As a woman on the far side of fifty, you’d think I’d have slayed my demons long ago. And, yes, in all due modesty, I’ve challenged and overcome some pretty formidable shortcomings. I now exercise regularly, I’ve trained myself to forego those tempting bags of delightfully crunchy corn chips, and I’ve even learned to say “no” to people and projects I wish to avoid. (Well, mostly!) But, as New Year’s resolutions are still front and center most everywhere we turn, I’m going to confess to a biggie—a demon I still grapple with and a super self-sabotage mechanism I’ve employed far too frequently over the years: procrastination.

Yes, procrastination. It can whither one’s will and render one immovable. It sneaks into the unsuspecting brain with such salvos as “I’ll get to that later,” or “I’ve got to finish such and such first,” or “It really isn’t that important anyway.”

Meanwhile the task, now languishing in the recesses of one’s mind, grows and grows until it becomes the unspoken elephant in the cerebral cortex. Yep, hard as we might try to ignore it, the dreaded chore has taken on gigantic proportions and is silently gnawing away at us.

So, what to do? Experts in organization and time management suggest we take large projects and break them down into manageable steps; i.e. eat that elephant in your brain one bite at a time. I’m all for that because it feels good to make lists and check things off.

Others say we should start with the most difficult parts of a project first so we get them over with and can move on to more pleasant activities. Now, to me, this is an invitation for procrastination at its most potent. “No way!” I’d be shouting to myself, “nothing’s worth doing that.”

But a while back, a very wise person gave me a gem of an idea: Why not start with the parts of a project you love? So in a recent task fraught with the potential for procrastination, I did just that. And I’m pleased to report that even the most onerous of chores became manageable when I broke it down into smaller pieces and began with things I enjoy. In fact, my energy shifted, I became motivated, and I began to experience a sense of accomplishment that transformed my attitude and boosted my confidence. I started to feel like I was on a roll and before I knew it the dreaded undertaking was nearly complete.

So, for all you feisty ladies out there who may be putting off those big-time projects you really can’t avoid, do yourself a favor; pick the parts you like and that give you energy. Start with them. The rest will follow and you’ll be amazed at all you can accomplish once you feed your inner sloth with just the right mixture of fun and success.

 Workshop in Walnut Creek, CA

Don’t miss my upcoming class, Menopause: A Woman’s Journey to Wholeness, at Elephant Pharm Walnut Creek, CA on Sunday, January 25th, from 1 to 2 p.m.

Click here for more information

In my last post I mentioned I wanted to explore the topic of achieving balance in several areas of our lives. The first days of January are the perfect time to broach this subject as many of us feel out of sorts after the excesses of the holidays. We may have eaten too much, we’ve undoubtedly felt the stress of living up to Norman Rockwell expectations for the “spirit of the season,” and we’ve probably ignored important health habits like regular exercise and getting sufficient rest in favor of various holiday obligations. Nevertheless, as we retire our 2008 calendars in favor of the 2009 version, we literally get a fresh start and a whole new set of blank pages to work with. So, let’s make the most of them and reevaluate our direction and our goals for the New Year.

This is a great time to tend to some of the areas of your life that you may have been neglecting and there’s a straightforward little exercise that can help you do just that. Draw a pie chart and put a circle in the middle. The circle represents YOU. The various pieces of the pie that radiate out from YOU should include things like: family, health and wellbeing, social relationships, learning and intellectual stimulation, spiritual practices, community involvement, leisure and fun, and satisfying work. Give each piece a ranking from one to five; five representing excellence and fulfillment, and one meaning you have work to do in this area.

This simple pie chart can be a powerful tool to start you thinking and draw your focus to aspects of your life that require care and attention. As we grow older, we become more introspective and have a natural tendency to want to actualize our total being in the fullness of all our facets and complexities. Awareness is the crucial first step to making necessary changes.

The next steps call for action and one of my favorite blogs just added a post on this very topic. Create Your Future quotes an article by Jack Canfield entitled, “Decide What You Want for Yourself in 2009.” In his piece, Canfield addresses the subject of balance and provides suggestions for creating goals in various areas of your life. I heartily suggest that you give yourself the gift of reading this inspiring and informative article.

