Jane Carroll shifted gears after over 25 years in nursing and is cruising with the top down as a writer, motivational speaker, and life coach helping women ‘love their lives and live their loves’. Jane offers wisdom mixed with humor in her first book Bertha-Size Your Life! 

Boomer Women…Cruising Through Mid-Life

The car sputters and then starts. Time for a road trip, but wait, there’s no map, the oil is a quart low and the gas gage is on empty. You don’t know where you’re going; all you know is the last time out there were a lot of wrong turns. Nevertheless, you put the pedal to the metal and take off.

Sound like a fun adventure? No? You’re probably thinking, “I wouldn’t do that! I have never started on a trip without a map or global positioning system (GPS) or some kind of plan. I’d have to know where I was going. I always have the car checked out before I hit the road…”

You get the picture. Starting a road trip without preparation is not something that you would be comfortable doing. So why would you do it in this road trip called life? And yet many boomer women do just that every day. Are you one of them? Take this simple test to find out:

• I have dreams and goals for at least the next several years.
• I regularly practice self-care to maintain my spirit.
• I get over my mistakes easily, learn from them, and get on with my life.
• I choose activities based on how much pleasure they bring me.
  
  

If you answered no to any of these statements, then you’re still driving the family wood-grain, paneled station wagon when you could be cruising through life in a sleek new convertible.

Boomer years can be the best or the worst of your life. The choice is yours. Trends are showing that more and more boomer women are pursuing interesting lifestyles and following life-long dreams. And you can too, by following these simple rules for the road.

• Look at the map. Your thoughts create your reality. Steer your focus to the things you actually want and away from those that you don’t. If you were looking at the map or programming your GPS, you wouldn’t plot all the locations where you didn’t want to go. You’d simply focus on your chosen destination. It’s the same in life.
  
  
• Tune-up your spirit. You may have entered your boomer years running on empty and with a couple of loose wires. So what? Now is the time to nurture yourself. What you do isn’t important—it’s how it makes you feel. Take a bubble bath or a cruise, read or write a book, go dancing or sit in silence with a candle, sleep in or go for a morning jog; just nurture yourself and do it often. A word of caution, watch your budget and your figure, it isn’t self-care if you feel guilty in the morning.
  
  
• Leave the wrong turns at home. It’s human nature to think your past mistakes are so big that you can’t get beyond them. In reality, it’s the focus on the mistake that holds you back, not the mistake itself. Your GPS doesn’t ask you where you’ve been before you program in your destination, neither does life. Your GPS doesn’t argue and tell you that you don’t deserve to go, it simply plots the course, providing you with the most direct route from where you are right now. You can do the same thing in your life. 

• Watch out for the speed traps. Rushing around at the speed of sound can seem like a valiant way of life. People depend on you and there is so much to do. Staying busy with activities that bring you pleasure is great but don’t fall into the trap of over extending yourself to avoid experiencing your true life. A good rule of thumb before accepting a responsibility is to ask, “Is this desirable enough for me to give up something I love, or am I avoiding something else?” Let your answer be your guide.
  
  
  You’re on the road. Go ahead; shift gears. Now that you’ve defined your destination, given yourself a nurturing tune-up, gotten over your wrong turns, and slowed down to the speed of life, you can shift into overdrive and go cruising with the top down. Enjoy the ride.