BECOMING: The Next Chapter Is Yours (and what I learned about my own)

Last Thursday we had one of the most incredible nights celebrating women in midlife, and it made something even clearer to me.

Women are extraordinary.

Yet I speak to so many women who reach a point in their lives where they feel their possibilities getting smaller. Career, health, wellbeing, style. Ageism spins a narrative that all of these parts of our lives must somehow fall off a cliff the minute we turn 50.

But that's not true, is it? It's a story we're told. And unfortunately, it's one that too many women have started to believe.

We're encouraged to Botox our CVs, minimise our ages and downplay decades of experience just to get noticed. It's incredibly reductive when there is THIS MUCH POTENTIAL still living in all of us.

And I say potential deliberately, because there's so much more room to grow beyond midlife.

I see it every day in my work as a career coach, I see women who are extraordinary relationship builders, who instinctively connect people, remember the little things that make others feel seen and heard, and bring years of experience, judgement and wisdom into everything they do.

These are skills we should be celebrating, not hiding. And in a world where AI is changing the way we work, I believe these deeply human capabilities are going to become even more valuable.

Which is why it was so special to gather with 53 women last Thursday evening, and to have the opportunity to speak to them about just how much they still have to offer.

An evening dedicated to what's next.

BECOMING: The Next Chapter Is Yours was the brainchild of four women — Rachael, Yin, Robyn and me. We wanted to create an evening where women could step away from the busyness of their everyday lives and spend a little time thinking about themselves.

Because let's face it, by the time we reach midlife, most of us have spent decades looking after everyone else. Raising families, working, supporting partners, caring for ageing parents and generally keeping everything ticking along.

And then something starts to shift. We begin asking questions we might not have had the time, space or courage to ask before. Questions like who am I now? What do I actually want? And what could the next chapter of my life look like?

We hoped BECOMING would be a place for women to land, connect with one another and remember just how full of possibilities the years ahead can be.

Each of us brought a different perspective to the evening.

Rachael talked about identity and reconnecting with who we are underneath all the roles we play.

Yin helped us better understand our changing bodies and hormone health.

Robyn explored how our personal style can reflect the women we are today.

And I talked about careers, and how we can take back control of our working lives at a time when the world of work is changing so dramatically.

There was something pretty special about seeing a room full of women laughing, connecting, sharing stories and giving themselves permission to think about what they might want next.

Midlife can be a wonderful time to take stock.

I'm 50 now, and the more I think about this stage of life, the more I see the opportunity in it. Yes, there are challenges. I'm not pretending otherwise.

But there's also something rather wonderful about getting older. We know ourselves better, we've accumulated years of hard-won wisdom and experience, we care a little less about what other people think. And for many of us, we're beginning to get a bit of time back for ourselves.

At 50, we could have another 30 or 40 years ahead of us. Think about that. That's an enormous amount of life still to live!

So why would we assume our most interesting, fulfilling or meaningful years are behind us?

And yet, when it comes to careers, I see so many women feeling stuck. Some have spent years in jobs they've outgrown, others have been made redundant and are struggling to find their feet again, some have built successful careers but have this nagging feeling that there's something else they'd rather be doing.

Then there's AI.

The world of work is changing at a pace we've never experienced before. Jobs are being redesigned, industries are being disrupted, and many of the things we once relied on for career security are no longer looking particularly secure. Add gendered ageism into the mix and it's hardly surprising that women are feeling anxious about their futures.

But I don't believe the answer is to make ourselves smaller, hide our age or desperately try to squeeze ourselves into the jobs we've always known. I think we need to start thinking differently.

What if we stopped trying to fit ourselves into jobs?

For years, we've been conditioned to think about careers in terms of job titles, qualifications and climbing the ladder. You choose a career, work hard, build your experience and hopefully enjoy some security along the way.

But what happens when that model stops working? When the jobs we know today might look completely different in five years' time? When technology can do work that previously required years of training?

I think we need to start asking different questions.

Instead of looking at the job market and asking, "Where do I fit?", what if we started with ourselves?

What do I enjoy doing? What am I naturally good at? What kind of environment brings out the best in me? What do I want my working life to look and feel like? And how could I use everything I've learned and experienced to create something that works for me?

I've spent more than 20 years helping people work through these questions, and if there's one thing I've learned, it's that most people spend far more time thinking about what they could do than what they actually want to do.

In fact, I often say to my coaching clients: "I can help you get almost anything you want. But first, you have to tell me what that is." It's a surprisingly difficult question to answer. Especially for women who've spent much of their lives putting other people's needs ahead of their own.

But I believe this is where we need to start. Because if we don't know what we're trying to create, how on earth do we know which direction to move in? And with AI changing the way we work, I think the future will increasingly be about creating opportunities rather than simply applying for existing jobs. We may need to become much more inventive about how we use our skills, knowledge, experience and relationships.

The traditional career path isn't necessarily going to be there for us to follow.

And perhaps that's not entirely a bad thing. Because what if, instead of trying to fit ourselves into someone else's idea of a career, we started creating working lives that actually suit us?

My own BECOMING moment

There's something else I want to share about the evening.

For the past two years, I've had a goal to really nail down my message. I've had all these ideas swirling around in my head about careers, midlife, the changing world of work, the importance of knowing yourself and what it takes to create a working life you love. I talk about these things all the time with my coaching clients.

But I've wanted to bring them together into one talk. Something I could deliver to different audiences without having to reinvent the wheel every time. And anyone who's ever written a talk will know how much work goes into getting it right! It's not just writing down a few ideas and putting together some slides. It's figuring out what you really want to say. What matters. What to leave out. How to make it relevant to the people sitting in front of you.

And then there's the practising. So much practising!

BECOMING gave me the deadline I needed to finally do it.

And I'm absolutely rapt. Not just because the evening went so well, but because I finally have a talk I'm really proud of.

I loved delivering it. I loved being up on stage, sharing ideas I feel so strongly about and seeing women in the audience connecting with what I was saying. And I've realised I want to do more of that.

Which makes me laugh a little, because there I was encouraging a room full of women to get clear on what they want from their next chapter, while having a bit of a revelation about my own.

A huge thank you

I couldn't finish without acknowledging the three women who made BECOMING happen alongside me. Rachael, Yin and Robyn — what a team! We put an extraordinary amount of work into creating this evening, and I'm so proud of what we achieved together.

And to the 53 women who came along, thank you. Thank you for buying a ticket, showing up, joining the conversations and being willing to spend an evening thinking about yourselves and what might be possible.

Gatherings like this remind us how important it is to take control of the narrative, get out of our own damn way and make a plan to go after what WE want. Because at 50, 60 or 70, there's still so much potential waiting to be realised.

As for me? I've got much clearer about something I want more of in my next chapter.

Speaking. And now I've got the talk to do it.

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Wondering what your own next career chapter might look like?

If you're feeling stuck or unsure about what you want from your working life, my Soul Search for Career Clarity course is a great place to start.

I'll take you through five practical exercises to help you reconnect with your strengths, interests, skills and what you need from your working environment, so you can begin figuring out what comes next.

Find out more about Soul Search for Career Clarity here