Midlife is a topic many of us would rather not think about - but I'm on a mission to make midlife the new "prime!" Today, I'm sharing why you should be excited about whatever's next for you and how you can make your life more the way you want it to be.   The biggest takeaways from this episode: Why holding on to the past doesn't work. How changing how you think of midlife is powerful. The idea that your second half might be your best years yet. How the truest "you" is the best gift you can gift you can give.   Hey there - I'm so glad you're here today! In today’s episode, I'm talking about a topic a lot of us would rather avoid - midlife. I've been thinking about what I thought midlife would be like and what it actually IS like, now that I'm solidly here in my 50's. It isn't as bad as I thought it would be - and in fact, I'm kind of excited about it! In this episode, I'm encouraging you to get excited about whatever's next for you as well.  We all have a choice - to step into midlife with fear or with the expectation that these will be our best years yet. The Bonus Content for today's episode will give you even more ways to think about your future and what you want for yourself. Today, I'm sharing some of the good things that come with midlife, how to change your perspective on midlife, and how I'm on a mission to make midlife the new "prime"! Enjoy the show!       Today’s FREE BONUS CONTENT is a list of "10 Great Books To Read At Midlife" that I have put together from my personal collection. These books are non-fiction - some might be considered "self-help" and others are just insightful. They've helped me through the years and I turn to them again and again for guidance and perspective. If you'd like to find a new way of looking at the second half of your life, I think you'll find some encouragement and new ways of seeing in these old favorites of mine.   Check out our “Listening To Podcasts Cheat Sheet” for everything you need to know about downloading and listening to podcasts from your iPhone.     If you’d rather read, than listen, here’s the FULL TRANSCRIPT OF EPISODE #18 Midlife - Let's Make It The New Prime Welcome to the Style With Intention podcast, where we talk about how to use your personal style choices as a tool to create a life you love.   We believe choice is empowering, complacency is boring, and happy looks really, really good!   I’m your host, Annie Kip, and  today we’re stepping into the perspective of our future self - and looking at our past and deciding if we lived the way we wanted to live. Time goes by so quickly. Often we don’t want to look at the reality that our days are whizzing by and adding up to years.   We don’t see ourselves as in “midlife.” It just doesn’t feel that way.   Midlife? Shhh - no one wants to hear talk like that.   I used to feel sorry for the people whose kids had all gone off to college. What did they do all day? They just seemed kind of sad to me. Without purpose now. Drifting. With their wrinkly knees. I wondered - are they depressed? How could they let their hair go gray and gain weight like that?   Age is just a number, right? Well, the numbers don’t lie - 50 is halfway to 100.   I resisted this fact a while. I put in a lot of time, effort, and money to hold onto the appearance of youth. And I was losing the battle.   One day, I was commiserating with a friend about coloring our hair. There were reasons we felt we had to keep doing it:   So other women wouldn’t think we looked old. So random men would think we were pretty. So our kids wouldn’t be embarrassed of us.   It was ridiculous. This wasn’t who I wanted to be. So I stopped.   It was my birthday present to myself when I was 50.   We all do things that make us feel the way we used to feel.   Everyone has their own strategy. Hair color. Exercise. Flirtatio