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INSPIRING LIFE SCHOOL PODCAST

EPISODE  52 – IT’S NEVER TOO LATE

 

 

dream big my friend podcast

 

 

 

INSPIRING LIFE SCHOOL PODCAST

EPISODE 52 TRANSCRIPT:

IT’S NEVER TOO LATE

 

 

 

WELCOME TO THIS EPISODE WHICH IS ALL ABOUT NEVER BEING TOO LATE TO CHASE YOUR DREAMS

 

As many of you guys know my son recently had spinal surgery and required a 10 day stay at hospital where I slept by his bedside while he recovered.

What helped me through these difficult days was an intense binge-reading period where I read book after book after book and kept my mind busy reading both fiction and non-fiction books.

I discovered the author Lisa Jewell and read her books WHEN SHE WAS GONE and THE FAMILY UPSTAIRS.

 

I also read a few standout books including a book by EMMA ISAACS called Winging It which was super inspiring.

 

And it was while reading this book that I got some wildly flashing lightbulb moments because even though there was a part of me that thought she was an incredibly inspiring woman I also felt this disconnect from the author because she was so incredibly productive and successful from a young age and me, I couldn’t relate to her in that way.

At 18, Emma Isaacs already had her own recruitment agency while at the same age I was still a quiet, insecure university student a year into studying for her psychology degree.

At 20, when some of these women were already well into establishing their careers, I was living in a small European island village with my grandparents, spending long days chatting beneath the oak trees in the village centre while at night my friends and I would lie on the road beside the tiny village lake watching the starry sky and waiting for shooting stars so we could pin a wish onto them.

At 30, when some of the women I admire where making it onto the Top 30 under 30 people to watch list, I was holidaying with my husband and 1 year old daughter in Australia’s Byron Bay, feeling blissfully happy because I had a family I loved and that to me was enough.

 

Rather than being business focused during my 30s I was primarily a devoted stay at home mom, making playdough with the kids, playing dress ups, jumping on our trampoline, having dinner as a picnic at the end of our cul-de-sac every night, with a house always filled with kids.

 

It never crossed my mind that I wasn’t using my time wisely.

I coached clients who I wanted to coach but made sure they fit into my lifestyle rather than the other way around.

But then at 40, something changed in me abruptly and it was like I suddenly remembered that I had this life and these dreams before I had my kids.

Pre kids I had a life coaching business that I had still continued part-time when my eldest was young but I was so picky with my clients back then, only working with those who I could fit to suit my lifestyle.

 

And I had dreams of being an author but once again, those dreams took a backseat to my role as a mom so when I did write it was squeezed into whatever hours I had left at my disposal which at the time seemed like there was young.

 

I reached the age of 40 with an 11 and 9 year old child and suddenly panicked that maybe I had done it all wrong.

While I was dancing to Just Dance on the Wii with the kids and making homemade marshmallows other women had jumped into the deep end with their businesses.

 

Now they were suddenly miles ahead of me in terms of their success while I felt like I was still at ground zero.

 

I had this feeling as if I had somehow wasted my time or wasted my years even though when I was in the thick of it I was totally enjoying myself and it never crossed my mind that I could be doing anything better than what I was experiencing right now.

Then at age 42 I started my first blog and I felt like I had discovered my dream job.

I could write articles from the comfort of my own home, publish them that evening and have readers writing to me about how valuable this advice was to them that next day.

And I have to admit, it crossed my mind that I wished I had discovered this form of online work years before.

I noted that most of the successful bloggers had started years before me, at a time that I didn’t even know that blogging existed as a form of work.

 

It crossed my mind that as a 42-year-old I had arrived late to the party that I wished I had been at right from the start.

 

I felt like I had wasted my time, wasted my years and wasted my potential by devoting all my time to the kids and not searching for these work opportunities earlier in my life.

And so this podcast episode is all about what to do when you feel like it is too late and how I myself coped with this idea of wasting my years after cruising for so long throughout life without anchoring myself to any particular goal for so long.

I thought this would be important for me to share because you might feel like me – you might look at younger people who achieved financial success so early on in life and feel a sense of disconnect because you know that your own personal experiences don’t marry up.

 

You know you can’t turn back time and do things differently.

 

You know you are older now and there aren’t many examples of people who lived a cruisy humdrum life until 40 or 50 or 60 and then decided “this is it, it’s time to chase my goals!”.

Most people out there, if they haven’t lived a life of dream-chasing, reach this older age and sort of shrug their shoulders in defeat as if it is too late for them, they missed the boat when they were younger and now the chance for them to change their lives is gone and they think they are too set in their ways, that their habits are too ingrained for them to do or become anything different.

They have a fixed mindset as opposed to a growth mindset where one thinks that their potential is still malleable and there is still room to change and grow and chase their dreams.

 

So if you are in this boat where you feel like things are too late for you, whether you are 20 or 30 or 40 or 50 or 60 or 70 or 80 I want you to keep in mind this quote by George Eliot who said: “it’s never too late to be who you might been.”