If you’re a woman over fifty, you’ve undoubtedly sacrificed parts of yourself over the years in service to meeting the needs of family and friends. In fact, many of us have a history of putting ourselves and our desires last on our own to-do lists. So it’s high time to bring a whole new balancing act into your life. Let 2009 become your richest and most satisfying year. As a fully formed woman with the gifts of age and perspective, it’s your time to shine and do so in each and every aspect of your being. 

For those of you who are frequent readers, you may recall that I’m currently on vacation. As one way of thwarting the addition of several unwanted pounds, I’m trying to keep up with my exercise. So yesterday morning I headed off for the hotel gym.I got there around 7:30 a.m. and was pleasantly surprised to see the room fairly full with several  sweaty hotel guests–all, I presume, with the same goal in mind as my own. But, the biggest surprise of all was that these other gym goers were almost all boomers! There were bald heads and grey hair everywhere I turned. I smiled to myself with the thought that the “forever young generation” was trying like heck to make that old chestnut into a reality. I was amongst my peers, clad in workout gear, ready to build my heart rate, and pump iron in my own attempts at anti-aging–or at least slowing the tick-tick-tick of Father Time and the spread-spread-spread of Mother Menopause.

As I stepped up on one of the treadmills, a younger man climbed on the one next to mine. He was likely in his late thirties and looked fairly fit. Each of us started rather slowly and then began to build both the incline and the speed to higher numbers. But, and I’m still grinning immodestly, I kept on increasing my speed while he remained at a rather moderate pace.

I realize there is a certain etiquette observed while at the gym and one huge faux pas is glancing over at your neighbor’s numbers as they’re working out. I tried to avert my eyes but they kept wandering to his machine. I couldn’t get a reading but, just for good measure, increased my speed again so there’d be no doubt as to who the true jock was.

Yes, I may have been behaving more than a bit childishly as my competitive streak emerged with unbridled force, but I had the feeling I was making a statement for all of us women over fifty. I was my own  Olympiad, proudly bearing the torch for my gender and generation. Who says we older gals are over the hill? I was handily beating this young stud and, even though I was beginning to turn beet red and sweat profusely, I wasn’t backing down. 

It was then that he made his move. He started revving the treadmill’s speed faster and faster until he started jogging at a fairly fast clip. Wanting to best his speed, I increased my own. However thankfully, at this point, I came to some semblance of sanity and did have the good sense to check the heart rate monitor. The numbers I saw gave me the immediate feedback that I was about to suffer from  some type of unfortunate cardiac episode, so I reluctantly backed off and decreased my speed to something more sustainable.

At any rate, although the young man did finally beat me speed-wise, I was able to keep up my workout a full ten minutes longer than he. So, I guess we old gals do rule–one way or another. My personal moral for this tale of  sweat and glory is: it ain’t the speed–it’s the spunk. And, my friends, although we may not make olympic material these days, we ladies over fifty have got that in spades!

In her book about women’s second adulthood, Inventing the Rest of Our Lives, Suzanne Braun Levine provides us with some exiting data concerning the aging brain. Dr. Francine Benes, professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, has discovered that there is a growth spurt that takes place in the human brain around the age of fifty. Myelin, which is the fatty layer that covers nerve fibers, actually grows about fifty percent during this time. This coating is responsible for aiding the brain to more effectively synthesize life experiences and to enhance the ability to make thoughtful judgments and prudent decisions.  

Even better, the location of this growth spurt is found within the area of the cerebral cortex that is identified with emotional learning. Perhaps, as Levine suggests, this myelin growth factor may likely play a part in creating the highly revered trait we call wisdom.

So, next time we search for our car keys, call our son by the dog’s name, or forget to tell our husband his boss phoned, we have to remember that somewhere in our noggin there’s a whole heap of wisdom going on!

Yes, for women over fifty, or, for that matter, most anyone of any age, modern travel isn’t easy. I just returned from a week’s trip to the heartland visiting my relatives and, although I had a wonderful time, the going wasn’t easy.

To start, I awoke at 3:45 a.m. to give myself enough time to shower and finalize my packing so that I could make my 7:06 plane. There was an earlier flight I could have taken that would have given me more time to make my connection, but that one left at 5:45 a.m. As I opted to luxuriate in a couple of hours extra sleep (a 1 a.m. wake-up is a bit too much at my tender age), I was concerned I might miss it.

