Confidence in Midlife: Why it feels different after 40

Self Care Club - The Midlife Edition

In this episode of Self Care Club - The Midlife Edition, hosts Lauren Mishcon and Nicole Goodman explore why confidence feels harder to access during the

Key takeaways

• The midlife confidence crisis is often less about losing self-assurance and more about outgrowing the specific markers that used to create it.
• Nicole Goodman shares how her hysterectomy and perimenopause impacted her sense of identity and physical capability.

Main topics

• Midlife Identity Shifts
• Perimenopause and Mental Clarity

Notable quotes

Confidence sounds very simple, but can become surprisingly complicated in midlife.

Conclusion

The episode serves as a guide for women to navigate the turbulent tran

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:00) We are going to do a confidence audit on ourselves and listeners. While we do it, you can also answer these questions. Speaker 3 (0:14) Society tells us to dress for the male gaze. Fuck the male gaze! And that's no disrespect on men. That's the disrespect on the conditioning that is put on a woman because it's time consuming. And it takes you away from so many other important things. Speaker 2 (0:34) confidence I'd learned then is something that needs to be called from within I've repeated the same words to myself many times now through many climbs am I good enough yes I am Speaker 3 (0:50) Hello everybody, welcome to Self Care Club, the midlife edition. I'm Nicole Speaker 2 (0:55) Goodman. And I'm Lauren Mishkon. Confidence sounds very simple, but can become surprisingly complicated in midlife. I Speaker 3 (1:04) think it's complicated in any stage of life, but I think it gets more interesting and murky. As you reach this very changeable season of life. Speaker 2 (1:17) Let us start with this. What if the confidence crisis of midlife is not that women lose their confidence, but the things that they used to get their confidence from have stopped working? Oh, so when we're young, right? We've got our appearance, being attractive, being successful, being desirable, being needed by our little kids, achieving milestones, getting approval. All those things are things that we can like are sources of confidence because we're progressing, right? Everything's a progress through life. Well, I Speaker 3 (1:54) guess that's what Speaker 2 (1:55) we're told to do. Yeah. School, uni. So we strive towards that. Towards the next goal, right? Your first job, then you might get promoted, you might get married, you might have a baby, you might buy a house. So we're constantly moving forward and we're told by society what the next achievement is. Speaker 3 (2:13) Should be. Speaker 2 (2:14) Yes, exactly. And then you get to your 40s and then it becomes a little less obvious because the rules start changing, right? Speaker 3 (2:28) Yeah, I think for women more so than men. Definitely. Because they have so many different life stages. For example, obviously I know men go through puberty, but for example, like when you start your period and then your body changes, which men have as well. But then like when you have a baby, for example, everything's changed. How you look at the world changes because you're a mother. how you look changes because you've just had a baby and you've just grown a person and you're feeding a person. But then also like if you don't have a baby, you have to get your head around that because it's expected of you. So then you have to find your peace with that. And then, and then again, coming into the menopause or gearing up towards the menopause, your body starts changing. Yeah, you start feeling differently about everything. You start thinking differently, your tolerance levels, your patience levels, like everything's on. I don't want to say on the term because that would suggest that it's negative and I don't think it is negative. But I think we just go through so many more fluctuations physically, mentally, emotionally. Your Speaker 2 (3:42) career can change. And financially. And then your children start needing you differently. So your identity changes as a mother. Your relationship can change. Marriages go through lots of different phases depending on where you are, how many years you are into the marriage. Your parents can get older. And I think... I think a lot of the confidence thing at our age is more of an identity problem because it's possible, and I'm definitely feeling this at the moment, that you outgrow this version of yourself that your confidence was attached to. Speaker 3 (4:18) Well, that's interesting because you and I talk 20 times a day. A lot of it is a load of nonsense. How dare you? Speaker 2 (4:27) But I'm interested in what you've just said. I'm definitely going to go into it as we go through the episode. But I want to ask you, well, we're going to ask both of us, what does confidence look like or mean to you? Speaker 3 (4:41) Well, I was thinking about this this morning, about the conversation we're going to have. And I was thinking