Guest List: Forty Things You Will Learn at Forty

Mary Meadows is a life coach and all round good person.  When I was having a life-wobbly last year she took me out for coffee and (that was actually a life-coaching session) and it worked wonders. I don’t quite know what she said or did, but helped me realise that I was unhappy in my job and that I needed to make a change. Which is exactly what I did. 365 days later and I am pleased to be report that I have had the best year career wise, bar-none.

As such, any advice from Mary is grateful received, her she gives us all an insight into life at 40:

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My 40th birthday year was a milestone for SO many reasons. I had very mixed feelings about it, as in another life my ‘40th Birthday Celebrations’ were going to be organised by my husband, and were to involve renewing our vows in Las Vegas…we had talked about it for years even started saving up for it. My late thirties were taken up with post natal depression, and my husband having an affair that ended our marriage. So fast forward to my new single life, re-trained and qualified as a Life Coach and NLP practitioner, an independent single woman and my impending 40th year on this planet, I had a realisation that so many lessons had been learnt. So here is my 40 things you learn when you are 40 list…

• Cous cous is PASTA.
• Blood is made in your bones.
• Life is hard…for EVERYONE.
• Anxiety is an epidemic…we are the cure.
• Don’t wait until you are 40 to boil an egg.
• Appreciate where you are right NOW.
• That you don’t ever feel like an adult EVER
• Life is hard..for EVERYONE (needed to put this one in again as its so f**king true).
• You have a choice, even if you don’t think you do.
• Suddenly becoming part of a minority group is SHIT.
• Try not to give yourself any labels, society does that for you.
• You suddenly sound like a bumper sticker.
• You realise for the most part your parents were right.
• Life is too short for shit coffee
• That expensive eye cream only works if you apply it.
• Moving and stretching your body DAILY is essential if you want to survive the next 40 years.
• Don’t just tell your kids to eat their greens, you need vegetables too
• Life is simple if you make it so.
• Learn how to say ‘no’ more (so hard but you will thank me for this one).
• Tell people you love them more.
• Make time to dance like a crazy person its good for the soul.
• Mood follows action (my daily mantra).
• Look after your pelvic floor (yes it matters even if you haven’t given birth).
• Learn to listen.
• Ask intelligent questions, people like it.
• Buy the sensible shoes.
• Comfort always wins when it comes to knickers
• Make time to schedule in your health checks, dentist, opticians as well as your kids.
• If you want to be successful in anything you do, focus on your own shit.
• Don’t waste time with people who don’t make you feel good.
• Book more holidays (even if its one night in a b&b in Brighton and you go on your own).
• Don’t wait for ANYTHING.
• Burn the nice candle.
• Concentrate on the small stuff, the big stuff takes care of itself.
• Take time to do the stuff that makes YOU feel good.
• Swim naked in the sea (if you haven’t already DO THIS)
• Laugh as much as you can, at anything and everything.
• Own your decisions, its okay to like what YOU like.
• Get the tattoo.
• Life does indeed start at 40
  

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