Hitting 40 doesn’t mean spiraling into crisis. It’s a powerful opportunity to pause, reassess, and intentionally craft the next chapter of your life.
We’ve all heard the clichés about midlife.
New car. New house. New relationship.
It’s sold as a phase where you scramble to feel valuable again — by adding more.
But the real breakthroughs I see?
They don’t come from adding.
They come from deepening.
Deepening your awareness.
Deepening your connection to what truly matters.
Deepening your courage to ask: What do I actually want next?
It’s one of the most powerful points in life to pause.
To look back.
To reconnect the dots that brought you this far.
And then — decide how intentionally you want to shape the decades ahead.
There’s a story I love that captures this perfectly: the myth of the eagle.
The eagle has one of the longest lifespans in its species — it can live up to 70 years.
But at 40, something happens.
Its talons weaken.
Its beak bends.
Its wings get too heavy with old feathers.
It can no longer hunt, or fly as it once did.
At that point, the eagle has two choices: Die — or transform.
And the transformation is brutal.
It flies to a mountaintop.
Knocks its beak against a rock until it breaks off.
Waits for a new beak to grow.
Then rips out its talons.
And later, its heavy feathers.
Only after that painful, solitary process can it fly again — stronger than before.
And it goes on to live 30 more years.
That story hits home for so many of us, especially around midlife.
Because while it’s a myth, the truth underneath is universal:
If we want to rise again, we have to be willing to shed.
Old patterns.
Old roles.
Old versions of ourselves that no longer serve the future we want.
We have to stop gripping what’s familiar — and start trusting the unknown.
True midlife growth isn’t about chasing external validation. It’s about unlocking a braver, more creative, more authentic version of you.
And that work? It doesn’t happen at the surface. It happens deep inside.