about the things that give me confidence versus the things that used to. So what Speaker 2 (4:49) does confidence mean? Firstly, Speaker 3 (4:52) I think it is absolutely integral to living a good, well life by having confidence in yourself. And whether that's self-assurance, whether that's self-love, it's all part and parcel of the same thing. But it's about feeling good about. who you are and how you move through the world. That's what it means to me. I Speaker 2 (5:14) agree. To me, it means feeling capable, feeling self-reliant. And feeling like the way I choose to live and go through life is in a good way, in a positive, forward motion. That's, I think, what it means to me. Speaker 3 (5:35) Yeah. Yes, I agree with all of that. And also being comfortable. Speaker 3 (5:42) in your own decision making being comfortable because I know sometimes like if I make the wrong decision about something I might not know it's the wrong decision but I it's just sits so badly with me and I can't be with it and I'll ruminate on it Speaker 1 (5:56) and Speaker 3 (5:56) then I know hold on maybe this is just the wrong decision and I should try and repair whatever it is that I've done or change my mind or so it's those things it's having the confidence in my choices yeah my decisions yeah who I surround myself with and ultimately how I navigate the world around me. Yeah. Speaker 2 (6:19) Do you feel as you've come into your late 40s, you've gained in confidence or lost in confidence? Speaker 3 (6:26) Both. Okay. What about you? Same. Speaker 2 (6:29) Yeah, definitely same. And also, do you think that any things that used to give you confidence have stopped giving you the same feedback now? Speaker 3 (6:40) Yes. Speaker 2 (6:41) So Speaker 3 (6:42) let's talk about losing and gaining confidence as you move through your late 40s, early 50s. Okay. I'm really curious to know, because you said yes to no, as did I. So can you tell us more about that? Like what, how have you lost confidence? How are you gaining confidence? Speaker 2 (7:02) I think. The lost confidence piece is, and I can't explain to you why, I'm very fearful of lots of things that I never used to be fearful of. Yes. E.g. driving on the motorway. Yes. E.g. going skiing. Speaker 2 (7:24) anything to do with any interference in my body. I cannot tolerate going to the dental hygienist. I can't tolerate anyone touching me or doing anything to me that I don't like. I'm much more worried about, not worried, I just don't like it anymore. I'm much more scared of things than I used to be. And I don't know what that is. I don't know if that's just that when you're in your 20s, you feel completely invincible and that life has no end and you never think about what if I break my leg and then I can't deal with my household. So I've definitely noticed that just an underconfidence in those things. Speaker 2 (8:11) In the positive, I feel I trust myself implicitly. I trust my decision-making. I don't second-guess myself. Speaker 2 (8:23) And I do feel very self-reliant. I feel very centered in who I am. I feel very stable in who I am. Those are good things. And those have definitely got better as I've got older. And I also have no need anymore to impress or be very needy in the sense that everyone needs to like me. Oh, yeah. Speaker 2 (8:50) And letting go of that. And Speaker 3 (8:53) I don't think that's a practice or it's a particular method that you can teach yourself that. I think it has, for me anyway, just come with time and with the... backwards and forwards of the utter bullshit of worrying and thinking and overthinking about what somebody else might think that actually it's just oh I haven't I haven't got the energy for it I haven't got the space in my life I haven't got the capacity for it so it's like actually what do I think okay Speaker 2 (9:22) let's just go let's just roll with that I think it's really important because I think if you said to the average person in the street what does a confident woman look like to you I think a lot of them would say she walks into a room, she looks immaculate, she's got amazing hair, she's dressed beautifully, she stands up straight, she knows her work, right? I feel like that's the classic description of a confident woman. Speaker 3 (9:46) It's like the Instagram version of a confident woman. Yeah, Speaker 2 (9:49) it's like she just walked out of a salon into a business meeting. But that's all about aesthetics. Yes. Which we need to touch on Speaker 3 (9:57) because it does play a huge role in a woman's life. Speaker 2 (10:00) But I also don't think that being the most successful, the loudest, the most attractive, the one who gets the most attention is confidence. I agree. I think confidence is tolerating. Quiet. Speaker 3 (10:13) Yeah. Speaker 2 (10:14) Quiet and tolerating the possibility that not everyone likes you. Speaker 3 (10:19) But Speaker 2 (10:19) also Speaker 3 (10:19) confidence is stable. and secure and just is. Whereas I think like an insecurity is screaming. Speaker 2 (10:32) What does