What if your past life and career have just been a series of prototypes?
As a woman over 40, my life is not a clean slate. Even a fresh start, such as a new school year, a new job, or a relationship, is actually just a transition within an existing set of restrictions and circumstances. Things can feel blurry as we move forward without clear steps or markers. The institutions and models that guided us in the past have largely proven false or at least limited.
Ask your sisters in arms. Have the traditional models and structures supported us through the past three years of a global pandemic, political upheaval, and the reversal of women’s rights? As we move through our own personal crises of death and illness, layoffs, and labor shortages, how can we look back when we are living in unprecedented times? It turns out that the expectations and models that promised us support have expired.
“The linear life is dead,” declares Bruce Feiler in his book “Life is in the Transitions”. Feiler identifies 52 different types of life disrupters - from moving to a new house to losing a loved one to suicide. Over a 10-year period, I experienced 17 of these events. When these disruptions come in 2s and 3s, Feiler calls them quakes. In the past three years, many of us have experienced so many of these events in such a short amount of time it certainly has felt like the earth was crumbling beneath our feet.
It’s been made clear that women are the mortar that holds our precarious family and societal structures together. Like so many women my age, I am among the sandwich generation - concurrently caring for children and aging parents. While achieving this acrobatic feat, I feel like I’m balancing my career, my relationships, and my health on top of my head.
The problem with “self-care”
We face burnout, health crises, and depression. The internet is full of clever Instagram posts about self-care - most of which leave me feeling less than. A five-step skincare routine? I’m lucky to wash my face. Meal subscriptions? Not for me. Yoga, meditation, and book clubs all just read like a list of additional projects that I have to manage with time I don’t have.
Define the problem.
Right now, self-care can’t be about doing more. As women in mid-life, our problems are complex and demanding; adding more “shoulds” and shame to the pile doesn’t help. The truth is that we have been holding it together for others, and now is the time to commit to ourselves in ways that work for us.
My experience in innovation and design thinking has trained me to fall in love with the problem I am solving. Exercises like the “five whys” and empathy mapping help me to go beyond the superficial and get to the root.
Constraints are the fuel of creativity
If my current life were a kitchen, I would be a contestant on Iron Chef. A set of preexisting conditions, constraints, and boundaries comes with every new challenge. More often than not, I come to the table with a jar of pickles, some ramen, and a handful of Skittles. And while I am trying to figure it all out, in the background, the clock is ticking. But we are women; we are clever, resourceful, and creative. We make it work, and people come back for more. We may enter each transition with a set of ingredients: people, homes, cities, pets - non-negotiables that must be incorporated, but we are still capable of creating something fantastic.
I am tired of the books and resources about transitions that assume we have a clean slate. Many are written for an audience of educated young men being released into a world designed with their success in mind. I’m not minimizing this age and stage - rather - saying that the approaches used for those entering adulthood do not translate to the life I’m living now. When working with women to brainstorm options for what’s next in their lives and careers, I always start with one question: What are your constraints?
Are there boundaries, deal breakers, or non-negotiables that must inform your design? Acknowledging them and embracing them is an essential part of designing what’s next for you. Embrace these elements and trust that something amazing is possible. There is beauty in this level of specificity like you are the tailor for your own bespoke garment.
Your life has been a series of prototypes
One of my favorite tools of product design is the humble prototype, a way to test a product or idea that is meant to be altered and improved upon. You have been prototyping all your life. Every experience has taught you something and had the potential to move you closer to living a more fulfilling life. Post-COVID, I was at a dinner with friends, and the topic of prototypes came up (I know, I have weird friends). My friend, Elise, had just gone through a divorce and had started dating for the first time in 7 years. We all universally agreed that this was the time in her life to prototype, test, and learn. If her previous marriage was a prototype, think of how far she has come toward her next design!
The conversation was a game-changer. Rather than seeing her new-found singledom as a loss or failure, Elise reframed her situation as a time to play, experiment, and learn what would work for her and her present life - which included growing her successful business and living in Atlanta. By incorporating everything she’s learned about herself from her previous marriage, she gets to redesign and redefine what a relationship means for her now.
What’s the upside?
While we aren’t starting with a clean slate, we are starting with years of skill, experience, and self-knowledge. We have decades of data to inform us - tests, wins, losses, and insights. When we consider the value of this knowledge, we can see that we are more capable now than at any other time of designing meaningful solutions.
You are not behind; you are right on track. It’s not too late; it’s the perfect time to create a life that serves you now.
If you want to learn more about how to move through transitions with clarity and purpose while collaborating with other empowered women, please join our email newsletter list.
Keep calm and design on!