Not to worry! When I arrived at the airport the check-in line wound in tight snake-like twists and turns, and then headed halfway up the hallway to the gates. Someone behind me announced that the airlines had cancelled both the 5:45 and the 7:06 and the line was composed of two planeloads of people trying to rebook their reservations.

What fun! It only took two hours to finally get to a reservations agent. I shouldn’t complain, however, because there were people much older than I who were similarly inconvenienced. They even required wheelchairs because that doggone line was so long that they thought they might pass out or crumple to their knees on the hard linoleum floor.

By the time I reached an agent, her likely once obliging smile was frozen in a frustrated grimace… no doubt having been the recipient of numerous angry complaints. And, yes, I added my own to her list. Try as I may, battling both the recorded voice “customer service” computer and the polite but unintelligible folks in India, I was stuck. Lucky me—I only had another seven hours to wait for an outbound flight. Instead of my anticipated 5 p.m. arrival, I got to inconvenience my brother by landing at midnight.

I remember flying with my mother and brother in the 1950s and loving the experience. We’d get all dressed up and settle into our comfy seats waiting for the familiar hum of the propellers to start-up and wend us on our way. The stewardesses were nattily attired in their fashionable uniforms, smiling and ever so helpful. They’d warm my brother’s baby bottles, and then sit next to me to play several hands of Old Maid, keeping me happily occupied and giving my mother a chance to relax.

Ah… the good old days! Do I sound grumpy and judgmental? Am I showing my years with a cantankerous, crotchety attitude? Well, YES, and I stand by all my wrinkled rectitude! As far as the airlines are concerned, a return to yesteryear and the gracious ways of an earlier era wouldn’t hurt. In fact, it would surely prove a boon to the flying public and make one old grumpy gal very, very pleased.

Yes, I admit it. I used to scoff at the young and technically savvy who went on about the “friends” they met over the Internet. “Friends?” I asked. “How can you call someone a friend when you’ve never even met?”

Well, I’m here to tell you that I have totally reversed my opinion on that one. In the past several months, since I’ve started blogging, I have become acquainted with some absolutely amazing women. Although we haven’t yet met face-to-face, or even spoken on the phone, I consider these ladies my friends. Some have left wonderful, uplifting comments on Feisty Side of Fifty. Some have linked to various posts I’ve written, and some have gone so far as to award me the honor of being a guest blogger on their sites.

However, there is a very special group I’d like to mention. The Baby Boomer Divas, a.k.a. Boomer Diva Nation, is an incredible pool of powerful and accomplished women—most of whom have already celebrated their half-century birthdays. Although they are all in midlife, the group is rich in diversity. The ladies hail from differing backgrounds, careers, and geographical areas, and from different races, ethnicities, and religions. The common theme is one that their leader, Beverly Mahone, stresses: women on the move and making a difference.

Mahone, who is a veteran journalist, author, media coach and motivational speaker, has written her own book on the many facets of aging. Whatever! A Baby Boomer’s Journey Into Middle Age takes a candid look at issues such as weight gain, menopause, and dating after forty, among others. After twenty-five years in radio and television, Mahone chose to become a work-at-home-mom. She now acts as a media consultant and counsels individuals as to how to best market themselves to radio, TV, and newspaper professionals. She’s a recognized expert on all things Boomer and has a radio show targeted to boomer women.

It is with great pleasure that I claim this talented and accomplished woman as my friend. She gifted me with an invitation to join the Boomer Diva Nation several months ago and, since that time, my life has changed… and all for the better! Through these ladies, I’ve been given wonderful and exciting opportunities to stretch myself personally and grow my career in new directions.

Beverly’s most recent gift to me was an opportunity to appear on her radio show, Whatever Live! I enjoyed the experience immensely—actually it was a blast. Beverly’s combination of professionalism, wonderful energy, and engaging personality make her the consummate radio host. I’d love to have you take a listen.

Yes, cyberspace or face-to-face, nothing beats a warm and caring friend. 

When was the last time you turned on the TV to find a face looking back at you that resembled your own? Yes, there are a few, but the names of these actresses no longer appear at the top of the credits. Even if they are series regulars, they usually play supporting roles: mothers, grandmothers, or recurring guest stars. It seems that, just like Elvis, the Golden Girls have left the building—or, more accurately, the soundstage.

