Ep. 249: Why Midlife Women Are Suddenly Questioning Everything About Themselves

I want to start our time today by telling you about a conversation I had inside Accomplished Lifestyle recently…because honestly, it kinda surprised me. A lot. And it got me thinking. About myself. About you. About what's actually happening to so many of us in this season of life.

But before I get there, I want to share something with you that I've been noticing about myself lately.

And I want to be clear upfront…it's not dramatic. It's not some big identity crisis. I'm not over here spiraling. It's actually something quieter than that. Smaller. But somehow more significant.

I've been catching myself in little moments lately and thinking… wait. Have I always been like this? Have I always functioned this way? Have I always needed this? And I just never noticed?

Here's what I mean.

I've been paying attention to the fact that I like having multiple projects going at once. Like, I actually thrive when there's more than one thing on my plate. When I'm working on just one thing for too long, I start to feel… off. Restless. Bored, almost. And it honestly doesn’t take me long to get to that place.

I've noticed that I do some of my best thinking under pressure. That I actually need a little stimulation to focus. That there are moments where I hyperfocus on something so completely that hours disappear, and I didn't even plan for that to happen.

And I've also noticed that overstimulation…too much noise, too many demands hitting me at once can push me right over the edge.

And that’s not all…I have so many discoveries about myself…and probably about you to share, too. 

Let’s get started!

Resources mentioned in this conversation: https://www.jenniferroskamp.com/the-midlife-identity-shift-guide

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Transcript

Well, all right, so these things that I discovered about myself, none of this is really new information, but the awareness of it, that's new. And here's where it gets interesting. I grew up surrounded by ADD, ADHD people. My dad, my sister, I married someone who's ADD and who functions in a very particular way. I've got some ADD, ADHD kids who also have their own wiring. And I've spent...

my entire life learning so much about the people around me, understanding how they function, figuring out what they need, adapting to them. And so when I started noticing these things about myself, my first thought was honestly a little funny. Like, wait a second, do I function more like an ADHD person than I ever realized?

But then I caught myself and I thought, you know what, it's not really about the label. This isn't about whether I have a diagnosis or a category or a name for the way that my brain works. This is actually about something bigger because I think it's what's actually happening. For me and a lot of women that I talk to, it's that we're finally in a season where we have enough space to notice ourselves, maybe for the first time. And that's what today's conversation is all about.

It's not specifically about ADD or ADHD. It's not about diagnoses. It's not about labels. It's about what happens when midlife women finally get enough breathing room to stop and ask, wait, who am I? How do I actually work? What do I need? What have I been ignoring about myself this whole time? So stick with me because I think this conversation is gonna be so powerful for you. So here's the truth that most of us won't say out loud.

For most of our adult lives, especially through the years of active motherhood, we didn't have the bandwidth to think about ourselves, not really. We were surviving and managing and responding and adapting every single day. I know this and I can see this so clearly in my own life. My mental energy, and I mean a lot of it, was and is spent thinking about my kids.

what they need, how they need to be parented, who was struggling and why, how to reach this one, how to set limits with that one, what approach would work best for this particular child in this particular season. And then there's adult kids. Well, that's its own kind of parenting. But through it all, I became honestly pretty good at reading people, at figuring out how other people function, at understanding what they needed and.

calibrating myself accordingly, probably because I had to. I had 11 different personalities living under one roof at one time, and I still have 10. But you know what the one question is that I wasn't asking? It wasn't how do I function best? It wasn't what supports me or what drains me or what rhythms actually work for my brain and my body. And I didn't have time to think about it. And that's the honest truth. It's not an excuse. It's just the reality of

that season, when you're in the thick of motherhood, especially when your kids are young or there's a lot of chaos or you're juggling all the things, there's almost no margin for that kind of self-reflection. You're just simply too busy keeping everyone else afloat to notice that you're barely treading water yourself. And here's the thing, most of us were good at these things. That's the part nobody talks about. We adapted really well. We figured out how to read a room and how to anticipate needs, how to adjust our approach on the fly.

We became incredibly attuned to everyone around us, but we never stopped to study ourselves with that same kind of attention and curiosity. We became experts at other people, and we essentially remained strangers to ourselves. And as I think about it now, it kind of takes my breath away a little bit, because I wonder, how many years did I spend pouring that level of attention outward and none of it going inward?

How much did I learn about everyone else in my life, their triggers, their needs, their patterns, their rhythms, while completely skipping over myself? And the hard part is, it's not like we're doing something wrong. We were doing what the season required, and maybe you're like me, and your current season does still require this too. But somewhere along the way, we stopped asking, what about me? How do I work? What do I actually need to thrive?

