Month: January 2026

When I was in my 20s and 30s, I knew exactly what I wanted and where I desired to go. However, as I approached my 40s and 50s, I began to have less clarity until I entered my 60th year where all of a sudden it felt as if a light had been switched on again. And, at 66, I realized that the goals that once inspired me no longer seem to have quite the same grip. It’s not that I had lost motivation, it was actually something much deeper and more vital. What was fading wasn’t my drive but my old reasons for using it.

As a life & body confidence coach & author, one of my passions is helping people to navigate changes and transitions in their life. One of the most powerful things we can do whenever we are facing these changes is to take some time to redefine our goals and, more importantly, the meaning we assign to them.

Many women over 60 find themselves asking a surprising question: What happened to my drive?

You may still be healthy, capable, vital and curious – yet the spark that once propelled you forward feels dimmer or simply less clear. Motivation techniques that used to work no longer land. And trying harder only leaves you tired.

Here’s the comforting truth: you haven’t lost your inner drive. You’ve outgrown the old reasons for using it.

It’s not that this stage of life is less about pushing you forward. Many women only truly discover what it is they truly desire after the age of 50. However, it is about finding the authentic meaning for why you want to do something and what this will give you.

Why Motivation Changes as We Age

For much of our lives, motivation may have come from external demands. We may have raised families, built careers, managed households, and showed up because others relied on us. Purpose was baked into our roles.

As those roles change or fall away, it can feel disorienting – as though something essential has been lost. But what’s actually happening is a shift from external purpose to inner meaning.

After 60, many women find they no longer respond to “shoulds.” The pressure to strive, prove, or perform loses its power.

Your nervous system is less interested in proving, striving, or accumulating. It’s more interested in truth, contribution, and resonance. Meaning, not motivation, becomes the real source of energy – and meaning – can’t be chased. It has to be noticed and cultivated.

Purpose Is Not a Grand Plan

One of the biggest myths about purpose is that it must be dramatic: a calling, a mission, a complete reinvention. This belief alone can keep women stuck, waiting for clarity that never arrives. I know in my own life that I have often felt that I should be doing something grand for it to be worthwhile, meaningful and counted. This can cause stress and a pressure that actually holds me back instead of inviting me forward.

The beautiful truth is that, in reality, purpose is often smaller, more ordinary, more niched, dreamy and deeply personal than we ever knew it could be.

It may show up as:

• Being fully present for one person who needs you.
• Exploring a long-ignored curiosity.
• Creating beauty simply because it feels right.
• Making sense of your experiences and sharing the wisdom.
• Travelling with a group of like-minded people.
• Spending time just being and appreciating nature and all of the sweet things in life.

For me, purpose doesn’t ask me to do more. It asks me to listen differently. One of the greatest truths that I have discovered is that when I follow my heart and become more aware of what lights me up or makes me feel peaceful, excited or engaged with something, I am in alignment with my purpose and deepest meaning.

Letting Meaning Find You

Instead of asking, What should I do with my life now, try gentler questions:

• What feels quietly satisfying?
• When and where do I lose track of time?
• What conversations leave me feeling more like myself?
• What am I drawn to, even if it makes no practical sense?

Meaning often appears in moments of attention, not action. It finds you when you stop trying to be useful and start being honest.

This is why slowing down is not a setback – it’s an invitation. When you allow space, patterns emerge. You begin to notice what nourishes you rather than what drains you. From there, energy returns naturally.

Many women discover their renewed sense of direction not through big plans, but through small moments of alignment – times when they feel calm, engaged, and quietly alive.

This is why rest, reflection, and curiosity are not indulgences. They’re gateways.

Reawakening Your Inner Drive (Without Forcing It)

Your inner drive may return as a gentle pull rather than a surge of enthusiasm. You might feel it as interest instead of passion, or curiosity instead of certainty.

To support this process:

• Let go of the idea that you need a clear plan.
• Take small steps without committing to outcomes.
• Follow what feels nourishing rather than impressive.
• Trust that meaning grows with attention.

Redefining a Meaningful Life After 60

A meaningful life after 60 is more about your own authenticity. It’s about living in a way that feels aligned with who you are now, not who you were expected to be.

This chapter isn’t about becoming someone else – it’s about coming home to yourself.

When you stop chasing motivation and allow meaning to guide you, your inner drive returns – quieter, wiser, and deeply your own.

5 Gentle Reflection Prompts to Reconnect with Meaning

1. When do I feel most like myself these days?

Notice moments – however small – when you feel calm, engaged, or quietly content.

2. What am I drawn to lately, even if I don’t know why?

Curiosity is often the first signal of an emerging purpose.

3. What drains my energy — and what restores it?

Meaning becomes clearer when we pay attention to how our body responds.

4. If I removed all expectations, how would I want to spend my time?

This question often reveals long-silenced truths.