Movies aren’t much better. If it weren’t for Diane Keaton and Meryl Streep, you could barely find a woman of a certain age gracing the big screen.

Well, that’s all about to change and, once again, social norms are reacting to the boomers and our numerical clout. Our famous bulge (and I’m talking population—not waistline) has served us well over the years, ensuring that our wishes and demands were heard. And, as older women in menopause, we’re not getting any less outspoken or assertive.  We want our due!

I came across an article in the Detroit Free Press that addressed how our generation is impacting Hollywood and the entertainment industry. They cite two current box office smashes: “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” with Harrison Ford, and the movie, “Sex in the City.”  At 65, Ford is a bit older than the leading edge boomers and, other than Kim Cattrall, the “City” stars are in their early forties, a bit younger than our years. So, the stars of these movies straddle both ends of our generation—and, of course, men are allowed to be the older ones. Still, this is progress!

I’m waiting for more films starring actresses in their fifties and sixties that have story-lines showcasing the lives of women in their post-menopausal years. These will feature real-life tales of love, passion, challenge, and triumph, and will reflect, with some creative license, what it’s like to grow older as a woman in our culture.

We’ve waited a long time for this, yet hope springs eternal. So, show me a wrinkle or two, let me hear the heroine grunt when she rises from a sitting position, let’s see her forget where she left her bifocals. I’m waiting to see myself, in all my wrinkled glory, reflected on the silver screen and so are 76 million of my peer group. Wake up Hollywood and smell the Geritol! 

Many of you read my last post entitled “Raise Your Havingness Quotient!”  Although I often write about this idea and firmly believe that women over fifty are, more than ever before, ready to own their power, at least, for me, it doesn’t hurt to revisit this concept from time to time. So, I’m sharing one of my very favorite quotes. It speaks to just this issue and I have it hanging in my office as a way of reminding myself that, yes indeed, I am powerful beyond measure…  and so are you!

You have probably seen this before because it has made the rounds. Nevertheless, the words of Marianne Williamson do serve to inspire and spark the genius that resides within each of us. A gentle reminder of our greatness can never be repeated too often.

         Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.

         Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

         It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.

         We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?

         Actually, who are you not to be?

         Your playing small doesn’t serve the world.

         There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people 

         won’t feel insecure around you.

         We were born to manifest the glory that is within us.

         It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone.

         And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people

         permission to do the same.

         As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

         Marianne Williamson

         A Return to Love 

You may be wondering what I’m talking about. But, there is such a thing as a “havingness quotient” and it’s worth examining and developing. I know, because I recently had my own shaken in ways I never could have imagined.

I have been working on a goal for over five years. When I started, it seemed far out of reach if not impossible. I encountered one hurdle after another and each success was followed by a disappointment. It was almost as if I’d take two steps forward and one step back.

However, I wanted this badly enough to persevere against the odds. My stubbornness kicked in and I doggedly put my nose to the grindstone despite the scrapes and scratches the grinding left on my poor proboscis.

Then a seeming miracle happened—things began to fall into place! I began to get recognized for my work and signs of support started to spring up where I’d least expected. I was ecstatic!

To my surprise, after the initial thrill and amazement began to wear off, I became anxious and began to fall into a funk. What if I couldn’t perform up to expectation? What if I were playing the imposter? What if I would fail? All these questions and doubts started to swirl through my brain and I began to feel immobilized.

But then, a dear friend who is also a therapist, mentioned that I might be struggling with issues related to my ability to “have.” She suggested I try a little exercise to measure my havingness quotient. It’s quite simple and, if you ever have doubts that you are deserving of an outcome, I suggest you give it a try.

Sit quietly, close your eyes and go inside. Imagine that you have a measuring stick running up your body and this gauges your feelings of worthiness for a particular result. It is marked from one to ten and acts like a barometer so that your score can raise and lower.

When I first attempted this, my ranking was a three—far from reaching my desired outcome. If you believe in the Law of Attraction, such a low score was sabotaging my chances for ultimate success. Aware of this, I’m now diligently practicing raising my havingness quotient. I check in frequently to see how high I can take my readings and I’m happy to say that I’m now a seven and climbing.

I pass this along so that each of you can raise your numbers and your potential. If you have spent valuable energy and time devoted to accomplishing a much desired goal, then it’s worth a bit of extra effort. Why not give this little exercise a try and make your own way to the top?