Why Midlife Isn’t a Crisis, It’s a Turning Point

There’s a moment many women reach in midlife that’s hard to explain, especially when everything looks fine from the outside.

Life is full. Busy. Often good. You’ve handled hard seasons, taken care of people you love, and built something meaningful. From a distance, it all makes sense.

And yet, there’s a quiet feeling that something is off.

Not broken. Not dramatic. Just unsettled.

Many women struggle to name it because gratitude and restlessness can exist at the same time. You can love your life and still feel disconnected from yourself. You can be proud of what you’ve built and still wonder if there’s more.

I hear this from women all the time. Whether it’s in quiet conversations, coaching sessions, or after a talk, the message is the same. Life is good, but something feels incomplete.

Midlife isn’t a crisis.
It’s a turning point.

And for many women, that turning point begins with a question they were never taught to ask.

What do I want?

The Question Most Women Were Trained to Ignore

From a young age, many women learn to pay attention to everyone else first.

What does my family need?
What’s the responsible choice?
What will keep things running smoothly?

Those questions matter. They build strong families and stable lives. For a long time, they are necessary.

But when those are the only questions guiding your decisions, something slowly gets lost.

Midlife has a way of revealing that loss.

The routines are familiar. Some roles shift. The pace changes just enough that your own thoughts get louder. And suddenly, a new question starts showing up, often when you least expect it.

What do I want now?

Not what made sense ten or twenty years ago, not what looks good from the outside.
Not what feels safest.

What do I actually want?

For many women, this is the first time they’ve ever paused long enough to consider the answer.

My Turning Point on Kilimanjaro

For a long time, my life revolved around being needed.

I was a stay at home mom raising six kids. Three biological. Three adopted. Our house was loud, busy, and full in every sense of the word. I loved my family deeply, and I took pride in being the one who held everything together.

But without realizing it, I had started shrinking my own desires.

Not intentionally.
Not out of resentment.

Just quietly, over time.

I didn’t stop dreaming. I stopped asking myself what I wanted.

When I decided to climb Mount Kilimanjaro at forty two, it wasn’t about proving anything or chasing a bucket list moment. I didn’t go into it expecting a life changing experience. I just knew I needed to do something hard that belonged to me.

The climb stripped everything down. The altitude made multitasking impossible. There was no managing anyone else’s needs, no distractions, no pretending. Each day was about one thing only.

Take the next step.

Somewhere on that mountain, I realized how often I had told myself to be grateful instead of honest. How frequently I pushed through discomfort without stopping to ask if the life I was living still fit who I was becoming.

Standing there, surrounded by silence and strangers, I wasn’t thinking about becoming a speaker or writing a book. I was thinking something much simpler.

When did I stop trusting myself?

The answer didn’t come with a dramatic emotional release. It came with clarity. And clarity, I’ve learned, is far more powerful than motivation.

I came home to the same life. Same family. Same responsibilities. Nothing looked different on the outside.

But internally, something had shifted.

I stopped dismissing the quiet voice that kept asking for more, I stopped assuming that wanting something different meant I was ungrateful. I started asking myself what I wanted, even when the answers were uncomfortable or unclear.

That question changed everything.

The transition from stay at home mom to keynote speaker, author, and podcast host didn’t happen overnight. Reinvention rarely does. It happened through small decisions, one honest step at a time.

The real reinvention wasn’t the titles.
It was the permission.

Why This Question Shows Up in Midlife

Midlife brings perspective.

By this stage, women know themselves better than they ever have. They recognize patterns, they understand what drains them and what energizes them. They can see where they’ve been saying yes out of obligation instead of desire.

This season isn’t about blowing everything up. It’s about alignment.

The question quietly shifts from How do I keep all of this going? to Does this still make sense for me?

That shift matters.

Why Asking What You Want Feels So Uncomfortable

When you’ve spent years putting others first, turning inward can feel selfish. It can feel unnecessary. Even wrong.

So the question gets pushed aside.

But unasked questions don’t disappear. They tend to show up as burnout, irritability, or a numbness that’s hard to explain.

Asking yourself what you want isn’t about rejecting your life.
It’s about telling the truth about it.

And honesty creates movement, even when the steps are small.

The REAL Method™ and Reinvention

This is where the REAL Method™ fits.

Confidence isn’t about having everything figured out. It’s about trusting yourself enough to take the next step, even when the path isn’t clear.

Respect Yourself means listening instead of dismissing what you feel.
Embrace Your Failures allows reflection without judgment.
Ask Yourself What You Want creates direction instead of drifting.
Live Without Limits invites aligned action, even when fear is present.

Midlife is often the first time women are ready to walk through this process with honesty instead of urgency.

Reinvention Doesn’t Have to Be Dramatic

Reinvention is often quieter than we expect.

It looks like setting a boundary you’ve avoided.
Saying no when you used to say yes.
Choosing what feels right over what looks right.

Small changes, practiced consistently, reshape a life.

A Final Thought

If this question keeps coming up for you, pay attention.

You don’t need a five year plan, you don’t need all the answers.

You just need the willingness to ask and the courage to listen.

What do I want?

That question doesn’t create chaos.
It creates clarity.

And clarity is where real confidence begins.

Want to Go Deeper?

If this resonated with you, and you find yourself asking What do I want now?, my book REAL Confidence: A Simple Guide to Go from Unsure to Unshakeable is a place to continue the conversation.

In it, I share my reinvention story more fully, along with the REAL Method™, a practical framework to help you build self trust, make aligned decisions, and move forward with confidence, even when clarity feels incomplete.

Learn more and pre order your copy here:
👉 https://realconfidencebook.com