On midlife, confidence, and the possibility of beginning again
Veterinarian. Ornithologist. Artist. Musician. Environmental scientist. Plant-based chef.
These are just a few of the lives I can imagine having lived. The interesting thing is that I couldn't have imagined many of them when I was younger.
I've loved animals for as long as I can remember. As a child, I loved drawing, art, I played in the school band, and felt a connection to music and the natural world. As an adult, I discovered a passion for plant-based cooking. Even now, a trip to the farmers market, surrounded by beautiful fresh vegetables, can make me a little giddy.
Of course, having an interest in something doesn't mean it needs to become a career. There are countless reasons we choose one path over another. Opportunities, circumstances, responsibilities, and practical considerations all influence our decisions.
For me, security mattered enormously. I worked my way through college and graduate school. I wanted to build a stable, independent life. Nursing offered that opportunity, along with the chance to do meaningful work.
And I loved being a nurse.
For more than three decades, I worked in a profession that challenged me, drew upon my strengths, and allowed me to make a genuine difference in people's lives. I pursued graduate education, developed specialized expertise, and grew into a role where I felt competent and capable.
I was good at what I did. I knew that.
I don't regret choosing nursing. But looking back, particularly from the perspective of midlife, I've begun to wonder how much my beliefs about myself influenced the possibilities I considered along the way.
Because for much of my life, I didn't feel particularly confident. Over time, that lack of confidence became something I simply believed about myself.
It wasn't something I consciously thought about every day. It was more like a quiet belief operating in the background, influencing how I saw myself and what I imagined I was capable of doing.
And perhaps its influence extended beyond the things I wanted to do but was afraid to try. Perhaps it also shaped the possibilities I never seriously considered in the first place.
The Life I Knew
In 2012, I completed my yoga teacher training. I loved yoga and wanted to deepen my understanding of the practice, but I had no intention of teaching.
Standing in front of a room full of people? That was something other people did. People who were naturally confident, comfortable being seen, and seemingly at ease speaking to a group. Not me. The mere thought of it stirred up uncomfortable feelings of anxiety and fear.
But when an opportunity arose to join a substitute teacher list, I listened to a quiet voice inside of me and decided to give it a try. I was very anxious at first. And becoming more comfortable didn't happen quickly. It took time, practice, and many classes before the anxiety began to ease. But I kept teaching because I discovered how much I loved it; not just leading classes, but creating them, studying yoga philosophy, and sharing what I was learning with others.
What had once seemed beyond my capabilities became a meaningful part of my life for many years.
Still, opening my own yoga studio? I never seriously entertained the idea. The financial risk and uncertainty were intimidating, and I simply didn't see myself as someone who started a business.
It's an interesting contradiction. I had evidence that I could grow into unfamiliar roles, yet I continued to carry assumptions about what kind of person I was and what I could realistically attempt.
For a long time, I didn't give those assumptions much thought.
I had a career, responsibilities, people who depended on me, and a life that was full in many ways.
But somewhere beneath all of that, I carried a quiet sense that I was holding myself back; that there were parts of me I wasn't fully allowing myself to express or explore.
When the Questions Became Harder to Ignore
Midlife has a way of inviting us to take stock.
We have decades of experience behind us and, hopefully, many meaningful years ahead. We may begin looking at our lives from a different perspective, considering not only what we've accomplished but also what we want from the years to come.
Developmental psychologist Margie Lachman describes midlife as a period in which gains and losses coexist. Alongside the challenges that can accompany this stage of life, we've accumulated knowledge, experience, judgment, and perspective.
For me, a combination of difficult family circumstances, caregiving responsibilities, and growing dissatisfaction with my professional life prompted some uncomfortable reflection.
I began thinking about the roles I'd occupied for so long.
Caring for others had always felt natural to me. It was something I valued, both personally and professionally. I knew how to be responsible, dependable, and attentive to other people's needs.
But I started to wonder whether those familiar roles had also made it easier to avoid looking too closely at my own aspirations. What did I want? Was there something else I wanted to experience or explore? And how much of what I believed about myself was actually true?
Those weren't particularly comfortable questions. But I was finally ready to ask them. I didn't have clear answers. I certainly didn't have a carefully mapped-out plan for the next chapter of my life.
What I did have was a growing sense that I needed to make room for something different.
Becoming a Beginner Again
In 2023, after more than three decades in nursing, I stepped away from my career to pursue health and wellness coaching.
I had plenty of reasons to believe I could make this transition. I brought years of professional experience, advanced education, communication skills, and a genuine desire to help people make meaningful changes in their lives.
But starting a business was an entirely different experience.
For decades, I'd worked within an established profession where my expertise was recognized and my role was clearly understood.
Now I was trying to build something of my own. I needed to create a website, introduce myself to people, explain the value of coaching, develop programs, and promote my services. And perhaps most uncomfortable of all, I had to put myself out there.
For someone who had spent much of her life feeling more comfortable holding back, that was no small thing. I hadn't anticipated how vulnerable it would feel to ask people to notice something I'd created—or to believe in work that I was still learning how to build.
