Are you one of the many midlife women telling yourself “you’re too old” to wear that dress, take that course, or start that new hobby? Did you ever consider that it’s this belief - and NOT your age - that’s stopping you doing what you want?
In this episode, we challenge the “I’m too old” mindset and discuss how to embrace the fear of discomfort that comes with change.
Both of us have made midlife shifts with careers, relationships, homes, and hobbies. They haven’t always been easy, but they’ve always been worth it.
It’s so easy for your world to become small and stagnant in midlife. By getting comfortable with being uncomfortable you’ll get to drink what Sara calls, “the juice of life” - which gives you sense of vitality and excitement that you’ll never be too old for.
Disclaimer: This podcast, along with associated websites and social media materials, are not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. The views expressed are that of Sara Garska and Kate Campion, and that of our guests, respectively. It is for informational purposes only. Please consult your healthcare professional for medical questions.
Are you one of the many midlife women telling yourself “you’re too old” to wear that dress, take that course, or start that new hobby? Did you ever consider that it’s this belief - and NOT your age - that’s stopping you doing what you want?
In this episode, we challenge the “I’m too old” mindset and discuss how to embrace the fear of discomfort that comes with change.
Both of us have made midlife shifts with careers, relationships, homes, and hobbies. They haven’t always been easy, but they’ve always been worth it.
It’s so easy for your world to become small and stagnant in midlife. By getting comfortable with being uncomfortable you’ll get to drink what Sara calls, “the juice of life” - which gives you sense of vitality and excitement that you’ll never be too old for.
Disclaimer: This podcast, along with associated websites and social media materials, are not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. The views expressed are that of Sara Garska and Kate Campion, and that of our guests, respectively. It is for informational purposes only. Please consult your healthcare professional for medical questions.
Kate: Welcome to the Midlife Spotlight podcast. I’m Kate Campion -
Sara: and I’m Sara Garska -
Kate: and we’re certified life coaches obsessed with helping you find joy in this next act of your life. Whether it’s reviving your midlife marriage, losing weight, or scratching that “what next” itch, we’re here to share our experience and expertise with you.
This podcast is a weekly dose of YOU time, where you get the tools and tricks to improve your health and happiness. Talking to you is so much fun, so thanks for tuning in. Let’s get started.
Kate: Hello and welcome to Midlife Spotlight, the show that helps you enjoy your next act. I'm Kate Campion.
Sara: And I'm Sara Garska.
Kate: And in today's episode, we'll discuss why you're not too old.
Sara: All right. Well, let's get started. So one of the things that I believe is one of the most debilitating beliefs a woman in midlife can have is that they're too old for something.
And a lot of women think there's certain things that you can do at a certain age and certain things you can't. But it's not true. But the problem is we think it's true. And so that holds us back from doing a lot of things.
So just for reference, I'm 61 now. But when I was in my early 50s, I decided, and it was a conscious decision, I was not going to let anything, I was not going to not do things because of my age. So in my mid 50s, I started hiking. I had never hiked up mountains or done anything like that. I started cycling. And I'm going to say cycling. I mean, riding l onger distance, like 30 miles, something like that. I once did 46. That was pretty cool.
I started two blogs. And a life coaching business. I fell in love a few times. And I've met a lot of interesting people over the years, including you Kate. Now I wonder, do you have any thoughts on, because you're younger. You're 49. So do you ever feel like you're too old to do anything?
Kate: Yeah, I definitely think that there’s things that happen as we reach a certain age and whether or not we're comfortable with making changes and what those changes might mean. And if we have the time to, I guess, reap the fruits of what those changes might be.
I think for me, probably the thing I struggled with thinking I was the too, the too old to do was when I looked to change my career because I had been in teaching for 20 years. Um, I was in my mid 40s. And we had a lot of financial obligations that were centered around my job and, um, paying our mortgage, saving for retirement.
And the idea that I was like too old to make a change and what the consequences might be of making that change really did keep me stuck for probably a good couple of years more than it should have.
And I think that that one and probably about being too old to do things with money. So that might be something for another episode, like this idea that, um, you know, whenever you like read these blogs and they say things like if you want to reach financial independence, when you're 20, you should start setting aside X number of dollars.