it look like to you now? And how do you feel about your own confidence? What have you gained and lost? In which areas? Speaker 3 (10:48) gained, very similar, the people pleasing in me has just disappeared. I can't even explain why. All I know is that I had a hysterectomy and alongside that. Speaker 3 (11:02) the people pleasing. It's like he took my uterus and he also took the Speaker 2 (11:07) people pleasing Speaker 3 (11:08) gene in me. It was the weirdest thing. Do you think it was sitting in your uterus? I think it was sitting very much in my hormones. Okay. Okay. Okay. So there's that. And I wish I could pinpoint better how that, and I am so liberated that it has left me. Speaker 2 (11:30) Because I just don't care. It's very draining. Speaker 3 (11:33) It's draining. It's a waste of time. It's limiting. It's so diminishing on your self-worth, on your being, on your time. And actually, I'm just going to say what I think. And however someone responds to it is how someone responds to it. I'm not rude. I know how to read a room. But actually, I'm just over worrying. about what the other person is going to think, say, do, because I have no control of it. And I think it is an age thing because you've lived enough life to know that all the worrying in the world makes no fucking difference. Speaker 2 (12:11) Yeah. You can worry yourself into a hole and it changes nothing. Speaker 3 (12:14) It changes nothing. So we have learned that. You don't know that at 18 or at 20. You just don't. But I know that coming into my 50s. So from that respect, it feels amazing um and it's allowed me to let go of a lot of other things so my decision making also I feel really confident in but again I have nearly 50 years experience showing me that my my decision making is good yes and if it isn't good then I know it in my body that it isn't good like what I just said before and again that comes with age it comes with experience Speaker 2 (12:50) and it comes with um data yes that's a huge part of it yeah Speaker 3 (12:55) So Speaker 2 (12:56) I have evidence to prove it now Speaker 3 (12:58) so that I can build my confidence on that. Speaker 2 (13:01) In terms of my confidence being Speaker 3 (13:04) knocked, I would say also around the same time that I had a hysterectomy, I just felt, you know how like when you've just had a baby and you don't really recognize your own body anymore? Yeah. It was that. Yeah. And it's not that I looked any different. Nope. Not on the outside. To anybody. But I felt like I just felt so different in my own skin. And I felt this sudden like, okay, so now I'm menopausal. What does that mean? Am I going to put on loads of weight? Am I going to be able to lift as many weights? Am I going to be as fast as I was? Like what is going to change now? Because I am suddenly menopausal. So that really knocked my confidence. And again, I'm now what, six, seven months down the line and everything's okay. You know, I don't look any different on the outside and I'm finding my feet. So the confidence is starting, the confidence in my body and my physical ability is coming back up again. Speaker 2 (14:05) Okay. I think it's not, it's never one thing, right? It's a combination of things, your confidence. So we are going to do a confidence audit on ourselves and listeners. While we do it, you can also answer these questions. for yourselves too. And I'll put them in the show notes maybe. Identity, do I recognize myself? Two, capability, am I still good at things? Three, my body, do I still feel attractive? Four, desirability, am I still seen? Five, agency, what do I actually want? And six, belonging, who are my people? Number one is identity. So we use the question, do I still recognize myself? Speaker 2 (14:49) And it's about kind of changing and then also still being expected to be the same person while you're changing. Oh, okay. All right. This is question one. Has your identity changed? And if so, when did you first feel it changing? Speaker 3 (15:09) It's such a big question. It's Speaker 1 (15:11) huge, right? It's huge. Speaker 3 (15:14) Has my identity changed? Well, yes, of course it has. And no, it hasn't. Speaker 3 (15:24) Am I the same person I was when I was 20? No. Do I want to be the same person I was when I was 20? No. So yes, my identity has changed in terms of, but my life Speaker 2 (15:36) has evolved. Yes. Yes. So Speaker 3 (15:38) your identity changes with it. Like, you know, five years ago I was a hairdresser. Yeah. Now we have two podcasts and I don't cut people's hair. Like, so yes. Yeah. On the outside, everything's changed. Speaker 3 (15:53) Yes, my identity has changed. Yeah, mine Speaker 2 (15:56) too. Definitely. Do you ever feel like you've lost yourself? I felt like after your hysterectomy, I wouldn't say, I think lost is too strong, but I think psychologically it was a wobbly period for a short time. Speaker 1 (16:15) Yeah. Speaker 3 (16:15) But I Speaker 2 (16:16) think... Speaker 3 (16:17) I think it's been a wobbly period on and off for the last three, four years