Expand Your Life: Ignoring the "Yeah, Buts"

The “yeah, but” voice can sound sensible, even caring, but it can quietly shrink your life. Today we’re pulling that voice into the light and asking a bigger question: what would you do if you truly believed it’s not too late?As we're scrambling to prepare our home for a puppy, I talk about how that decision turns into a deeper reflection on time, courage, and why so many women do their most meaningful learning and growth after 45. From earning advanced degrees to taking an art class just because you want to, we talk about how lifelong learning keeps you vibrant and how you don’t need to do any of it perfectly for it to change you.

We also zoom out for younger women who feel trapped by a “correct” timeline: graduate, pick the right major, choose the right career, never mess up. Real life isn’t that linear, and that’s a gift. If you want to try living somewhere new, exploring a new relationship, changing your mind, or taking a risk on a dream, you can. We walk through simple, grounding questions I use with clients, like “Whose voice is that?” and “What’s the worst that could happen?” so fear stops driving the car.

Listen, then tell me what you’re ready to try. Text or leave a voicemail through the link in the show notes, and subscribe, share the episode with a friend, and leave a review if it resonates.

Transcript

Trip Plans And A New Puppy\n

Mary 0:00

Hi, and welcome to a mini episode of No Shrinking Violets. I'm recording a little bit earlier than typical because we are leaving way early tomorrow morning for a trip to Chicago, and probably we'll be back by the time you listen to this, but um a little bit more sense of urgency because I didn't even pack yet. The other thing is we are going to be getting a puppy next Saturday, and this all happened really fast. So we're scrambling to get things ready for this puppy. I feel like sometimes this is what we do. My husband and I, we get an idea and then we just, you know, go ball to the wall and just make it happen. So anyway, we are so excited for this little puppy. And if you follow me on Instagram or Facebook, you will see pictures of this puppy, I'm sure, within the next couple weeks. Um, we're really excited. But anyway, so under the gun, but there's something that I wanted to talk about. I was thinking about this. I just woke up yesterday morning thinking about this because a lot of things have been happening with people around

It’s Never Too Late\n

Mary 1:11

me. So I wanted to talk a little bit about it's never too late to do the thing you want to do. And this is often a theme I think with my guests, because many of my guests are in midlife as women, not all of them, but typically there's a big life event, or they've moved through a lot of the life tasks of either raising children or starting and curating a career, or maybe they are in a different phase of their partnership or their marriage, or they're in a different partnership or marriage because the first one um kind of reached its expiration date. But here's what I think is really cool, and I just wanted to reflect on and just share this idea. First, there are so many women, not only that I talked to on this podcast, but that I know personally that have done such amazing things after the age of like 45. I can count, oh, I don't know how many women that I would say are in early 40s, mid-life-ish, um, or even to mid-50s that have earned doctoral degrees. So I think we tend to think maybe there is a limit when we should stop officially learning. I think learning keeps us young. I think it's really important to continue to expand. I have a whole list of things that I want to take an art class, I want to take a pottery class, I want to take cooking classes. I just love learning um different things. But I think we don't have to do it perfectly. We're not getting graded for a lot of this stuff. Now, obviously, if you're getting a PhD, you're getting graded. But I feel like I often hear women thinking, oh, you know, or saying my usefulness is over. What do I do now? And yeah, there are the things that you may have done when you were younger, like raising kids, you knew what the task was, right? What are the objectives? But when you've launched your kids and they're living their own lives, and maybe even if you had, whether you had a career outside the home or not, everything is shifting, and you can feel kind of at a loss. Like, what do I do now? We have a whole different usefulness. Now you can do whatever you want, and we have so much wisdom that we've stored. There's so much to look forward to. If you are a younger woman listening to this, I'm gonna talk about that specifically in a minute, but there's so much to look to look forward to. Do what you want to do now, live your life, whatever age you are. And I think that's the one of the reasons, weirdly, that I thought about getting this puppy literally only five days ago. That, and I say this and I don't mean it to be morbid, but I'm over halfway to dead, and I'm just being very um, very objective, you know. It's I'm in an age where I'm not going to live as long as I've already lived. And I think it's just looking at that, and what do I want to do with the time that I have left? And there's so many things that I want to do. And so, yeah, maybe bringing a puppy into the house, it's definitely gonna add stress initially. I think the cats are gonna be like, what the hell just happened? But I think it's gonna add so much to our life. And so, you know, just keep learning, keep doing, do the thing because we don't have forever.