Well, when you're 49, you don't have that much time to actually set aside those dollars, right? And so you can start to think that it's not worth it to invest or make sort of longer term financial decisions because you feel like there just isn't any time to reap the benefit from that. I don't know if that makes any sense.
Sara: It makes total sense. And I think it's such a great point. And I do think we should come back and visit it because it made me think I just I bought a house a year ago. It's my one year anniversary and I'm 61. And I still laugh about it because I'm like, they think I would live forever apparently whoever gave me the mortgage.
But you know that if I had been thinking in those terms like I'm too old to buy a house, I might not have done it. It might have been…. and so I did. And I love that about the career because I made several, I made a big career change in my 40s. I became a college advisor and it was really, it turned out to be great.
And so I love that idea like, I think because I'm 60, I don't think of 40s as old.
Kate: Yeah.
Sara: But honestly, sometimes in Facebook groups and stuff, I'll see women that are as young as 30s saying, am I too old to do this? And I'm always like, oh my God, you baby. There's so much time left.
Kate: Yeah, that just reminds me of actually when, so I had my first child at 19, which was very not socially acceptable and did lead to quite a few different changes on how I'd plan to live my life career wise.
And one of those changes that I did was I had been doing a degree in anthropology, absolutely loved anthropology, but I decided I'd get into nursing. I don't know why. I would have been a terrible nurse.
But when I was actually in my nursing training, someone said to me, Kate, you should really look at being a doctor instead. of the news, I think you'd be fantastic. And I distinctly remember saying, I'm too old to do that. And the hilarious thing was, I think I was like 22. I was so not too old.
Sara: I'll be 32 when I'm done.
Kate: Exactly. And now if I look back and think, oh, if I'd been 32 and I was done, that would have been, you know, 17 years ago. So definitely that perception of time and that you're too old to do something doesn't really do much. So I guess I wonder why we even do it.
Sara: I don't know. I think it's just we've been, it's a social construct. And we're just, there's so much emphasis on doing things younger and faster and getting ahead. Like, if you haven't done it by the time you're 30, like, well, why even bother?
This comes up a lot working with women and I work with women that are from about your age to almost 70s. That's my current client load, but I hear a lot of women think they're too old for a lot of things. So one of the big things is I'm too old to lose weight. It's just not going to happen. Too old to fall in love. Definitely like what you had said, too old to start a new career, a new job. go to school, that's one.
So one of the things, like when I started my blog, I was early 50s, and that's when you and I met. And at that time, everything out there, metric wise, said women over 50 were not blog readers. And I was this woman from nowhere, like small town, 52 divorce, had nothing going on. And I'm like, I wanna start a blog. And you know who I'm gonna write for? Women over 50.
And because I had the belief, I was like, women over 50 are the next big audience. That's where it's gonna be. And I think that's true, because women are reading blogs and stuff, and women are wanting to do more with this part of their life.
And so that's why I think this episode is so important. So if you're a woman that has ever told yourself, I'm too old to do something, this episode is for you. Because that is just a sentence in your mind. Like when we're talking about how our brains work. Sometimes we've been told things so often that we actually believe it's true.
Kate: What do you think that happens?
Sara: I think it's because, well, I will tell you, there's one thing about our brains. Our brains like to keep us safe. And so the safest thing it seems, and it's not true, is to not change, to not do something that could be scary. And so if we don't start something new, if we don't change a career, if we don't, like in my case, you know, I was divorced nine years ago and I've had a couple of long-term relationships, it was scary to break up and say this isn't working. And to give up on that idea of having, you know, the so-called security of maybe a partner. And so when we don't make change because we think we're too old, we think it's keeping us safe. It's, but it's not. All it's doing is... keeping us from feeling the discomfort of changing.
Kate: That is such, actually, you just made such a good point. I was thinking a couple of things when you were saying that. And one was that typical, what was that saying, you know, better the devil you know, you know, it's so much easier to like stick with what we know because it seems known to us. And so even though it's uncomfortable, we'll go with it. Yeah.
Sara: Yeah, that is, I mean, and so it's so true. But here's the thing. So even though it seems like it makes so much sense to like, yeah, that's going to keep us safer. But I look back and I'm like, if I hadn't done those things, I'm like, what would my life be like? I mean, I have a really life, I have a life that I really like. I feel optimistic. I look forward to things. I don't let my age be the reason I don't do anything. I'm like, pause.
I might have to think about it.