 

This is actually one of my favorite quotes – I had it printed on my business cards when I started my life coaching business back on New Years Day 2001.

Because it is the truth – it really never is too late to do the things you are dreaming of.

You can go off on an African safari when you are 60, you can start a business at 50, you can go skydiving at age 100, which is what one woman did (need details here).

But before we get to this point where you actually fully believe that this can be true for you – that it isn’t too late to become a dreamchaser – there are 3 things you need to understand to fully immerse yourself in your next stage in life.

 

NUMBER ONE IS THIS: ACCEPT YOUR PAST

 

You really need to accept that everything that has happened so far in your life happened for a reason.

That you did the things you did because you felt they were the right things to do at the time.

You can’t focus on everything at once so if your eyes were focused on your family instead of work for however many years assume that this is where your eyes wanted to be focused.

How do we know this is true?

It’s because that’s where they WERE focused.

If you truly wanted things to be different you would have made the changes earlier but some part of time found comfort in the task you were doing.

There is no point in wishing that things were different because it is what it is.

It’s like me wishing I was born in Hawaii rather than Sydney – my past is my past and to wish that something could be different about it when it can never be changed doesn’t serve me in any way.

 

Thoughts that do serve me however include:

 

 

  • My past has helped me gain the strength I need in life.

 

  • Every decision I made in my past felt like the right choice for me at the time.

 

  • Now that I know better, I can do better but I did the best I could with the resources I had in the past.

 

 

NUMBER TWO IS THIS: TRUST THAT YOUR PAST EXPERIENCES SERVED YOU IN SOME WAY

 

Once you accept your past, the next step is to trust that your past experiences served you in some way.

So, as I mentioned earlier when I first discovered blogging at age 42 I found myself doubting my previous decisions and thinking: oh if only I had I started my blog when I was 30 or whenever blogging first became a thing…I had accepted my past but still found myself falling into this WHAT IF? Mentality.

And the truth is yes it would’ve been cool if I had started blogging earlier – just like it would have been cool if I joined NASA or travelled to Antarctica or did a million different things.

But it’s not possible to go back into time so I have to trust that the experiences I had in the past where the ones I was supposed to have.

 

Part of accepting your past means you have to let go of those WHAT IF scenarios.

 

Feel free to say WHAT IF for anything that occurs in your future but it is a waste of time playing out scenarios for a period that has already past.

Save your energy and imagination for your future life.

And when I say that your past experiences served you in some way I want you to work out what the benefits might have been to doing things the way you did in the past.

So, for me deep down I did want to be a stay-at-home mom, I didn’t want to go into an office or spend hours working when I sincerely wanted to be playing with the kids all day and sitting down watching Disney movies whenever we needed a break.

I was happy to sacrifice a second full time income and live more frugally so I could be at home with my kids.

Deep down it was what I really wanted and if I didn’t want it I would have made the change.

I remembered REGRET IS NOT A USEFUL EMOTION.

It doesn’t serve you in any way.

It only makes you feel terrible about your past rather than seeing those experiences as valuable learning lessons.

 

This also applies to situations that you might look back on and think OH GOSH WHAT WAS I THINKING?

 

You may have stayed in an unhealthy relationship for way too long and realise now that the reason this happened because in some ways the familiarity of that relationship was less scary than the unknown, you may have worked and stayed in a job you hated because you secretly appreciated the stability and the income and the thought of quitting and starting somewhere new was EVEN SCARIER and harder than staying right where you are.

In some ways you rationalised the good outweighed the bad.

 

Which brings us to POINT 3:

3 – WHEN YOU KNOW BETTER YOU CAN DO BETTER

 

So, for me I started to really think about how life is short and time is precious when I reached the age of 40.

I remember my friends and I were at an event listening to the amazing Richard Branson speak and I felt alarm bells ringing for me that night because I had so many dreams that I had ignored for so long and I realised now that the years could easily pass for me and I would suddenly be 45 and then 50 and 60 and have all these items not ticked off my bucket list.

There was a fire lit in my belly that night and I honestly was never the same afterwards.

I started to become more intentional with the way I spent my time, with my family, with my friends and with the goals I set.

I stopped putting things off until another day. I started to think about all the things I would be so sad to not have done if I reached the age of 80 and had the opportunity to look back at my life. When you know better you can do better.

 

And the final point: 4 – PART OF BEING A HUMAN IS TO HAVE A HUMAN EXPERIENCE

 

Once you have accepted your past and understood that in some way it served you to live the way you lived, even if it meant staying comfortable in your comfort zone for way too long until you felt compelled to step outside of it, I want you to know that part of being a human is having a human experience. 

Let’s start by erasing that thought from your mind.

