Ep 12- Nobody Told Us the Checklist Would Run Out

Rachel cracks open a reel that's been quietly giving midlife women anxiety everywhere: the idea that after 50, the milestones just stop. Birthdays, graduations, the whole checklist — done. So now what? Rachel takes that fear head-on and names what's actually happening: the milestones haven't stopped, they've changed. This episode is about why "I don't know what I want" is protection, not confusion, and what it looks like to finally step into your own era.

Rachel shares a conversation with her husband Mark that reframed everything, two downloads she woke up with that she couldn't keep to herself, and the real reason so many women are circling the same dream for years without ever letting it breathe. If you've been feeling like the exciting part of your life is behind you, this episode is your permission slip.

In this episode:

• The reel that gave me (and probably you) anxiety: "after 50, the milestones stop" — and why that fear makes total sense
• What my husband Mark said over the weekend that reframed everything: the milestones aren't over, they're just yours to create now
• Why "I don't know what I want" is protection, not confusion — and the thing you keep coming back to at 2 am that proves it
• What I'm calling the You Era: the first era of your life where the milestones belong entirely to you
• The client with a children's book series, my own scary pivot out of network marketing, and what we both had to stop doing to move forward
• The challenge I'm giving you this week: start dreaming, and name your milestones
• What my friend said that I haven't been able to stop thinking about: "It's a new chapter. It's scary and unfamiliar, but it's just as meaningful."

Mentioned in this episode:

• Not Done Yet Sessions (one-on-one conversations about the thing you keep dismissing, with a $200 credit for podcast listeners): rachelaperry.com/podcastspecial

Connect with Rachel:

• Website: rachelaperry.com
• Instagram: @rachelaperry
• TikTok: @rachelaperry

If this episode landed for you, send it to your midlife sisters. The ones who are circling something. The ones who tell themselves they don't know what they want. She's not done yet either.

Ready to stop circling the thing you can't stop thinking about? Take the free Not Done Yet Spark and discover your next step.

www.rachelaperry.com/spark 

Transcript

Welcome To Not Done Yet

SPEAKER_00 1:03

Welcome to Not Done Yet, the podcast for midlife women who know deep down their story isn't finished. I'm your host, Rachel Perry, and here we're gonna talk about what's really happening in this season of life: the identity shifts, the quiet questions, the courage it takes to listen to yourself again, what it actually looks like to step into what's next, and why our boobs are hitting our knees. If you've ever looked at your life and thought, wait, is this it? Girl, you're in the right place. Because midlife isn't the end of your story. It's the moment you start paying attention to it. So take a breath and let's talk about what's really going on and what you want to do with it. Because,

A Special Coaching Credit Offer

SPEAKER_00 1:39

sister, you are not done yet. Hey girl, hey! How are you, my friend? Have you had a good, where are we, Wednesday? Have you had a good week so far? I hope so. I hope so. Listen, I before we dive in, I want to just share with you something that I have created just for you because you're a podcast listener, which means that we're besties. Okay. So this is for the midlife woman who's brave enough to admit that she wants more. It's for the woman who is ready to stop circling and actually step into her possibility. It's for the woman who's tired of carrying the same question, the same dream, the same idea, the same decision, whatever it is, for months, maybe years, and you still haven't given yourself permission to do anything about it. If that's you, listen it. You've heard me talk about the not done yet sessions. They're basically conversations that you and I will have about that thing that you keep dismissing, about the question, the dream, the idea that you have, but you keep talking yourself out of it. The goal isn't to figure out your entire life, it's to stop carrying it alone, get clear on what comes next, and take the real first step. And because you're a podcast listener, I've created a special link for you with a $200 credit. So if you are interested, I'm gonna put the link in the show notes, but you can just go to rachelaperry.com forward slash podcast special. And that is for