I might have to talk to my coach about it. But I still go ahead and do it because what I know is it's so worthwhile.
Kate: I remember the other thing I was meant to say before because it was that point that you made about feeling discomfort. In my own work with my own coach as well, she said, you're not so much afraid of the change. You're afraid of the feeling that the change will create. And so that feeling might be like, yeah, feeling uncomfortable or, you know, feeling embarrassed because you're the oldest person in the room. I don't know why that would be embarrassing, but we seem to think it's embarrassing.
Sara: It is, eah. I have a little funny story.
Kate: Yeah.
Sara: Yeah. I was at a retreat last year and I was the oldest person there. Yeah. Because I'm often the oldest person in a room. And there's one woman that was close to my age and she wanted to find out how old I was and I told her and she's like, I'm not the oldest person here. Like that was important to her. It's like, I'm so glad I could do that for you.
Kate: It's interesting. It would be better if we actually looked at it and said, wow, how inspiring to see someone that is older than me putting themselves out there and making these changes. Like, I know when you mentioned to me about one of your clients being in their 70s, I just thought how incredibly inspiring that was that there was a woman that was still actively working on growing herself and doing new things with her life.
Sara: I think I get it honestly. My mom is going to be 91 in a week, just a week. She'll be 91. But up until she, so she, her background was school teaching and she was a school teacher and had done a lot of things in education. And up until I think she was 88 or 89, she tutored after school. I was just like, mom. So she inspires me.
My parents were both like that and I think I get some of them from them. Like, when they were, I think right before they retired, they bought kind of like a hobby farm. And they didn't just have this farm they started they got a dog they did search and rescue They were in their 60s traipsing in the mountains looking for missing people.
They have a handicapped riding program that they started on their farm with horses. They bought horses Yeah, like they did all these things in their 60s and 70s that were so cool And that you know and so it showed me, it demonstrated, like you could have a lot of fun. Yeah, you don't have to be in a 20 year old body or a 30 year old body to have fun, to be fit, to be able to do really cool things and so yeah, so one of the things I want to say is even though like what you had said all we're trying to avoid is a feeling and it's you know, it might be fear or discomfort. Yeah. But what we get the thing is once you do it, I think that's the secret of youth. Like that's where you get your passion, your vitality. I call it the juice of life.
Kate: Nice, I like that.
Sara: Yeah, when we just settle, when we just settle and do what's comfortable, I kind of look at people and sometimes I think, oh, they're just kind of drying up. I don't have a better word for it. When we do the things that do cause discomfort, that we have to work through and maybe we feel afraid when we're doing it and we're not comfortable, but that does something to us. I swear it's so good for us.
And I don't know with your background, but you probably have some of the same learning whatever.
Kate: Yeah.
Sara: But, you know, there's stress that can be bad for us. You know, if we're under too much chronic stress, it can be bad for us, it can hurt our health. But we are actually designed, our human bodies are designed, we need stress. If we don't have some stress in our bodies, it's actually harmful to us. And so there's been, I'm sure, poor little animals have gone through bad experiences, so we know how stress affects us.
But one of the things, I remember one thing I read, like when things are too good, like if everything is good and you don't have any discomfort and nothing's, you know, kind of messing with you, it's unhealthy.
Kate: Yeah. There’s no growth.
Sara: It's just not good for you. And I'm pretty bad about explaining science stuff back, but you get my drift. It’s like we're not meant to have feathered nests.
Kate: No.
Sara: We're meant to have a certain amount of stress and new experiences.
Kate: A little bit of discomfort is necessary to actually keep going. And I was thinking about something else where you were talking to and that, you know, when we think about our grandparents and our parents who are probably born in much earlier times, it used to be this vision of them sort of as they got older, their lives sort of became smaller and smaller.
Like they might become more confined to their house, they might become more narrow in their activities. And that very attitude towards aging, like you said, does become a bit of a vicious cycle.
And we actually had an experience with this last year, sometime when my mother-in-law was coming down to the area where we lived and she needed to take her partner to the hospital. And she was not confident to drive in the city. So she made her other son drive her down. And at that time we thought to ourselves, if you don't constantly put yourself out there, if you do let those things of say the fear of driving in a big city stop you, then what happens is that makes your life smaller and smaller.
