Feeling relevant when you’re figuring out your next steps and putting yourself in the firing line of acceptance is hard work but you’ve no doubt done it before and you can do it again.
When I was approached to write an article about finding meaning in the post-retirement years, I started to think about my own personal drive to figure out my path, post-divorce. Even those of us who don’t face challenges like job layoffs or ended relationships tend to glance in the rear view mirror at those pesky grey hairs, wondering what we’ve done with our lives since the days when more of our lives were ahead of us rather than behind.
Divorce has a way of throwing us smack-dab in the middle of a crisis of identity on many levels. If we’ve spent a decade or so packing school lunches and arranging playdates, we’re faced with defining or redefining our career paths, an improvised recipe, blending long-ago degrees with skills acquired through volunteer opportunities and parenthood. Figuring the right balance might take more than a few batches of tossed out smoothies (or resumes) that just didn’t work.
If we throw ourselves into the post-divorce dating scene, we face yet another marketing challenge. How do we present ourselves in a compelling way to get face time or even a returned message?
Dating and the endless job search are quests in a parallel universe. You spend hours waiting for any response, towing the line between desperation and enthusiasm until the rejection bar comes down. You’ll likely walk out of an interview or two, confident you’ve nabbed the job or a first date that ended with a steamy first kiss, never to hear from either party again, or perhaps worse, the response to your enquiring email or text sums up, “We’ve decided to go in another direction.”
Think back to those days when your teetering self-esteem could come crashing down because your crush asked out your best friend or you sat on the outskirts of the popular lunch table because you were wearing the wrong jeans. Now you struggle to reconcile with that changing body or face with the one you see in the mirror, and approval of others seems much more crucial to figuring out how exactly you’ll fit in.
Decades and grey hairs separate middle school from middle age.
Just how can you balance confidence with the relentless pounding inherent of setting yourself up for rejection? Here’s how:
1. Focus on your accomplishments instead of what you perceive to be your deficits.
2. Set goals, which can be anything from training for a half-marathon, taking a yoga class, to brushing up on your French. The sense of accomplishment in reaching a goal is so much more valuable than those trophies gathering dust on the bookshelf or turning heads in a bar.
3. If you do decide to work towards physical changes, make sure the focus is on how you feel about yourself and not impressing someone else. Practice pilates, update your hairstyle or buy some flattering outfits. Any kind of change will help you feel better living in your skin.
4. If your Kindle is filled with self-help books, try to focus on gratitude for what you have instead of what you feel you are lacking.
5. In a culture that idolizes youth, continuing to feel relevant when the competition in the job and dating market was in diapers as you started college can feel daunting. Keep your professional skills up to date and focus on the value of your experience.
6. Grow and nurture a support system. Find friends going through the same transition or who can help pull you across. After my divorce, I aimed to add to my social and professional network, through “friend” fix-ups. We all have friends who are connectors. Tap into that resource to find professional contacts, mentors, or even someone to meet for coffee.
Feeling relevant when you’re figuring out your next steps and putting yourself in the firing line of acceptance is hard work but you’ve no doubt done it before and you can do it again.
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