The Reel That Sparked Anxiety

SPEAKER_00 3:14

you. Now, the reason I'm telling you this before we even start today's episode is because what we're talking about today is exactly why I created these sessions in the first place. I had a friend send me a reel last week that stopped me cold. It said, after 50, the milestones stop. Really, their milestones are over, birthdays, graduations, all the things. Like it's done. So now what? And a friend actually sent that to me. She said, I had to send this to you because isn't this exactly what we're not supposed to be thinking? It gave me anxiety just watching it. Listen, this is so true. This is what we're hearing. This is what society is telling us, right? And I know a lot of you get that feeling because the message is everywhere. Like once the kids are grown and the career is built and the boxes are checked, like now what? And that's what we're gonna talk about today. Here's why that mentality hits the way that it does. For decades, there's been a checklist: kids, career, marriage, house, the milestones were obvious. They were external and there was always another one waiting, right? That structure gave us identity and it gave us forward motion. It gave us a reason to keep going. But when that goes quiet, of course it can feel like the story is over. Nobody told us that this part was coming. Nobody said, hey, one day the checklist runs out and you're gonna have to figure out what you actually want. So when a reel pops up in your FYP saying the milestones stop at 50, part of us probably like cowers or flinches because it confirms that fear that we've all been quietly carrying. Like, are we done? Is it done? And I just want to say, obviously, as per the title of this podcast, is you are not done yet. Okay. The milestones haven't stopped. They've changed. For years, 30 years, you've been building towards everyone else's milestones, everyone else's timelines, everyone else's needs, everyone else's definition of what a good life looks like. And now, maybe for the first time, there's actual space to ask, what do I want? In fact, Mark and I were just talking about this over the weekend. And he said, it's it's now you get to create your milestones. He was like, Yeah, it's not that the milestones are over. It's just now, now they're the milestones that you want to create. And I was like, okay, okay.

The You Era And New Milestones

SPEAKER_00 5:55

Because I I will say, I think that's part of it, is that we're suddenly not reaching those, reaching for those external milestones. We're instead reaching for milestones that we've created, saying, What do I want? And that question can be terrifying. Not because there's no answer, but because there is one. And you already know what you want. But knowing it means that you have to decide what to do with it. So instead of sitting with it, we say things like, oh, I don't know if I really want to do that. We stay busy, we make ourselves useful, we circle it and we circle it and we never land. And I want to say this as clearly as I can. When you say something like, oh, I don't really know what I want, or whatever excuse that is, and we've talked about this before, that is just protection. It's not confusion. So last week I woke up with I call them downloads, like when you just get this thought in your mind. And I hear it so loudly, it's like different than my other thoughts. I kind of think that it's God talking to me, but you know, whatever it is, whatever you believe. But I woke up with two really loud thoughts that I feel like I need to share with you. And the first one was that it's okay to dream. Just because you're in your late 40s, 50s, 60s, doesn't mean that you can't dream anymore. For you, it might be dreaming about what's next or where you're gonna travel next, or what you're gonna do, but don't stop dreaming. I just felt that so hard, like loudly in my mind. Like, it's not too late, and it's okay to dream. So that was the second one is it's not too late. And y'all, it's not too late. It's okay to dream when you're 50. And can I just say this? I am all about, you know, being a grandparent. Like, I I I can't, I it's hard for me to wrap my mind around it because I'm not there yet. But yes, I'm gonna love it when I have grandkids. But society, I feel like, tells us that we we're moms, we build our career, then our kids graduate, and then we wait for grandkids. And I sorry, but like I'm not here for that. Yes, don't get me wrong, I'm excited to be a grandma, or except I'm not gonna be a grandma. I'm gonna be like Rach. Great. Hey, great. But here's the thing: we are more than that. Like, that's again putting our identity into our children. And that's not who we are, y'all. We are more than that. So let's talk about what this era actually is. Okay. I like to call it the you era. It's not a concept, it's not a hashtag. It's the first era of your life where the milestones belong entirely to you. I got chills because you get to define what done looks like. You get to decide what matters. You get to want things that are just for you without running them through the filter of who needs what from you first. And yes, my friend, it can be scary because we've really never done it before. We did it in our 20s, maybe, but I think we were still striving for those that checklist, right? And there's no template for this, like there's no checklist now. But I also think that it is the most alive that many of us have ever been. Because for the first time, it's actually ours. And if this isn't how you feel, I really want you to check in with yourself about that. Like, are you allowing yourself to tap into this version of yourself, this next version of yourself? Because here's something that I want, I just want to be real. You have something that you keep coming back to. I know that you do. It may not be a business, it may just be travel that you want to do. It may be something you want to buy, it may be a

