to keep me safe. I’ve ignored my gut mainly because I couldn’t figure out whether the anxiety I felt was a real threat or good excitement. Now I know thanks to a tip from Marie Forleo — if the feeling in my gut feels like my body is closing in on itself, it’s a warning. If it feels like it’s opening up, then it’s an opportunity to pursue, even if it feels scary.
14. Making space for fun: Life can get awfully serious and dull. I decided that once a month, I would learn something new, go somewhere new or try something new. So far I’ve tried golf and skiing (January) and visited Malaga (Feburary). I was meant to be heading to Sri Lanka in March to learn to surf but I may have to swap that with something else due to life conflicts. I look forward to the rest of the year — and my life — trying and seeing and doing new things.
15. Worrying less by living in the now: They say that worry is the thief of joy. And seriously, it is. All it does is make now feel crappy. It is going to take me a while to be properly comfortable living in the now instead of ruminating about what I’ve done wrong in the past or what may happen in the future, but when I do, it feels so much better. So many women worry all the time. Ladies, it’s time to stop. It is not serving you.
16. Respecting myself: I recently declined a full time role that would provide me financial security. Why? Because it felt that I would be taking it from a place of fear, rather than a desire for the role. I knew if I took it I would have very little respect for myself. So I stepped into an unknown and scary future, but with my self-respect intact. Sometimes you have to say no to something to make space for something new and better to present itself.
17. Embracing comfort and being true to me: I recently had to present at an all day workshop. I was going to wear a smart dress with tights and heels, and then I remembered, that they had hired me for my skills, not my clothes. So I wore professional but comfortable clothes that were far more brand me, and it meant I could concentrate on the work, not hoiking tights up all day. Embrace what makes you comfortable and sod the rest. Be you. Everyone else is taken.
18. Connect with people: I spend way too much time alone. Modern society is making us increasingly isolated and lonely. I am trying to fix that by speaking to family more often, trying to see friends when busy diaries allow, and having conversations with people who provide momentary touchpoints in our day like supermarket check out people or coffee baristas. I’ve also applied to be a volunteer for the Age UK befriending service to give back while giving myself the gift of learning about someone else’s life.

So a year on, how did it turn out? Was resigning foolish? Possibly given it was the start of a global financial economic slump. But had I not resigned, I’d be a year older without any of the amazing experiences or self-discovery that I have had.

I still don’t have the answers. But I’m ok with that. I’m on a journey of discovery and I’m going to be kind to myself in the process. I am open to the potential that life has to offer, because:

Life is about creating an interesting story. It’s not meant to be existed. It’s meant to be lived.

To any women in the same position, be brave. You’ve got this.