5. What wisdom have my life experiences given me that I could share – even informally?

Purpose after 60 is often about contribution, not achievement.

To dive deeper into your authentic self you may love my wild queen journal… a beautiful companion into your evolving sense of becoming more authentically you.

If you would love to share in more life wisdom and uplifting thoughts do join me on Instagram. I would love your company as we walk together through the years.

Let’s Have a Conversation:

When do you feel most like yourself? Have you noticed places or situations that drain you? What wisdom have you gain from your life experiences?

Click Here to Shop Additional Stock of Her Robe

Style Stealers

!function(d,s,id){
var e, p = /^http:/.test(d.location) ? ‘http’ : ‘https’;
if(!d.getElementById(id)) {
e = d.createElement(s);
e.id = id;
e.src = p + ‘://widgets.rewardstyle.com/js/shopthepost.js’;
d.body.appendChild(e);
}
if(typeof window.__stp === ‘object’) if(d.readyState === ‘complete’) {
window.__stp.init();
}
}(document, ‘script’, ‘shopthepost-script’);

Turn on your JavaScript to view content

Originally posted at: Amanda Frances’ Blue Lace Trim Robe

There is a particular kind of ache that comes with watching your adult child struggle.

It’s quieter than the worries of early motherhood, but often heavier.

At this stage of life, you may have imagined something different – more ease, more connection, more shared joy. Instead, you find yourself lying awake at night, wondering how things turned out this way and questioning your place in your child’s life now.

This is not a failure of motherhood.

It is a transition – one few of us are prepared for.

As we age, motherhood asks something new of us: wisdom instead of control, compassion instead of correction, self-trust instead of self-blame. If your heart feels tender, here are five gentle truths to steady you.

One: Struggle Does Not Erase All You Gave

When an adult child is hurting, many mothers quietly rewrite their life story as a list of mistakes. But decades of love, care, sacrifice, and presence do not disappear because the road became rocky.

You raised a human being – not a finished product. Growth continues long after childhood ends. What you offered still matters, even if the results don’t look the way you hoped.

With age comes the wisdom to see the full arc of a life, not just the painful moment you’re in now.

Two: Your Worth Is Not Defined by Your Child’s Current Choices

As mothers, especially in midlife and beyond, we are vulnerable to letting motherhood become our final measuring stick. If our child is thriving, we feel successful. If they are struggling, we feel diminished.

But your value does not rise and fall with someone else’s decisions.

Your child is living their own story, shaped by experiences, temperament, relationships, and freedom. You can love deeply without absorbing responsibility that does not belong to you.

This is a dignity-preserving truth – and one that grows more important with age.

Three: You Are Allowed to Grieve Without Shame

Grief in later-life motherhood often goes unnamed. You may grieve the relationship you imagined, the closeness you hoped would deepen with time, or the peace you thought would finally arrive.

This grief does not mean you are ungrateful. It means you are honest.

Holding grief with compassion is a sign of emotional maturity, not weakness. It honors the reality of your experience while making room for healing.

Four: Redefining Motherhood Is Not a Loss – It Is a Passage

Motherhood does not end when children grow up; it changes form.

Later-life motherhood invites you to release constant doing and step into being. Being present. Being available without hovering. Being loving without rescuing.

This shift is not a diminishment of your role – it is an evolution of it. And it calls forth the deepest parts of your wisdom, patience, and restraint.

Five: Your Life Still Holds Meaning Beyond This Struggle

One of the quiet fears many women carry in this season is that if motherhood feels fractured, everything feels fractured.

But you are more than this moment.

You are a woman with decades of lived experience, resilience, insight, and purpose. Your story continues to unfold, even as you carry concern for your child. Joy can return. Meaning can expand. Peace can grow alongside love.

This chapter may be difficult – but it is not your final one.

Later-life motherhood is not about getting it right – it’s about staying human. Staying open. Staying compassionate with yourself as you learn how to love in a new way.

You are not alone in this. And you are not done. More encouragement awaits you at www.realmomlife.com.

Let’s Discuss:

Which of these truths feels most comforting – or most challenging – at this stage of your life, and how might embracing it change the way you care for yourself?

There is a certain kind of transition that can catch you off guard, even at 60, when you have already lived through so much and learned what matters. It might be retirement, an empty nest, a move, a change in health, a relationship shifting, or simply that quiet inner feeling that something in your life is ready to become different.

Even when a transition is positive, it can still leave you feeling unsteady, emotional, or unsure of what your next step should be. In moments like these, what we often need is not more advice, but something we can return to, something simple and steady that helps us find our way back to ourselves as we move forward.

Three Words Full of Meaning

Listen. Pause. Act. is also the name of my upcoming teaching memoir, the book I am currently writing, because these three words became more than an idea to me. It was something I was already using to heal, but I did not realize it at the time.