So a funny story, living in the country, we had never taken an Uber and it had become this thing in my mind where taking an Uber was really frightening. And so after we had this incident where the mother-in-law had done this, we were over in Australia for a holiday and we were in this situation where we just paid an obscene amount of money for a taxi.
And I looked on the Uber app which I had installed for about two years and said it will only cost us this much to get an Uber, we've got to do it. We've got to make the plunge, like keep on pushing ourselves to do those uncomfortable things so we don't end up in that situation where we just don't feel confident in new environments because like I said, that just keeps your world small and makes it smaller and smaller.
Sara: Oh, I love that. I'm going to add that to my list. I hadn't really put it in, articulated it that way, but it does make your life smaller. I remember. So I do live, I live in, I think it's still the fourth biggest city in the US. I'm in Houston. And I remember when I first came to Texas, I lived in a small town about an hour away and I stayed in the small town for a month without going to Houston because it terrified me.
I'd been there with my husband driving. I'd actually let my daughter drive me through Houston rather than driving. And she wasn't that, you know, like my 20 year old daughter. Like, yeah, you take the wheel.
And but after a month, I was like, I've got to go to Houston. And this was in Mapquest days. So I printed out my directions for one place I was going to go to. And I drove to Houston and I was dripping sweat. My hands were sweaty. I got to where I was supposed to go. Couldn't even go in. Just went to Starbucks and got a coffee and went home.
And then the next day I'm like, I'm going to do it again. I got my directions out. And I drove. And it was better. It was better. I'm still nervous, but I got to the furniture store and looked around. And then I was like, I went back home.
And so that really resonated with me when you said, when we don't do things, it does shrink our world. And when we do more, and it doesn't just have to be driving in a big city. But I also remember hearing people in the little town I lived in tell me sometimes I will never drive to Houston. And I'm like, there's so much there. That's where the museums are. That's where the theater is. That's where the music is. That's where the zoo is. It's where a lot of things are. And so I know we're spending a lot of time on driving. So I'm going to move off that.
But it's perfect. It's a good analogy.
Yeah. When we make ourselves. do some things that are out of our comfort zone, we get to experience so much more.
And so hopefully we've made a good case for that part. So I want to spend also a little time, how do we do that? Do you have any thoughts on the why we want to do it before I wrap that part up?
Kate: No, I was just thinking the other thing that popped into my mind was like it's only new once. And that's something that my husband and I have told ourselves as well, like it's only going to be the first time once. And so once you can actually push yourself past that, you've done it, right?
Sara: I love that. Yeah. It's only new once. Yes. Yeah. I remember my first Uber ride. I'm like an Uber addict. I love it. Because I still hate driving in the big city sometimes. I still call it the big city. I've been here nine years. All right. All right. So one of the things, and I don't think I said this word yet, but thinking you're too old is what is called limiting belief.
And it's not something Kate and I came up with. It's kind of a fairly common term. But it's a belief that you believe that keeps you from doing things and it just keeps you playing below what you could be capable of.
Yeah. And so I just want to plant that word in your brains because limiting belief is something we're going to come back to multiple times because being too old is not the only one out there.
But it's to me it's like one of the biggest ones I see. Just I'm too old. Too old to wear a mini skirt or… which I'm wearing.
Kate: Love it.
Sara: Because that's what I do. Anyway, all right. So when we're thinking about how to get past the limiting belief, you know, first of all, we have to just acknowledge if you catch yourself thinking those words or telling someone else, I'm too old for that. One is just to stop and question it. Like is it true?
You know, some things are not so much I'm too old for. There's some things I didn't want to do when I was 20. I still don't want to do them. But I'm trying to think of something current. I would say I'm going to go back to the bicycle thing. I knew I wasn't too old to ride a bicycle, to get on and ride. But I definitely never thought I was a person that could ride a bicycle for 30 miles in a group with a thousand people. And again, it was something really scary the first time. It was terrifying. But I did it. I did 24 miles my very first long ride. And then after that, it was more practicing getting better at it. And I did it for several years until I was like, yeah, that was good.
I'm done.
Yeah. So anyway, where it was going is like, one, you have to just genuinely say, am I too old for this? Is that a fact? Really make it factual.
And then you can, and I bet nine times out of 10, a person's answer is going to be no. No, I'm really not. I just feel uncomfortable. It might be like, I don't wanna, like, for me, I didn't want to be in stretchy pants, like that hugged my body. I'm definitely too old for that. But I had to get over it.