That first year was especially difficult. I questioned my decisions, struggled with self-doubt, and sometimes wondered whether I'd taken on more than I could manage. There were days when I missed the familiarity of nursing, where I knew my place and understood the value of what I contributed.
Building a business was harder than I imagined. And despite my experience and credentials, I often felt like a beginner. There were times when I seriously considered giving up.
But each time, I found myself making a familiar bargain.
Six more months. I'd give myself another six months to learn, try something different, make adjustments, and see what happened.
Then six months would pass, and I'd reconsider.
I didn't want to keep going indefinitely simply because I'd already invested so much. But I also didn't want fear to make the decision for me. I wanted to know that I'd given myself a genuine opportunity to pursue something that mattered.
And somewhere in that ongoing process of trying, struggling, learning, and trying again, something began to shift.
Learning What Confidence Really Means
One of the unexpected benefits of becoming a health and wellness coach is that the work itself has helped me understand my own experience.
I've spent considerable time learning about behavior change; how our beliefs influence our actions, why change can be difficult, and how people develop the skills and confidence to pursue meaningful goals.
And I've found myself applying those same ideas to my own life.
Psychologist Albert Bandura's work on self-efficacy has been particularly meaningful. Self-efficacy is our belief in our ability to carry out the actions needed to meet a particular challenge.
It's not necessarily something we possess equally in every area of our lives.
I had developed strong confidence in my nursing abilities through years of experience. And when I began teaching yoga, I discovered that doing something repeatedly, even while feeling nervous, could change what I believed I was capable of.
Bandura describes successful experiences of navigating challenges as an important source of self-efficacy. In other words, we don't always become confident and then take action. Sometimes we take action, and confidence develops through the experience.
That sounds straightforward enough. But living it is another matter. I've had to learn to approach my own doubts with more curiosity, question familiar assumptions, and recognize that setbacks don't necessarily mean I'm incapable.
Not every program I've created has attracted the interest I'd hoped for. Not every effort has produced the results I wanted.
But I've written and shared my ideas publicly, developed and taught programs, created educational resources, and continued finding ways to connect with people through work that matters to me.
Some experiences have strengthened my confidence and others have challenged it. I've begun to recognize something that feels even more important than confidence. I'm learning to trust myself.
For much of my life, I think I confused self-trust with knowing I was making the right decision. If I couldn't be reasonably certain of an outcome, it was difficult to feel secure in my choice. Now I'm beginning to see it differently. Self-trust doesn't mean I'll always make the right decision or that things will turn out as I hoped. It means believing I can respond to what happens.
I can learn what I don't know. I can ask for help. I can recognize when something isn't working and consider another approach. I can make a mistake without treating it as a verdict on my capabilities. And if this particular path doesn't work out the way I hope, I can find another way forward.
That's a different kind of confidence from the one I once thought I needed.
The Bridge We Build Along the Way
I've been thinking about confidence as a bridge.
So often, we want to see the entire bridge before we're willing to take the first step. We want reassurance that we're making the right choice, that the effort will be worthwhile, and that we'll reach the place we're hoping to go.
But sometimes we have to begin building before we can see where the bridge will lead. And perhaps what matters most isn't knowing exactly where we'll end up, but developing the confidence that we can navigate what comes next, even if the path takes an unexpected turn. One decision, one attempt, one experience at a time.
And something I've come to appreciate about midlife is that we have more to build with than we may realize. We bring decades of experience, knowledge, relationships, strengths, and hard-earned perspective. We may also bring beliefs about ourselves that deserve another look.
My business is still a work in progress. I don't know exactly where it will lead, and there are still days when I question myself or wonder whether I'm doing enough.
But uncertainty no longer feels quite as threatening as it once did. I've begun developing trust in myself, not by eliminating doubt, but by allowing myself to try, to sit with discomfort, and to keep moving forward without knowing exactly how things will turn out.
And perhaps just as importantly, I've become more aware of the beliefs I've carried about myself for so long. Beliefs that once operated quietly in the background are now ones I can recognize, question, and reconsider.
That awareness has allowed me to look back on my life with greater understanding and compassion. I can appreciate the choices I made and the life I've built, while also acknowledging that some of those choices may have been influenced by assumptions about myself that I never thought to question.
I'm becoming more willing to distinguish between something I genuinely don't want to pursue and something I might be avoiding because it feels unfamiliar or uncomfortable.
And I'm beginning to imagine possibilities I wouldn't have considered years ago.
Not because every possibility needs to become a goal, or because I want to abandon the life I've built. But because I don't want to let old assumptions about myself guide decisions that no longer fit the person I am today.
Perhaps that's one of the opportunities midlife offers us: the chance to look at ourselves with fresh eyes, to recognize the experience and wisdom we've accumulated, and to reconsider the stories we've come to believe about who we are and what we're capable of becoming.
I'm still building my bridge. But I'm beginning to understand that I don't need to know exactly where it ends to take the next step.