When you think IT’S TOO LATE FOR ME here’s what happens:

 

ONE VERSION

 

THOUGHT: It’s too late for me

FEELING: Defeated

ACTION: Don’t even bother trying

RESULTS: No change in your circumstances

 

 

ANOTHER VERSION

 

THOUGHT: It’s too late for me

FEELING: Sad or depressed

ACTION: No dream chasing

RESULTS: No change in your current circumstances plus a more negative perception of life

 

We need to flip the switch on this belief which is SIMPLY A THOUGHT YOU HAVE CHOOSEN TO EMBRACE.

 

Maybe this thought has been fed to you by others who don’t know better.

Maybe you have a fixed mindset rather than growth scarcity or a scarcity mindset rather than abundant mindset.

 

Whatever the case you can just as easily try on the thought that IT IS NEVER TOO LATE TO CHASE YOUR DREAMS.

 

Just try it on and see how it feels…can you see how embracing this thought feels a little bit better than the other one?

Thinking IT’S TOO LATE FOR ME feels like an ill-fitting coat, that’s one size too small and sort of suffocates you when you button it around the neck.

On the other hand, thinking IT’S NEVER TOO LATE FOR ME is like a comfy sweater that gives you room to breathe; it’s in your most flattering color and makes your eyes sparkle and skin glow. 

 

HERE’S THE ALTERNATIVE THOUGHT MODEL

 

THOUGHT: It’s never too late for me

FEELING: Hope

ACTION: Willingness to take action

RESULTS: Slowly ticking things off your bucket list

 

OR

 

THOUGHT: It’s never too late for me

FEELING: Excited

ACTION: Regularly stepping outside your comfort zone

RESULTS: Baby steps that lead to big changes in your life

 

This may seem like a simplistic way of summarizing the way your life can go in the future but I promise you, thinking IT’S NEVER TOO LATE FOR ME versus IT’S TOO LATE FOR ME will produce two very different results in your life.

This is because mindset is everything and it all starts with the thoughts you choose to have.

NOTE the word choose here.

You get to decide what you want to think.

 

You can choose to ditch thoughts like:

 

  • I am too old.

 

  • I’m not smart enough.

 

  • I’m not pretty enough.

 

  • I’m not skinny enough.

 

Instead, you can embrace thoughts like:

 

  • Age is just a number.

 

  • It doesn’t matter what I have done in the past. The future is mine to create.

 

  • I am as intelligent as I need to be to succeed.

 

  • My looks have no bearing on my future success.

 

  • Oh but I’m beautiful and smart enough exactly as I am.

 

  • I don’t need to look or be any different to achieve my goals.

 

  • My confidence is not determined by my weight.

 

  • Confidence comes from within and I can create more confidence simply by thinking more confident thoughts.

 

ONCE YOU HAVE YOUR THOUGHTS IN CHECK YOU WILL KNOW THAT YOUR FUTURE MOVING FORWARD WILL BE SOLELY DETERMINED BY THE FACT CHOOSING THE RIGHT THOUGHTS TO THINK.

 

Because the right thoughts will lead to the right feelings which will lead to the right actions and consequently the right results.

It’s like a domino effect but for it to work effectively you have to set it up so the first domino involves having the right thoughts to take you where you want or need to go.

 

SO WHERE DO YOU WANT TO GO?

 

That’s for you to decide.

This is where I share with you the truth is your happiness in life will not solely be determined by the amount of money you have in the bank.

 

You can be happy and feel wealthy when you:

 

  • Nurture a loving family.

 

  • Build close friendships.

 

  • Chase your dreams.

 

  • Step outside your comfort zone.

 

  • Indulge in hobbies you love.

 

  • Tick things off your bucket list that have nothing to do with money stuff.

 

It seriously doesn’t matter what age you begin this new dream-chasing journey in your life.

Age is just a number.

 

Please do not let it determine your happiness because you can be young and unhappy or be older yet feel blissfully free.

 

IF YOU ARE OLDER and listening to this podcast, remember all your experiences work in your favor.

You now understand how fragile and precious life is and sometimes the years pass too fast.

You now understand that your dreams won’t just fall into your lap.

For things to change, you need to change.

You now can tell what has and hasn’t worked for you in the past and you can use this past experience to make smarter choices in the future.

You now know that every second and minute is precious because how you spend your minutes is how you spend your hours and how you spend your hours is how you spend your days and how you spend your days is how you spend your years etc.

It’s now time to be more intentional with your time.

 

MAIN POINTS

 

1 – Accepting your past

2 – Trust that your past experiences served you in some way

3 – When you know better you can do better

4 – Part of being a human is to have a human experience

 

I promise it is never too late to dream bigger so I encourage you to seize the day and start chasing your dreams today.

As always thanks for much for being here with me.

I love and appreciate you all and can’t wait to catch you in the next episode.

 

 

 

Before You Go…

 

  • Grab your free gift: How To Stop Self-Sabotaging Yourself Guide (4 steps to finally get out of your own way) CLICK HERE
  • Decide which course will suit you best CLICK HERE
  • Listen to my Inspiring Mom Life podcast on Spotify or via Apple Podcasts.