Busy Is Protection Not Confusion

SPEAKER_00 9:59

relationship you need to end or start. I don't know. Right? Maybe it's a decision that you keep putting off. Maybe it's something you can't even fully name yet, but you can feel it. And it shows up. It's quiet, it's persistent. And just as quickly as it shows up, you often wave it off. You tell yourself that you don't know what you want, but you do. You just don't know what to do with it yet. And honestly, saying that you don't know is safer than admitting that you do know. Because once you admit it, then you have to decide. Right? So you circle it, you come back to it at 2 a.m. in the morning. Hey, hey, who else was awake last night? You feel it when you're in the shower or maybe driving alone, and then you talk yourself out of it before it even has a chance to breathe. And that, my friend, is not confusion. That's protection. That's protection. And I I just really want to encourage you today to allow yourself to dream. Because dreaming is not, I don't, I feel like at this age, we're not encouraged to dream, right? It's not something that we do. I mean, yes, maybe we think about what it's going to be like when we retire or what when we have grandkids, but I think there's more to it than that. I think there's more to you than that. I really do. I think there are bigger things for you. I don't know what they are. We can figure that out in a not done yet session, honestly. I had I had a client who did a she booked a not done yet session with me. And she is a graphic designer, has she's so creative, and she has a book series that she wants to write for children. And what's crazy is, and I think you'll relate to this, even at our age, there's still that doubt that likes to creep in. And sometimes we hear the voice of our parents, hi, me, that is almost like disapproval in a way, right? Like, oh no, that's a silly idea. Really, you should just be saving for your retirement, or you should be doing this, or you should be doing that. And she was dealing with the same thing. And it held her back. She had this beautiful, beautiful idea for a book series. But she hadn't done anything with it yet because there were all those thoughts, those dismissals, the things like that. So she pushed it off. But let me tell you what happens when we do this. When we push off our ideas, when we circle them or whatever, we're hurting ourselves because we then become like I did this for so long. I had this possibility, this idea of something that I wanted to do. And and I've shared this before on the podcast. It's almost like I felt safer just having this idea. It was kind of like my fallback. Like, you know what? If this thing that I'm working on right now doesn't work out, that's okay because I still have this idea. But I it wasn't the that was not helping me in any way, shape, or form at all. It was hurting me, if anything, because I was stuck in something that I didn't love that was almost this is a little dramatic, but it felt a little soul destroying because I thought I was doing

