The Midlifer

Spinning Around

Listen up fellow midlifers. Are you feeling dizzy with all those plates you’re spinning? The endless demands of raising a family takes up several of them. The work plate suddenly becomes two or three to balance new responsibilities and extra training. Then there’s the ones for a relationship, for friendships, fitness, health, shopping, ageing parents. It can feel endless and stressful trying to balance it all.

If I knew plate spinning was to be such a large part of my adult life I would have asked for training. And lots of it. The full circus package. Exactly how to keep them all up there, endlessly spinning and never dropping. How to make it look effortless and not smash a single one.

I’m Rebecca, a recovering plate-spinner extraordinaire. For years, like many of you, I've juggled the demands of being wife, mother of two, chief cook and bottle washer, cleaner, gardener, picker-upper, chauffeur, part-time uni student, nearly full time senior nurse, career changer and unfortunately almost non-existent friend to those who deserved better. Looking back it was an insane way to live and it left me feeling frazzled and frayed.

Statistics show that the 50-64 ‘midlife’ range is currently the largest UK age group, which is reflected in Harrogate. Meanwhile Age UK predicts that the Sandwich Generation (those caring for older relatives whilst bringing up a family) is set to increase, as both delayed parenthood and the increased life expectancy of the older generation brings joy but also pressures and burdens from competing directions.

It can be a very challenging time, which mostly goes unrewarded and unrecognised, just at that point in our 50s when our own health demands start to kick in. Many find themselves physically and mentally exhausted, and that's why I believe the government should have a Minister for Midlife!

In the meantime, I want to use this monthly column to champion and celebrate the midlife - plus offer you some useful survival techniques that might help relieve the burden of keeping those plates spinning.

So here are my first 5 top tips to help relieve the burden of spinning the plates:

1. Leave perfectionism alone. Perfect doesn’t exist. Ask yourself if it really matters to let the odd or indeed several plates smash.

2. An easy one to remember - and a great one to live by - is the 3 Ds: Do it, delegate it or dump it!

3. Say ‘No’ if asked to take on another task - no is a complete sentence! (Remember the Just Say No campaign of the 1980s? Well this is the revised version just for us in the 2020s).

4. However, if saying no feels difficult, then try a delay tactic as this avoids agreeing to anything immediately. For example a simple ‘Let me check my schedule and get back to you’ should do the trick.

5. If you are feeling overwhelmed, ask yourself if you are being kind to yourself in taking on something new.