And I think about how much time and mental energy I gave and I continue to give to my kids. Which one needed more structure? Which one shut down when they felt criticized? Which one needed me to back off and which one needed me to sit right next to them? I studied them. I adjusted. I kept notes in my head, constant mental files on everyone in my orbit. And I genuinely believe that that did make me a good mom, a good wife.

even a good coach for women. But it also meant that for a very long time, I was the one person in my house that I never studied. I just assumed I was fine, or I assumed I'd figure myself out later after the busy season died down, after the kids got older, after things got easier, and later just kept getting pushed further out. Does this sound familiar? I think that's one of the most quietly painful things about this midlife season for so many women.

It's not that they're falling apart, not that there's not even anything dramatically wrong, but it's that they're arriving at midlife and realizing they don't fully know themselves. And they're not quite sure when that happened or how to start fixing it. And so if you're in midlife right now and things are starting to shift, the kids are older or leaving or your role is changing, and you're starting to notice things about yourself that feel almost like new information, I don't think that's weird or strange.

I also don't think this is a crisis. I think it's just what happens when you finally get a little space to turn the lens around. Now, I want to go somewhere that I think is really important because I know that a lot of, I know what a lot of women do when they start noticing these things about themselves, when they realize that they function differently than they thought, when they see patterns that they never really registered before.

They turn it into evidence that something's wrong with them. I've done it, and I'd be willing to bet that you've done it too. We look at the way that we function, the pressure that actually helps us, or the way that we get bored with one thing and need to jump to another, or the way that certain environments send us over the edge. And instead of getting curious about it or figuring out why was that, we just use these episodes as ammunition against ourselves. Why can't I just focus on one thing?

What is wrong with me that I need this much stimulation? Everyone else seems to handle all of this fine. Why can't I? And we've been sitting on all of this information about how we actually work, and instead of using it to understand ourselves better, we've been using it to prove that we're broken. And really, that bothers me, because here's what that sort of shame spiral costs us. It doesn't just feel bad in the moment.

It keeps us from ever getting the information that we need to actually help ourselves. Because when you're busy building a case against yourself, you're not gathering evidence about how to support yourself. You're just too busy being the prosecutor to become the investigator. I've watched women in my community do this. I've watched women that I coach do this. A woman realizes that she's been overwhelmed by noise and chaos her entire adult life.

And then she gets depleted in ways that other people don't seem to notice. And instead of thinking, OK, what does this tell me about what I need to function well? She goes straight to, what is wrong with me that I can't handle a normal life? She turns the observation into an indictment. And here's the pattern that I want to interrupt today. Because some of us have spent decades feeling like we're failing, like we're failing at life, like we're failing at productivity, like we're failing at motherhood, or managing a home, or failing at

the systems that everyone else seems to follow without any problem. But what if you weren't failing? What if all this time you were just forcing yourself to function in ways that were never designed for how your brain and your body actually work? When I started to get honest with myself about the things that I started noticing, that I need multiple projects and that pressure helps me focus and that boredom kills my motivation, that overstimulation is a real thing for me, I...

I actually didn't feel ashamed. I actually felt something that is a little bit closer or a lot closer to relief. Because suddenly some things, so many things made sense. The systems that I kept trying to implement that never stuck for me. The workflows that aligned great for other people and felt like a straight jacket for me. The moments where I felt like I was finally in my element. And the moments where I felt like I was fighting myself every step of the way.

It wasn't that I lacked willpower or discipline or contentment. It was that I was trying to be a version of productive and organized and just on that just doesn't match how I'm actually wired. And here's what I believe, honestly, with everything in me. Some women don't need more shame. They need better understanding. They need to stop diagnosing themselves as broken or failing and start, and start.

getting genuinely curious about how they work. Because there's a massive difference between I'm failing and I've been trying to pour myself into a mold that was never made for me. One of those sentences keeps you stuck and the other actually opens a door if you let it. Now I want to address something because I think it's really relevant to what a lot of women are experiencing right now. There is a lot happening.

on the internet and in culture broadly, right? Around topics like ADHD and women and overstimulation and nervous system dysregulation and emotional labor and masking and perimenopause and all the ways that midlife affects our brains and our bodies. And I talk about this stuff too. And women are listening and it's resonating, sometimes deeply. But I want to be straightforward with you here. I'm not here to diagnose anyone. That's not my lane. And it shouldn't be.

my lane either. But if you're curious about something clinical, just talk to someone who is qualified to help you sort that out. I'm also not interested in turning every struggle into a label. Not because labels are bad. Sometimes they can be helpful. Sometimes naming something is genuinely helpful and freeing. But because I think there's a risk of stopping at the label and never doing the actual work of understanding yourself.

