Lately, I’ve been thinking about what it means to surprise yourself—not by doing something extraordinary, but by discovering that you are capable of something you had quietly assumed might be beyond you.
I had one of those moments recently when I ran a four-mile race and finished with a personal best. There was something gratifying about crossing the finish line, seeing my time and realizing that, at my age, I was still capable of getting faster.
Around the same time, another milestone happened in the gym. After working on my upper-body strength for quite a while, I can now do one—and on a good day, two—unassisted pull-ups. That may not sound like much to someone who can knock out ten, but I am pretty darn proud of those one or two. They represent a lot of work, consistency and patience. Neither experience is really about a race time or a pull-up, though. What stayed with me was this: sometimes we decide what we are capable of before we have actually given ourselves the chance to find out.
And I think that can happen easily in midlife.
There is certainly no shortage of conversation about what changes as women move through their 40s, 50s and beyond. Our hormones change. Our bodies change. Recovery can feel different. At the same time, many of us are juggling careers, businesses, families, aging parents, relationships and all the other responsibilities that need our attention.
With so much to manage, it’s easy to shift into maintenance mode. We focus on keeping everything going, keeping everyone taken care of and trying not to fall behind. Sometimes maintenance is exactly what we need. But I also wonder whether we can stay there so long that we stop asking another important question:
What else might be possible for me now?
Strength has always been central to the work I do through Strengthify Her. I believe deeply in the importance of women building and maintaining physical strength as we age. But the longer I do this work, the more I recognize that strength shows up in other ways, too. Sometimes strength is starting something before you feel completely ready. It’s setting a boundary, asking for help, changing direction, allowing yourself to be a beginner again or acknowledging that something you once wanted no longer fits the woman you are becoming.
I was reminded of that this summer when I attended a Women in Business conference in Los Angeles. Being surrounded by women creating businesses, building communities and taking chances on their ideas was incredibly energizing. And while I've been an entrepreneur for nearly 20 years now and understand quite well the ebbs and flows of business, I came home thinking more expansively about my own work and about what else I want to create through Strengthify Her.
Since then, I’ve stepped into new fitness teaching opportunities, continued challenging myself physically and started developing a new project for my business that I’m particularly excited about. It began as an idea and is gradually becoming something real. I’ll share more about that soon. What connects all of these experiences is that I didn’t have to know exactly how they would turn out before I started. I think many of us wait for confidence before we act. We tell ourselves that once we feel more prepared, have more time or finally feel “ready,” then we will begin.
But often times confidence comes after we act.
We try. We learn. We adjust. And little by little, we collect evidence that perhaps some of the assumptions we have been carrying about ourselves are outdated.
That doesn’t mean we need to spend our lives constantly pushing harder or searching for the next accomplishment. Rest matters. Recovery matters. Contentment matters. However, so does curiosity. So maybe the question isn’t, What should I accomplish next? Maybe it is simply:
Where have I stopped being curious about what I’m capable of?
Is there something you have quietly decided you are too old, too busy, too inexperienced or simply “not the kind of person” to do?
You don’t have to prove anything to anyone.
But you may owe yourself the opportunity to find out.
Because maybe you haven’t reached your peak yet.
Maybe there are still parts of your strength, courage and possibility that you haven’t discovered yet.
Comments