So I think a big part is just actually really being factual. Because there's a lot of things we're going to think that, but it's not necessarily true. And then the other thing is to allow yourself just to be kind of nervous about it and afraid. And just, I mean, you just have to feel it. And you don't have to do it right away. That's the other thing. It's like, you can just think about it. You can maybe look some things up and start giving yourself permission to think it's okay to do something no matter what your age is. And then find small ways to start doing it.
Like for me, maybe for six months before I did my big bike ride, I just did little bike rides. I had a friend that took me out and taught me the ropes and all the stuff you need to know when you're out there doing it. So I started in just little ways before I jumped in big. And then have lots of compassion for yourself as you're doing it. You know, you don't have to be the fastest. You don't have to compete with anyone. That's a huge one. You don't have to compete with anyone. You just, you can do it for the fun of challenging yourself.
Okay. So I'm going to share what I think is one of the best results of looking at this limiting belief about being too old. So when you begin doing these things, my favorite result is I actually feel younger. And, this is subjective, but I think I look younger.
There's something about doing these things that you thought were too, you were too old for, and you actually do them. Like it makes you feel, feel something really incredible inside. Have you experienced that or do you know what I'm getting at?
Kate: Yeah. I'm thinking about running. So one thing about me was I never, ever exercised at all in my life. And it was something that I actually had a strong aversion to doing. I'm much more a reader. and a learner, and in my early 40s with my husband who is very much into exercise, I had this experience where he and my stepmother and my brother and my sister all went and participated in a running event and I actually got a bit of FOMO and I decided that I would never be to, like I would never be like in that position again when I was just watching it. I actually wanted to do that as well even though I did feel that I was too old to start running in my early 40s and I was able to go right the way through and do a half marathon back in 2017 which took me ages, ages to train for and to work up to but I still run now and so that was an example of a hobby that really did not start until quite a long time that made me have a real sense of accomplishment but also has been really good for me as well I think.
Sara: Oh I love that one that's a great example. It reminds me of when I started hiking.
Because I've always liked outside and I'm a walker, but I'd never had like that experience of hiking for several hours and going up a mountain. And so I think this one is a good example of lessons you learn along the way.
Because it was new and I'd never done it. And when I'm doing it and when I say there's like 20 year olds like skipping along in their flip flops going up the hill. I'm like in my hiking shoes, I got my poles, I'm trying to do it all right. And I'm slow. That's what triggered that. When you said slow. I was like yeah, I was so slow. But you know what? I got to the top of that damn mountain. I mean, it might have taken me twice as long as younger people or more experienced people. But I got to the highest peak in all the parks I visited when I was in my little hiking phase. And I was so proud of that. And when you get to the top of a mountain, you see views that you just can't get to with that. the car. And I think that's kind of the metaphor is when you do these things, you're going to experience things you can't read about. You can't just observe people doing. You can't feel that watching TV. You only feel it by doing it.
And I don't mean just the physical things we've talked about, because we also talked about, you know, starting new careers, starting the blog, starting this podcast, businesses, all of that, you experience something you can't get by just looking at or reading about.
That's like, what's like the commercial that's like priceless or something. All right, all right, listeners.
So if you catch yourself saying, I'm too old for something, I want you to stop because that's your signal to yourself to question yourself, to question that idea.
Are you really too old? Or does it just feel too uncomfortable? Because here's the thing. We as humans are equipped to feel uncomfortable. We don't like it in this day and age. We’ll eat, we'll scroll, we'll watch TV. We'll do anything to not feel uncomfortable. But I promise you, it's just a feeling and you can handle it.
And so if you think about it that it's just a feeling, it is just a feeling between you and this thing you want to do. Like I want to learn to dance. I still have not got there because I still feel so uncomfortable. But I realized like the only thing between me and learning to dance is this, I'll feel uncomfortable.
And so when you push yourself, you know, you're going to have an experience, you're going to have that opportunity to experience life in a brand new way. And I do think you feel younger. And that was my two cents on what I'm too old means.
Kate: Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. If you loved what you heard, you can leave a review so we know to keep more of it coming. You can also visit our website at midlifespotlight.com and learn a little bit more about us. We love connecting with you and can't wait to see you next week.