But here's what I do think is true. Women are finally hearing language that helps them stop hating themselves. For so many years, women have been carrying around this private shame, this quiet, grinding belief that they were somehow doing life wrong, that they were too sensitive or too scattered or too emotional or too whatever, that everyone else had figured out something, some sort of secret that they couldn't figure out.

And now they're hearing conversations that offer a different explanation. Not that you're broken, but that your brain works this way and here's why. It's not just you need more discipline, but it's you've been fighting your own natural wiring and something inside of them says, okay, that is me. And that's what's been happening. And that moment of recognition is so powerful. And what really struck me in a recent conversation inside Accomplished Lifestyle was how

Deeply women resonated with the idea of finally giving themselves permission to just notice themselves. Not to judge themselves, not to fix themselves, just to notice like, this is how I am. And maybe that's not something to be ashamed of. Maybe it's just information. And that's the shift that they made. That's the shift that we made together. And that's the shift that I want for you too, from self-criticism to self-awareness. Because that shift can change.

Everything. And so here's where I want to spend a little extra time because I think this is the piece that maybe matters most. The breakthrough for me and so many women that I work with, it isn't a diagnosis. It's permission. Permission to notice yourself without immediately judging what you see. Permission to stop forcing systems that don't fit and try something that actually works for how you're wired. Permission to need different things.

than the woman next to you does to work differently, to rest differently, to show up differently, and to stop apologizing for it. And I want to tell you something that happened in my own life because I think it illustrates this perfectly. I finally gave myself permission to stop worrying about having multiple things, multiple projects going at once. Now, if you'd asked me years ago whether that was OK, I would have felt embarrassed to say yes.

because the productivity wisdom that I absorbed, the stuff we all absorb, says that you're supposed to focus on one thing. You finish what you start, you go deep before you go wide, you complete the task, you close the loop, and then you move on. And I kept trying to operate that way. I would pick one project, put my head down, and try to see it through to the end before starting anything else. And I would lose my mind.

and I'd get bored and I'd stall and I'd start avoiding the work altogether and then I'd feel guilty about avoiding the work and tell myself I just wasn't disciplined enough, that something was wrong with me for not being able to just push through. But eventually after enough of that, I gave myself permission to try something different. I had multiple things running simultaneously, different projects at different stages, and I'd move between them based on where my focus naturally wanted to go that day and something shifted.

Something happened. I got more done. I felt less stuck. I actually started finishing more things. Not because I was forcing myself to stay locked in on one task, but because I was moving in a rhythm that worked with my brain instead of against it. And so here's the question that I finally let myself ask. Who says I have to do it the other way? Seriously, who made that rule? And why was I operating like it applied to me?

when the evidence in my own life was screaming that it didn't. That's what I mean by permission. It's not permission to be lazy or to avoid hard things, but permission to stop assuming that someone else's system is the right system for you. And here's the bigger thing that I want to say. We have spent years, decades, some of us, becoming incredibly good at adapting to everyone else. We learned how other people function. We adjusted to their rhythms.

their needs, their ways of moving through the world, we became adaptive toward everyone except ourselves. And so what if part of midlife, part of this season that can feel so disorienting, what if part of the season is actually an invitation to turn that skill around, to become adaptive towards yourself too, to ask, what if I built my days and my systems, my routines around how I actually function, not how I think I should function?

Not how the most productive person I follow on Instagram functions, but how I function. And I want to say something to the woman who is listening to this right now and feeling a little resistant, right? The one thinking, okay, Jennifer, but I can't just restructure my whole life around what works for me. I have responsibilities. I have people counting on me. I can't just do whatever I feel like and I hear you. And I want to be really clear that that actually isn't what I'm saying.

I'm not talking about forgetting about all of the other people and all of the other things in your life or abandoning your responsibilities or deciding that your needs are the only ones that matter. That is not what I'm saying and that is not the goal. That is not even a good goal, by the way. But what I am talking about is something much smaller and much more sustainable than that. I'm talking about being honest with yourself first about how you actually function and then making small intentional adjustments that honor that.

Not throwing out all of your structure, not deciding that rules don't apply to you, but just giving yourself permission to stop fighting your own wiring in the name of doing it the quote, right way. Because here's what I know, when you're constantly operating against the grain of how you're made, you don't just feel bad, you perform worse. You're less present, you're less patient, you're less of everything you're trying to be for the people that you love.

Working with yourself is actually one of the most generous things that you can do for the people around you. And I think a lot of women, when they hear it framed that way, actually can give themselves a little more permission to try. We've spent decades adapting to everybody else. Maybe this season is finally teaching us how to build lives that adapt to us too. And I genuinely believe that that is our invitation in midlife. But I think it has to start with giving yourself the same

curiosity and grace that you've extended to every other person in your life.

