Cleelia Uudam Costa
Midlife Identity Coach
 

Personal reflections and research on the midlife crisis, for women who feel lost.

Everywhere I look I see a story about a midlife woman changing her life. Women in their forties and fifties making a midlife career change, stepping away from everything they built and beginning something new. I know I see this overwhelmingly because of the algorithm, because of the occupational trends and the world itself, but it is also the season of life I am living in.

If you are in midlife and something feels quietly off, like you have been doing everything right but still feel like something is missing, it might be worth looking at your values. Not your goals, not your roles. The deeper layer: what you actually believe matters, and whether you have ever consciously chosen it.

Why Smart, High-Achieving Women are Often the Most Lost in Midlife

In the space between chaos and shape there was another chance. (Jeanette Winterson) The Plum Tree from Our Garden in Spring There are periods in life when nothing is clearly wrong, yet nothing feels fully right anymore. You may still have the same job, the same routines, the same people around you. From the outside, life looks stable. But inside, something has shifted. What once felt natural now feels heavy. What once felt certain now feels questionable. You start feeling tha

Why do I feel so restless when nothing is actually wrong? That quiet, persistent sense that something is off finally has a name and it is pointing you somewhere.

You Are Not Broken. Not Lazy. Just Focused on the Wrong Side of the Change Equation.

Our beliefs are not necessarily facts or even fully accurate, but they are our truth. So when we change our belief about ourselves, when we open up the possibility of becoming someone different, someone better, our beliefs will begin to shift as well.

Change starts when your gaze moves from the past to the becoming. Photo by Joel Muniz on Unsplash Most people try to change by running away from what they don’t want anymore. The stress, the confusion, the self-doubt. Only that this kind of strategy for change is more of a survival mode. It gets you moving, but only for a moment. Your beliefs about yourself and your identity are so strong that they keep pulling you back to your comfort zone. Sustainable change starts within.

“You are always one decision away from a totally different life.” (Anonymous) Author´s Collection This might not always be the most popular opinion, but the truth is that you create your own reality on all the levels. I get it, it is hard to think that way when true challenges show up, but if you start doing the steps backwards you will quickly realize, that on some level, you were always part of creating these circumstances for yourself. The reason why you tend to hesitate t

Entrepreneurship is often described as a romantic journey of finding and living your purpose. Much less is spoken about the challenges.

There is no doubt, that your mindset is the key to unlock the complexity of life. Sightseeing in Porto on a rainy day Sometimes, if not to say most of the time, life can get really stressful and overwhelming, throwing at you one worry after another. It doesn't take much to feel that way. You might wake up late, you might get too much traffic on your way, you might forget your kids doctor appointment and on it goes. You get the picture, don't you? Sometimes it almost feels li

“No one can persuade another to change. Each of us guards a gate of change that can only be opened from the inside. We cannot open the gate of another, either by agreement or by emotional appeal.” (Marilyn Ferguson) Life has taught me that wanting others to change or having any kind of expectations towards others never works out well.. Instead we can work on our attitude and perspective. Changing ourselves when needed or desired (creating new habits, adjusting our expectation