All right, you beautiful, bravehearts. It is wonderful to see you again.

Today, I want to talk to you about how you can indeed feel more aligned with your purpose, feel more energized, and feel like you are growing and still developing, even though you are in midlife, and today I'm going to give you 5 tips on how to improve yourself.

Now, first of all, I just want to go on record as saying this. I am a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. And I don't believe that ultimately we can improve ourselves without that relationship. That being said, God calls us to be great stewards of the life that he's given us. And that means we continually need to be working at Improving, up-leveling, and causing our lives to grow and flourish.

So I'm going to give you five points today. They're basic points, but you know what? You'd be surprised that something that we call common sense. We think it's common. But you'll be surprised to find out it's not. How uncommon it can oftentimes be. So for you as a midlife woman, you're a bravehearted woman. I don't want these things to escape you. They're really critical and they're really important. So I'm going to give you five tips on how to improve your life, and how to improve yourself in midlife. Are you ready?

The first thing I want to just say to you is, and I've already alluded to it a little bit, embrace lifelong learning. Tony Robbins calls it CAN I, C-A-N-I, constant and never-ending. Improvement. Don't be bored in midlife and better said, don't be boring in midlife. Life is too amazing and too beautiful for you just to sit on the sidelines and watch it all pass you by.

So midlife is great, it’s time for you to grow and explore. It's a perfect time to become curious about what else. What else can I do? What else can I accomplish? What else is there for me to experience and to see? It's time for you to expand your knowledge, whether that's formal education, online courses, or simply picking up some new hobbies. You want to continue to stretch and grow. Continuous learning keeps your mind sharp. Not only that, it keeps you intrigued. It keeps you mystical if you will. It keeps the mystery about you, keeps you interesting. Come on, women, we cannot be boring. We cannot let our lives just become, like what I say, beige. No vibrant colors. That's how you need to live.

Not only that, it will boost your confidence. When you continue to grow, when you continue to stimulate your mind, when you continue to stretch yourself, you feel confident. You feel yourself really growing and uplifting and boosting your level of self-confidence. It just happens. When you take advantage of opportunities, when you say, you know what, I've never done that before, but I'm willing to try, I'm excited to explore and think about it.

So don't steer away from things like technology, computers, you know, digital apps saying, oh, I'm just no good with this stuff, I don't know how to do it. Okay, neither do any of us. At first, we can continue to grow and learn. Don't excuse yourself from being relevant in this world because you think your best days are behind you. Not so.

So here's how you can start. You can choose a skill. Or a subject, or something that you've always wanted to explore. You can learn a new language. You can learn how to play a new instrument. I am learning how to type correctly. Believe it or not, even though I'm a writer and an author of many books, I have my own style of typing. While it works for me, I do recognize that it's not perfect. It's not optimal. So I'm learning how to type. I'm stretching my brain. I'm diving into a new area of development. What area of professional development do you want to learn? Or what hobby do you want to learn? So what is it that you want to learn? How do you want to grow? That's the first thing that I want to share with you in midlife, keep growing. You've not arrived yet. You're not done yet. You don't put it in the park and just sit there and watch the world go by. You stay in the driver's seat of your life and you continue to grow. Never-ending improvement.

Here's the second thing that you can do to improve yourself. Make sure that you prioritize your health and wellness. That's brain health, that's physical health, that's emotional health, but specifically, I am talking about physical health. It becomes so crucial at this age. Nevermore is a statement truer than right now in this part of life. The statement that says, “If you don't use it, you will lose it. Your body, if you rest it, you'll rust it.”

You have to stay active. Whether that's walking, cycling, or if it's jogging perhaps, swimming, or whatever you want to do hiking or cycling. Make sure that you keep your body moving. You need to continue to have great vitality, even in midlife. We are not a hundred years old. We’re 45, 50, 55, 60, 65, 70, and should the Lord tarry, we have 30 more years of life. So, prevent potential health issues. There's an 80-year-old you that is begging you, please take care of yourself. Please eat right. Please exercise. Stay active. Lose that extra weight. Continue to provide yourself with exercise, the things that move your body. Prioritize your mental health practices, you know, such as mindfulness and meditation. Put that in your routine so that you reduce your stress, and stress loads at this age, they do a number on us.

