5 Ways to Avoid a Midlife Crisis and Be Happy!

avoid a midlife crisis

Are you a woman between the ages of 40 and 60? If so, you’re probably going through a range of physical and emotional changes that are leaving you a bit frazzled and unnerved.

Many women in this age range begin to experience what’s called perimenopause. It’s a condition that sets in during the years leading up to menopause, and it can leave a woman feeling anxious, depressed, sensitive, emotional, and angry.

Many women in this age range also experience a midlife crisis. They begin to feel like their best days are behind them, and they attempt to recapture their youth by behaving uncharacteristically and making irrational decisions.

As a woman, it can be difficult to avoid dealing with the side effects of perimenopause since it’s closely connected to your estrogen levels. But you can avoid a midlife crisis and recapture your happiness.

Here are the ways you can do it.

1. Designate a Day to Reflect Back on Everything You’ve Accomplished

When you reach middle age, you’ve lived for around 50 years. With half a century of life under your belt, you have seen, done, and accomplished many things.

Yet, there are so many women who lose sight of that. All of the years seem to blend together, and they mistakenly believe that they haven’t done enough with all the time they’ve had.

This is when many women tend to have a midlife crisis. They strive to jampack their lives with more experiences so that they feel better about where they’re at in life.

Rather than falling into this trap, you should pick a day every year–maybe your birthday?–and use it to reflect back on everything that you have accomplished over the years.

Sit down and make a list and include everything from the day you graduated from college and the day you got married to the day you quit the job you hated and the day you became PTA president.

Before long, you’ll see that you’ve done more than enough. You can avoid a midlife crisis simply by taking a look back at what’s already been accomplished.

2. Make a List of All the Other Things You Want to Do With Your Life

While it’s important to look back at your life to avoid a midlife crisis, you shouldn’t allow it to stop you from looking forward.

During a midlife crisis, a person often fails to realize just how much life they have left. They think that just because they’re 45 or 50 or even 60, they don’t have anything to look forward to.

The truth is that you should still have tons of goals for yourself. You’re only at “midlife,” which means you still have a whole other half of life to go!

You should take the time to consider what else you want to do with your life from here on out.

Do you want to make traveling more of a priority?

Do you want to find ways to give back to your community?

Do you want to spend more time with your grandkids or reconnect with friends you didn’t get to see much during your busy working years?

Make a list of the goals you want to achieve and then work on achieving them! This will make it simple to avoid a midlife crisis.

3. Put an Emphasis on Eating Better and Taking Care of Your Body

Those who are experiencing a midlife crisis will often go to great extremes to try and “improve” themselves.

They’ll spend a fortune on a new car or decide that they need to start dating someone much younger to feel better about themselves.

Instead of taking these kinds of steps to make improvements to your life, why not channel that same energy into actually improving it?

Now that you have a little bit more time, you can start eating better. You can also start exercising and taking better care of your health.

Just because you’re not 20 or 30 anymore doesn’t mean you can’t get into the best shape of your life. You can avoid a midlife crisis by making every effort to make real improvements to yourself.

4. Work on Building Up Relationships With Those You Love

At the end of the day, life is really all about the relationships that you build with others.

If the relationships in your life aren’t as strong as you’d like them to be, you can avoid a midlife crisis by working on building those relationships up.

That could mean finding new ways to reconnect with your spouse. It could also mean establishing a better relationship with your kids or grandkids.

As you get older, it’s the people in your life who make all the difference. Without them, your life won’t have much meaning, and you won’t ever truly be happy.

Make sure you nurture your relationships and put an emphasis on developing them even further than you already have in life.

5. Remind Yourself of All You Have to Be Thankful for Often

If all else fails and you’re finding it almost impossible to avoid a midlife crisis, you should carve out more time to remind yourself about all that you have to be thankful for.

Your spouse who has spent his life trying to make you happy? Be thankful for him!

Your kids who continue to take time out of their lives to visit you to make you happy? Be thankful for them!

Your friends who go out of their way to invite you to functions and keep you in the loop? Be thankful for them!

Never stop being thankful, no matter how mundane life might feel sometimes. By showing your gratitude, you will constantly remind yourself of why you should be the happiest woman in the world.

Avoid a Midlife Crisis and Start Enjoying Your Life Again

Whether you’re feeling emotional at the moment because of perimenopause or because of a midlife crisis, it’s important to remember that it’s natural.

Most women your age feel this way.

But you don’t need to be held hostage by a midlife crisis. You can avoid a midlife crisis if you follow the steps listed above and speak openly about how you’re feeling.

Check out our blog for more tips on living your best life at any age.