In the thick of recovery from PTSD, I was not thinking in terms of a method or a framework. I was simply trying to get through each day, trying to stay steady in my own body, and trying to find my way back to myself. It was not until later, after the hardest parts had passed, and I finally had enough space to look back, that I could see I had been relying on the same three steps again and again.

Once I was able to name it, it became something I could return to with intention. Now it is a process I rely on any time I am in a transition, whether it is something small and ordinary or something big and life changing. It reminds me that I do not have to force clarity or rush forward. I can listen for what is true, pause long enough to create space, and then take the next right step when I am ready.

What It Means to Listen

Listening means turning your attention inward when life is shifting, because transitions and stress can blur your instincts and drown out your inner voice. It means noticing what you are feeling underneath your words and what your body is trying to communicate.

Many of us have spent decades overriding ourselves, staying strong, staying capable, and taking care of everyone else. Listening is the moment you stop and include yourself again. Sometimes what seems like anger is actually grief. Sometimes what feels like confusion is fear of making the wrong choice. Sometimes what you call laziness is simply exhaustion. Sometimes that stomach disruption is not random at all, but a message from your body asking you to pay attention. Listening does not fix everything, but it gives you honest information, and that honesty is where self-trust begins.

Pausing for Healing

The second step is Pause, and in my experience this is where healing becomes real in everyday life. When the nervous system has been through too much, even small moments can feel intense, and it becomes easy to react before you have a chance to breathe. The pause interrupts that old pattern and reminds you that you have choice.

I often tell myself a simple truth that has become a lifeline: if it is not life or death, there is no urgency. For me, meditation became one of the most powerful ways to practice the pause, because it taught me how to stay present with what I was feeling without immediately reacting, fixing, or running from it.

The pause does not have to be long. It can be three slow breaths. It can be stepping outside for a moment. It can be waiting before you answer a difficult message. It can be giving yourself permission to sleep on a decision. Pausing creates space, and in that space, you can feel your own wisdom again.

A phrase that helps me is I have time, I can sit with this. That one sentence can soften the body, lower the pressure, and keep you from stepping back into a version of yourself you have worked hard to outgrow.

Acting in Self-Respect

The third step is Act, but this kind of action is different from the way many of us have been conditioned to move through life. It is not rushed, performative, or driven by fear. It is grounded action that comes from self-respect. After you listen and pause, the next right step often becomes clearer, even if it is small.

Acting might look like setting a boundary without over explaining, asking for support instead of carrying everything alone, taking better care of your health, or choosing rest instead of forcing yourself through. Acting might look like writing something in your journal to help shift a belief, returning to the same truth again and again until it begins to feel possible.

Sometimes the most powerful action is telling the truth. Sometimes it is walking away from what drains you. Sometimes it is doing one kind thing for yourself and letting that be enough for today. Over time, these small actions become a new way of living, not because you are forcing change, but because you are building a life that fits who you are now.

Something to Return to After Change

What I love about Listen. Pause. Act. is that it respects and celebrates the wisdom you already carry. You do not need to be lectured through a transition, and you do not need to be pushed into transformation. You simply need something you can return to when life pulls you off center, because change is part of being human.

Old triggers can return. Family roles can tighten around you. Grief can reshape your days. Stress can flood the system and make you react in ways you do not recognize until afterward. This process offers a clear and compassionate path when you do not need more information. You need a way to come back to yourself in real time. Listen for what is true. Pause to create space. Act from the deepest part of your values, not your fear. What began as a quiet survival tool became the heart of my upcoming teaching memoir, Listen. Pause. Act., and it is a path I return to again and again.

If you are in a season of transition, you do not have to have all the answers right away. Change rarely comes with a clear map, and even the transitions we choose can stir up fear, grief, or doubt as we step into what is new. When you feel overwhelmed or unsure, let these three words guide you back: listen, pause, act.

You can begin again as many times as you need, and every time you do, you are finding your way forward with more steadiness, more clarity, and more peace.

Let’s Reflect:

Have you ever gone through a transition that left you feeling off balance, even when it was a good change? Is there something your body has been trying to tell you lately? Where in your life do you need to remind yourself, I have time, I can sit with this?

Click Here to Shop Additional Stock of Her Shorts / Click Here for More

Style Stealers

!function(d,s,id){
var e, p = /^http:/.test(d.location) ? ‘http’ : ‘https’;
if(!d.getElementById(id)) {
e = d.createElement(s);
e.id = id;
e.src = p + ‘://widgets.rewardstyle.com/js/shopthepost.js’;
d.body.appendChild(e);
}
if(typeof window.__stp === ‘object’) if(d.readyState === ‘complete’) {
window.__stp.init();
}
}(document, ‘script’, ‘shopthepost-script’);

Turn on your JavaScript to view content

Originally posted at: Kyle Richards’ Denim Shorts