Think for a minute: about the last time you wanted to do something new. Explore a business idea, ask for that promotion, take that solo trip to Italy, or even just wear that really sparkly dress hanging in your closet.
What was the first voice you heard?
Was it an encouraging cheerleader, screaming, “Yassss, you got this!”?
Or was it that other voice?
The quiet, nagging, persuasive one that whispered, “You can’t pull that off. It’s too late. That’s not you. I have no time. What will people think?”
If you’re anything like the rest of us navigating this journey of midlife, it was probably the second one.
With a new decade on the horizon, there’s new momentum to live my life in the way I dream – with more peace, joy and audacious goals. Identify with clarify what that life is is the first and almost easier step.
The bigger challenge? How we think about ourselves in our pursuit of these dreams. “I don’t have enough / have too much experience. I’ll do it when the kids are in college. When x,y and z happens, then I will do it. I need more money. That’s too hard.”
These thoughts are the real barriers. My limiting beliefs about myself and what’s possible, as well as engrained messages about how life should be are a real mental impediment. It’s been a theme I have been exploring, as I have written about here.
In fact, the external factors we often blame aren’t actually what’s in the way of dreams, joy or the next big move. The biggest thing holding you back is, more often than not, you.
For me, that is certainly the case. And I want to do something about this.
Patterns Can Be Prisons
Everyone has an inner critic, designed to protect. Its inner dialogue doesn’t just float harmlessly through our minds. Our thoughts, whether positive or negative, create neural pathways—literal grooves in your brain. Its like walking the same walking trail every day. In a year, you’ve carved a deep becomes the path of least resistance. After 40+ years, that same trail looks more like a trench.
So when you’ve spent decades thinking thoughts like “I’m not creative” or “I don’t like my this part of my body” or “It’s too late for me to change,” your brain just defaults to that well-worn path. It becomes automatic. You don’t question it.
Society has added some extra limiting beliefs, like:
- Your best years are behind you.
- You should be grateful for what you have and stop wanting more.
- You’re too old to start something new.
These patterns become beliefs. Beliefs become identity. And identity dictates behavior.
Before you know it, you’ve talked yourself out of the business idea, the audacious adventure or wearing the dress without a step.
Swami Vivekananda was fierce about this self-imposed limitation. He said:
In Vedantic philosophy, this delusion about our True Nature has a name: maya—the cosmic illusion that makes us forget our true divine nature and instead identify with our limitations, our failures, our fears. We mistake the temporary for the permanent, the false for the real.
When you tell yourself “I’m not good enough,” you’re not speaking truth. You’ve been clouded by maya.
But here’s the truth: You are not your thoughts – neither the good or bad ones – but especially those repeatedly negative ones.
Despite my age and accomplishments, many messages swirling through my head date from the last century. Without work, they won’t go away on their own. Different than before? I have more clarity, confidence, and sheer lack of patience for this nonsense that I impose on myself. I feel ready to actually get out of my own way.
Paramahansa Yogananda would say we are perfectly positioned for this change. One of his primary teachings was centered around the power to and responsibility we have to change our internal environment to create the inner soil for growth. The accumulated wisdom of midlife makes this work even more potent. So, here are some tools to work with this concept:
3 Ways to Change Your Mind About Yourself
1. Notice Your thoughts (The Practice of Witness Consciousness)
My inner critic is not me. It’s a part of me. The ideal I held for many years was that for me to be happy or healed, this voice needed to turn off. But, that is impossible. Our brains are wired for negativity as a protection mechanism.
Instead, I am working with noticing my inner dialogue and shifting it, gently. I have written about my recurring themes here.
Ancient Vedantic philosophy calls this the practice of sakshi bhava—witness consciousness.
How this works: the next time you hear that negative voice, simply notice and watch it. Watch your thoughts like a movie and you are in the audience. Name it, if it is helpful, like, “There’s the critic again.”
When you step back and watch your thoughts instead of becoming them, you access drashta—the seer, the witness, the true Self that observes but is not disturbed by the mental fluctuations. In this practice of just observing and naming what you hear, you develop non-judgmental observation and gain awareness of the noise inside of you.
2. Replace Your Stories
I also work it with cancel, clear and replace technique to replace the thought with a positive one, which I have written about before.
The Cancel, Clear, Replace Technique has 4 steps:
- Notice the thought– simply notice that you are having a thought that doesn’t serve you, like: “I’m introverted.” “I’m bad at that.”
- Cancel the thought– interrupt it once you notice it. Don’t let it turn into a paragraph. Notice it and let it float by.
- Clear the thought– in noticing it, you begin to erase the imagery, feeling or sensation from your mind and body. Movement, affirmation or environment changes can help
- Replace the thought– this step is crucial in creating new grooves in the brain, step into another thought or image that better serves you to teach your brain how you want to think
You’re not rewriting history. You’re getting a fair and balanced view. When you realize your negative belief isn’t an unchangeable fact, it loses its grip on you.
3. Act Anyway (Especially When You Don’t Feel Ready)
This is the big one. You will never feel 100% ready. You will never have all the answers. You will never have the perfect moment, confidence or money to guarantee success. Waiting until you feel completely ready is just another way of never starting.
Instead, commit to taking imperfect action. Do the thing badly. Do it scared. Do it messy.
Want to start a podcast? Record one terrible episode just for practice. Thinking about going back to school? Fill out one application. Curious about a new career? Set up one informational interview.
This is the essence of karma yoga—the yoga of action: Do the work. Take the action. Release attachment to the outcome. Action creates evidence. Evidence rewrites beliefs. New beliefs change your life.
Not a New You
Getting over yourself doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you.
It means you’re human. And like every human, our brains are doing exactly what they were designed to do—protect from perceived threats, even when those threats are just stories we’ve been telling ourselves for decades.
But you are not your thoughts. You are not those mean messages in your head. And you are absolutely not too old, too late, or too…anything to life an high potential and joyful life.
The question is: are you willing to let yourself live that life?