And so we can practice mindfulness and biblical meditation and diaphragmic breathing and all the things that would help us feel present and come out of sympathetic overdrive into parasympathetic, our nervous system. Get it to notch down so that we find ourselves in equilibrium. Also, don't forget about the importance of sleep for your body, mind, brain, and emotional well-being.

Sleep is crucial. Do you know how many things are linked to getting good rest right now? The cumulative effects of sleep loss and sleep disturbance really wreak havoc on our bodies right now. The range of deterioration in your health can be from hypertension, diabetes, obesity, depression, heart attack, stroke, and so many other things. Make sure that you get good rest.

Alright, number three. Here we go. If you want to improve yourself, even during midlife, I want you to think about your relationships. It's time to continue to cultivate healthy, powerful, and meaningful relationships. You don't have to continue to put up with toxic relationships. You get to set boundaries. You don't have to be liked by everybody. You don't have to be popular. You're comfortable in your own skin now.

Now I'm not advocating divorce at all. It's one of the most painful things I've ever experienced in my life. What I am advocating is health. What I am saying is that you can cause a disturbance. You can start a revolution in that romantic relationship with your partner. If there's something going on that is toxic and unhealthy, I highly recommend that you don't just acquiesce and put up with it any longer. You start a storm and you say, uh, uh, I love you. I want to be here. But right here, I'm not living with this anymore. And I have to say this in fairness to all the men out there, if you're the issue, my sweetheart, if it's your attitude, if it's your inability to be flexible or loving or kind, if it's your critical spirit coming out, I'm talking to you now, I know I'm getting on you a little bit. This is your moment to say, Okay, you know what? I can grow. I can change. I can become that woman that I long to be. I don't have to be trapped in a persona that doesn't serve me well.

But let's talk about other relationships because you can cultivate meaningful relationships. You do not have to befriend those just because, you know, you've been friends since high school and you should just hang around them. At this age, you want to stay with people who bring you up, who nurture you, who fuel you, who feed your inner bravehearted woman, who feed your fierce, roaring spirit that says, I want to live vibrantly and strong, and I want to matter, and I want to be significant, and I want to make an impact. I'm not just wanting to, you know, recline by the pool, all that's fun for a week or two, maybe three, but that's not a way of life. That's not what we do now. We are in our most significant, amazing, beautiful season of life. So think about it. Are there some relationships that you should mend? That you don't want to go into this chapter of life still having that wedge when in fact you should have restoration and healing? Or are there other relationships that you say, you know what? If I lost this relationship, I'd be okay. It's draining. It pulls me down. It's negative. I dread it. It's okay to let go of some of those friendships.

Now when it comes to our relationships with our children and our grandchildren, if you have them, continue to pour into those relationships as is healthy and appropriate. Continue to be that presence in their life. Just because they act like they don't need you, don't be fooled. They need you. They want you in their life. And so, you know what? We're still the parents. Don't wait for them to call you. Pick up that phone, make the reach, send the text, alright? Be confident in your relationships.

Here's the fourth thing that I want to say. If you want to continue to improve yourself, and with God's help you're going to do this. Set new goals and redefine success. Why? Because in midlife, you are offered a fresh opportunity to re-fire your life with what now can be your passion project, a new career, a new purpose.

How do you want your legacy to unfold? You get to redefine what success means to you. When we're younger, maybe we chase the dollar and success means making a lot of money or maybe it means a place of prominence, a place of position or power. I don't feel like success for me means any of those things now. Success for me means that I'm impacting and changing lives. That I'm in my sweet spot, that I'm doing what God has created me to do.

Success means to me today that I am creating a significant legacy to pass on to my children, my grandchildren, and my great-grandchildren, of which I have two now. And that I am defining success in a whole new way, that I am living a fulfilled life because, guess what, I'm tapping my potential. All of those things I wondered about. I wonder if I could, how could I grow, how could I change, what new heights could I reach? I'm not just going to wonder about it anymore, I'm doing it, I'm reaching for it, I'm claiming it. So how do you start?