So I don't wanna just leave you with just some things that help you understand yourself and make you maybe even a little bit excited, right? I wanna give you something to actually do with all of this, all right? Because this conversation is about noticing. But also noticing without direction, it can just spiral into more overthinking. And we are plenty good at overthinking enough. So here are two simple things I want you just to kind of marinate on this week. You don't need a ton of time.

Jennifer Roskamp (17:59.66)
You don't need a perfect journal or a special setup. You just need to be honest with yourself. So action step one is this. Do a what actually works audit. Grab a piece of paper or your notes app or whatever and divide it into two columns. Okay? In the first column, write down the systems and the rhythms and the habits that you keep trying to implement that never stick. They don't work. The things that you just try again and again and again.

the approaches that feel like a constant battle, the things, the habits, the systems, the routines that you hate using. Don't judge them, just list them. But in the second column, write down the things that you're doing, the habits, the routines, the ways that you do things that actually do work for you, the conditions where you feel focused. When is it that you feel focused? The times of day that you're sharp and you're on.

the environments where you thrive, the ways of working that feel natural rather than forced. Now, once you've done those two columns there, look at them both and ask yourself this honest question. How much of my energy has been spent trying to maintain column one over here instead of leaning into column two? That audit alone can be so revealing because often we can see right there on paper in front of us

that we've been fighting against ourselves. we can start to see, when we can start to see this fighting, it can kind of start to stop. Action step two, pick one place where you've been criticizing yourself and get curious about it instead. Just one, where have you been criticizing yourself? We're not thinking about all the things we do that's awful to ourselves, we're just thinking about one thing. Maybe it's the way that you lose focus after a while. Maybe it's the fact that you don't like making a list.

Maybe it's the fact that you need more quiet time than other people. Maybe it's that you function better with more on your plate than less. And that's always feeling like you need to be embarrassed by these things. Pick one of those things and instead of asking, what's wrong with me that I'm like this? Ask, what does mean? How I'm wired? And how can I work with it instead of against it? That switch from criticism to curiosity, it is not a small thing.

It can actually really be the beginning of whole lot of good things opening up for you. So let me kind of end with this. Maybe midlife isn't making you question everything because you're falling apart. Maybe you're finally seeing yourself clearly. And I know that that can feel scary, right? Because for some of us, the self-criticism, it actually became our default to the point where it became comfortable. It was familiar. We knew how to do that.

Getting curious about ourselves instead of criticizing ourselves. Now that is something new. That's totally new territory. But I do want you to consider this. Maybe the problem isn't that you've failed. Maybe you've spent years, lots of years trying to force yourself into ways of living and working and functioning and coping that never actually fit you. And maybe this season, as unsettling as it can feel, isn't about becoming someone new. Maybe it's finally about understanding who you've been all along.

Again, I think about the women in my community who have had these same quiet moments of recognition in themselves where something clicked. Again, it wasn't dramatic fireworks, but it was just this soft door opening, this steady opportunity to catch their breath where they said, huh, that makes sense. This is me. This is actually how I'm built. And I've been fighting it for 20 years.

That moment, it's powerful, right? But it doesn't fix everything. This realization, it's not a magic wand, but it is a beginning, and it's a real one. Because you can't build something that truly fits your life until you're honest about the life you actually have. And you can't build something that truly fits your life until you're honest about who you actually are. Not who you were trying to be, but who you actually are right now.

in this season. It's not about the woman that you were in your 20s when you had more energy and fewer responsibilities and hadn't yet discovered that your body has opinions about caffeine or maybe a glass of wine. But let's try to figure out who you are right now. The woman who keeps noticing things, who keeps catching herself in moments of unexpected clarity, who keeps thinking, wait, is that actually me? That woman has been here the whole time. You've just...

been so busy focused on everyone else that you haven't noticed. She hasn't had enough space to be seen, but now you've got enough space to see that woman. And that is so exciting. Something that's gonna help you is down in the notes down below, I've got a midlife guide that's gonna help you start to kind of uncover all of this. Make sure you check the notes down below and grab that free guide. I created it for you. It's really gonna help you make sense of a lot of things. So make sure you check that out.

And also, if this resonated with you, make sure you share it with another friend, another woman that you know needs to hear this. As women, we're finally having conversations that are real and relevant and honest and sometimes hard. But doing the hard stuff and peeling back the layers of the onion, that's how we can finally start stepping into peace and start stepping into who we are and start stepping into who we want to be. But we've got to have the conversations first.

And so share this with a woman that you know needs to hear it. And until we talk again, treat yourself well, friend.