Advice For Young Women\n

Mary 4:58

So the other part of this is uh last night I had the wonderful privilege of having dinner with a young person that I've known literally since the day she was born, and she's 21 now. And what a beautiful heart and soul she has. You know, I know that people sometimes say, what's happening to kids now? And because I think I worked with young people for my entire career, high school kids and young adults at college age, I never felt like that. There's always going to be stories on social media or in the news of somebody not doing something right or trends on TikTok that we roll our eyes about. We did crazy things when we were kids, it just wasn't on TikTok. Nobody knew about it. So, what I want to say to young women is if you feel like you want to do something, but you hear a voice in your head saying, Yeah, but you know, we we have the yeah, buts, like, yeah, but mom and dad aren't gonna think that's a good idea, or yeah, but it's going to delay my going to college, or yeah, but I don't know if there's a future in that career. If you want to try something, this is the time to try it. And that's the spirit of the young woman I was having dinner with last night, is to sometimes mess up, try their, try your best to communicate, but life is to try things. And I think we're starting to move away from there being this linear list of responsibilities that we're supposed to do. We're supposed to graduate high school, and I'm I'm really talking United States. It's probably similar in many countries, but graduate high school, go to college, or go directly into a career, and then work your way up the ladder, find a partner, get married, have kids. There are a million bazillion ways to live your life. And I think that is true whether you are young and you're deciding the next thing. Maybe you're 18, maybe you're 24, maybe you feel like I want to try living in a city, but what if I don't like it? Well, if you don't like it, you move. And I think we think so much about not wanting to make a mistake.

Quiet The Yeah-But Voice\n

Mary 7:30

And I can go back again to women in midlife. If you want to try belly dancing, I just joined the why in one of the classes is belly dancing. And part of me is like, you are not going to do belly dancing. And the other part of me is like, well, just try it. I'm not the most coordinated person. But I know what's going to happen. I'm going to try the belly dancing because I need to. And so I think it's that spirit. If we can take that spirit at any age as a woman and not listen to the limiting narratives. And the first step of that is hearing the limiting narrative. If you want to do something regardless of your age, and there's another voice that's saying, Yeah, but fill in the blank, I would be curious about that. Whose voice is that? What's the worst that could happen? That's a valid question. The other valid question, and these are things that I ask my clients, what are you most afraid of? And if you can answer those things and then be really objective about the answers, if the worst thing is you might need to move back home, or the worst thing is you might need to change your major if you aren't sure about your major in college, or you aren't sure if you you should go on that first date because this guy or girl or transgender person or gender fluid person, whoever you're attracted to, if maybe that person is not typically what you were told you should want or what you've wanted in the past. But if you have that sense of, I want to try this, try it. If there's a new food that you want to try, maybe you won't like it. If you want to bake something different, do it. Because we don't have forever. And the way to grow and expand and actually keep a very healthy mind and body is to do new things, drive a different way home, take a part-time job, just doing something you

Share Your Challenge With Me\n

Mary 9:36

think you might like. You don't have to stay there, you don't have to do the same thing forever. So that's sort of what my mind, I think what my mind has been on because of this, you know, just moving to a city where I thought I'd never live, um, loving it, having, you know, a tiny garden when gardening is my jam. Um, and getting a puppy. Getting a puppy when we have three geriatric cats in the house. So all of that to say, you're gonna hear stories and there might be days when I'm like, what have we done? But life is to live. So think about thing that you haven't done. Life begins at the edge of your comfort zone. Think about something you want to do. And even if you're afraid, and probably if you're afraid, that means it's a good idea because it's your amygdala trying to keep you safe. Do that thing. I would love to hear from you. What is your challenge? What is the thing that you want to do, but you've been afraid to do, or you always felt like you would love, but other people in your life, or society's rules told you you shouldn't want that thing. I would love to hear from you. You can actually text me or give me a voice text. So there's a link right in the show notes, regardless of where you listen, you should see a uh something about text me or something like that. It's usually either at the very top or the very bottom of the show notes. You can leave me a voicemail. And I would love to play that on a future episode. I don't need to include your name. But yeah, I would just love to hear what your thoughts are. What are the things that you need to do that you want to challenge yourself with? Those are my thoughts. Until the next time, go out into the world and be the amazing, resilient, vibrant violet that you are.