Well, I want you to reflect on what genuinely matters to you. What's important to you now at this stage? Set clear, achievable goals that matter to you, and that you're really passionate about. You might not know how to get there, but you know that it's a dream in your heart and you want to reach them. I want to see you take your Bravehearted Woman Planner Write those goals down, make them brave or smart, and make them clear. How do you want to grow in your personal life, in your career, in your creative life, in your spiritual life? And pursue them.

And by the way, If you don't have my latest book, The Making of a Bravehearted Woman, I break it all down for you. I lay it all out. Get your copy today by going to themakingofabraveheartedwoman.com and if you do that, you can actually grab a free chapter of my latest book, right there on that landing page. So once again, go to themakingofabraveheartedwoman.com and grab your free chapter of my book today to help you begin to set new goals, to spread the limits of what you used to think I could only I don't have this much, but God is saying, no, it's time for increase and expansion. And there's so much more ahead of you. You're thinking this way. God wants you to think this way. I break it all down for you in the book, how to become the best version of yourself. Thus far, you can find it all in that book. Grab your copy today.

And number five, the last point that I want to leave with you, and how you improve yourself, and practice self-compassion. We hear a lot about it, let go of perfectionism. We know that we need to have that loving voice on the inside speak to us. words, compassionate words, and being gentle with ourselves.

But I want to tell you why that really matters in midlife because right about now we start having a lot of reflection, don't we? Sometimes we find ourselves feeling a lot of regret, opportunities we didn't take, missed, opportunities that we wish we would have tried, or things that we wanted to do, but we didn't do it. And now we feel like it's too late. First of all, it's not too late. There's no expiration date on your dream. It's never too late.

The second thing is, is that we don't want to die with regrets. We don't want to face the season of life with the, what if I did it or what if I hadn't done that? You still have time to make restitution, to have a new ending, to write a new chapter. Your life is going on a trajectory this way with one decision in one moment. In fact, that moment can be right now in this minute. You can change immediately the direction of your life. You can't get to your destiny overnight, but you can change which way you're going. with a decision that says, you know what, I'm going to be gentle with myself and compassionate with myself and forgive myself and I'm going to stop going the wrong way, but I'm also going to challenge myself and say, all right, all right, woman, all right, bravehearted girl. It's time. We're making a change. I'm going to go this way. Move past the mistakes you've made. Let go of the unforgiveness and the battering of yourself and that inner critic cutting you down, shaming you, judging you, disciplining you, and scolding you. She's doing this. You tell her. Do this. Be quiet. Today, I'm a new woman. Today, I can do new things.

And I want you to focus instead on not that I, perfection, I wasn't perfect, I didn't do the right things. Instead, what are you passionate about? What do you want to do with the rest of the days that you have? Focus on progress and self-acceptance. And if you need help doing that, by the way, you might not know this, but I take clients all the time in coaching. I also have an amazing coaching program for you to fire up your bravehearted woman and live your best life. If you're interested in that, please visit me and email me at dawn@dawnscotdamon.com.

Five ways you can improve yourself in midlife. Shall we just reflect on those one more time? I want you to embrace being a lifelong learner. I want you to prioritize your health and your mental well-being. I want you to cultivate meaningful relationships, and powerful relationships, and be willing to evaluate the relationships that are toxic. Number four, set new goals. Big goals. Goals that scare you. Goals that let you know that, wow, in order to do this I need a big God and a big dream. And guess what? You can have both. God is in your life, and if you have a big dream, you have a God who says, all right, let's do this. And number five, be gentle and compassionate with yourself as you let go of past mistakes and reach for a beautiful future.

All right, everybody, that's what I have for you today. I pray and believe that this episode of this podcast bless you. If it does, please share it with someone else. Take a minute, review this podcast, and let other people know that they can have Christian-based growth and development that will bless their lives, stretch them, push them like we did today, and also help you make this life your best life.

Dawn Damon, your braveheart mentor, leaving you like I always do. It's time for you, find your brave, and live your dreams!