A Client Dream And The Doubt

SPEAKER_00 13:29

what I was supposed to be doing, but really, why didn't I just step into what I really wanted to do? And that was to leave the network marketing audience and step into midlife, the midlife era. I didn't recognize that. I knew, but I knew I didn't want to be in network marketing or or at least serving that audience anymore. And when I finally gave myself permission to explore what I wanted to do, it felt so good. It felt scary AF, not gonna lie, not gonna lie. It's not like, you know, amazingness, sugar and spice. I don't know where that came from. But I mean, it has been a bumpy few months. That's the truth. But I am more aligned than I've ever felt in my life, in my business, even from when I was teaching. Like this feels so good. It feels so good. But like I said, it's been bumpy. I'm still figuring it out, but I feel that I am being so true to myself. And and here's something else about that. Y'all, I don't know about you, but I don't want to like roll up to I don't know, 60, 65, 70, and go, man, I had these great ideas, but I didn't act on them because I was in my head, or because I didn't know how to do it, or I don't want that. I want to look back at my life and go, I I lived it to its fullest. You know, like I did everything that I wanted to do. I didn't let myself get in my way. I mean, we all do to it to an extent, but I don't want that. I really feel like this is such a gift, this stage of life. Our kids don't need us as much as they did. Our career is more established now. You know, why don't we just give ourselves the permission to try the things? Why not? And what is that thing that you want to do? Don't let fear stop you from living life to the fullest, from stepping into what's next for you. And there is so much possibility. I think that's another thing. It's easy for us to sort of go, well, you know, these kids who are graduating have so many possibilities, so much, so much life in front of them, but so do we. So do we, right? Life might look a little different, and yeah, as we age, okay, our like things happen. We have to be a little more concerned about our health. Things we don't move as freely as we did. Every little pain that we have, we feel deeply, and we may spiral into oh my gosh, there's something wrong with me. Hi, it's me. But there is so much more for us. There's so much more impact in this world that you have to make. There's so much more excitement, adventure, joy that you have to live. And I want you to hear this. Do you know that spark that you had like back in your 20s, maybe 30s? And it was like this like excitement for life. And and

My Pivot And A Weekly Challenge

SPEAKER_00 16:44

you had these dreams and all of that. And now you're like, well, where'd she go? She didn't go anywhere. She's there. She just got buried under years of taking care of everyone else, of being responsible, of being practical, of being the one who holds it together for everyone else. She's still there. She's been there the whole time. She she didn't go anywhere. And you're not too late, and you're not too old, and you're not too far behind. Someday could be now. And those milestones that we don't have anymore, this is your opportunity to create your own milestones. Like some of my milestones are that I want to have not done yet experiences. I want to have retreats for women, small retreats, big events. Uh, that's what's coming, y'all. That's what's coming. And I'm working towards that. I'm not at the stage right now where I can just host a retreat. Although, would you be interested in that? Wouldn't that be fun? Like we get a lake house, we do a I mean, I just feel like it could be amazing. In fact, I don't feel, I know it would be amazing, right? I can see myself doing live events, bigger events, where it's kind of a motivational experience where we connect with other midlife women. See, I'm not done yet, and neither are you. Let's dream, let's create new milestones that are about us and not everybody else. Let's let's really look at that. That's my challenge to you this week is to start dreaming and start imagining what are those milestones for you. What are they? Let's not be afraid of them. Let's create them, let's step into them. Because when you dream and you can see the possibility, so much opens up for you. The possibilities are endless, but we have such limiting beliefs that that we tend to just see through a tunnel. I want to like knock down that tunnel and let you see the whole thing because there's so much out there. And the and the friend who sent me that reel, she said something to me that I haven't been able to stop thinking about. She said, it's a new chapter. It's scary and unfamiliar, but it's just as meaningful. And I think she said it perfectly. This is a scary and unfamiliar chapter, but it's just as meaningful as raising kids, as building a career, as buying a home. It's it's all just as meaningful. It's just different and it's unfamiliar. And that's why I'm here, right? To help guide you through. We're doing this together. We are doing it together, sister, right? And if some part of you believes that too, that's not wishful thinking. That's you knowing something true about yourself. And I want you to trust it. You don't need more time, you just need a first step. And if

Book A Session And Share

SPEAKER_00 19:34

you're ready for that first step, girl, book a not done yet session with the special podcast link. It's in the show notes. Let's talk. Let's figure out what that first step is for you. Because, sister, you are not done yet. And listen, if this episode, and I know it's short and sweet, but if this episode resonated with you or you know of someone that would res it would resonate with, send it to your midlife sisters. Let's get the word out. We are not done yet. There are there are amazing things, amazing milestones for us. We are so not done yet. We need everyone to know that. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for listening. I adore you, I appreciate you, and I'll be back here next week for another episode Not Done Yet.