Turns out women aren’t happy.
Turns out the older women get, the sadder they become.
Turns out once she hits 47 years old, a woman’s happiness declines quite steadily.
Or so I read an article this week in the Huffington Post, written by Marcus Buckingham.
Buckingham is a smart guy — his work has transformed the way we talk about work and life by shifting our collective focus from shoring up weaknesses to centering in strengths.
I like him.
So back to this women-are-increasingly-unhappy idea… what’s the deal?
In the article, Buckingham says it’s not because women are paid less than men, although that is a fact. Nor is it because women assume more of the household chores than their male partners. Also a fact. And it’s not because women have limited opportunities. Because we have so many more opportunities than our grandmothers did.
Why are women aging unhappily?
Of course, I have a theory.
Let’s call it the Disillusionment Theory.
From the work I do with women, it seems that for a certain generation the message we got growing up was, “Be a good girl, don’t have strong opinions or talk too much, get along, be pretty enough to catch a husband, have kids and then everything will be easy for you.”
And what happens to many women by the time they turn 47? The kids you put your life on hold for are grown up and have their own lives. The husband you put through medical school left the marriage. The parents who defined you as their darling good girl have died. Your body’s not the same. The media tells you that you’re no longer pretty enough or young enough to catch a man’s eye, let alone a second husband. It’s grim.
Because your whole life you played by the rules, but in mid-life the rules seem to have changed. Life is not easy.
Nothing’s the way it should be.
But we know, and Buckingham documents, the women who find deep happiness and satisfaction despite the loss trajectory of their lives. What do they have that other women don’t?
Buckingham gives us some juicy tidbits about the happiest women — they:
* Don’t agonize over who they aren’t—they accept and act on who they are. They have discovered the role they were born to play and they play it.
* Don’t juggle—they catch-and-cradle. They don’t keep things at bay, but select a few things and draw them in close.
* Don’t strive for balance—they strive for fullness. They intentionally imbalance their lives toward those moments that make them feel strong.
* Always sweat the small stuff—They know and act on the specific details of what invigorates them (and they let go of what doesn’t strengthen them).
So, to be happy at mid-life, women have to focus on what makes them happy and do more of that. And they have to let go of what no longer makes them happy. They need to find new ways to define themselves — based on their strengths — and drop the old ways they were defined.
In terms I use as a coach, to be happy in mid-life women need to move from living in their “social selves”, concerned with What Other People Will Think, to living firmly in their “authentic selves”, which is who they are at their very core.
Calls to mind Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s famous quip, “Well-behaved women seldom make history.” Perhaps especially in mid-life, it’s “Well-behaved women are seldom happy.”
Y’know what? I choose happy. If that makes me appear less well-behaved, then so be it. And you are welcome to join me.
And for my fabulous guy readers — if there is a woman in your life who is approaching the happiness tipping point, what can you do? Try this: encourage her to misbehave. Encourage her to step out and step up. Throw away the old rules, and join her in making some new ones. Believe me — you will love it. By encouraging the woman you love to be more fully herself, you will be amazed at the joy and happiness that will flood your life. She’ll be more her, which only allows you to be more you.
Michele Woodward is a Career Strategist, Master Certified Coach, author, speaker and teacher, who helps people get clear about who they are and what they want to do – and develop a workable action plan to get where they want to go. She is the author of Lose eight, Find Love, De-Clutter & Save Money: Essays on Happier Living and is the founder of Career Invention Coach Training.
What a timely post. I think we as women are sold a bill of goods. The media tells us we can have it all and then when we do not get it all, we wonder what’s wrong with us.Our unhappiness and dissatisfaction manifests itself as illness.
The ” good mother” hair shirt is the one that kills me….and trying to live up to some crazy standrds day after day sucks the life force right out of us.I guess my great sadness is how we women suffer in silence, never voicing our wants and desires, so they wither on the vine. I have done it myself in the past — and am trying hard to be more fully myself.
Michele,
Thanks again for another great post! Yes I too find with my women clients that they have bought into the “lies” we were told growing up. Be a good girl, get good grades, look good, go to a great college, get married, have kids, purchase your dream house,…. and live happily ever after. They wonder why they are not happy when they have done what they were “supposed” to do. We slowly work on taking the layers off and “ditching” the social selves allowing the essence of who they are come through.
Laurel Thatcher Ullrich’s “Well-behaved women seldom make history” is my mantra and my favorite shirt that I wear!
Thanks Michele, I will be passing your post along to others.
smiling,
Koren
Michele, thanks for this passionate call for women to take our happiness into our own hands. We are responsible for our own lives, and that means we have the power to choose ways of being and living that flow from our innermost hearts.
I love Buckingham’s “Don’t strive for balance–strive for fullness.” And keep those few things that truly matter, close to your heart.
Thanks so much for this wonderfully wise, compassionate article.
Love, Hiro
Appreciate your view of this study. Maureen Dowd published an interesting take on it today, as well.
I think one component to this happiness formula often overlooked is the “complex female hormone” issue (mentioned by Buckingham). Women’s hormonal cycles have always been viewed through a male lens. Because of our extreme ups/downs, we are viewed as handicapped, and medicated and operated on so that our bodies more closely mimic a man’s. Imagine if we were taught to identify and use our hormonal complexities in our favor (i.e. work with the rhythms of our body) – which are infinitely different than men’s – we could do incredible things and be happy!
mama and daddy forgot
to tell us about
the detours, and
what to pack for that
~lily
Michele, I LOVE this post and I’m with you on the misbehaving part, 150%! Specifically, I’m totally down with being authentically me (which pays no mind to external acceptables/not acceptables)! For me it took a certain level of maturity to get that and I’m super happy to say that with age (and some intense inner work and paradigm shifts . . .) came the thrill and skills of finally having the confidence to say “I’m ME! So embrace and love me or get out of the way because I’m going to do what I do and I’m going to do it BIG!” So liberating and fun! I had heard about this concept, of women not happy as they age and that has so not been my experience. I’m 38 now and I have no doubt that I’m totally going to rock out my 40s. I’m so excited that you are spreading the word and encouraging women to be more themselves so they–and the rest of us–can enjoy their gorgeous juicy selves! Woohoo!
Hm, very interesting thoughts. I’m some 17 years away from the tipping point, but there’s no reason I can’t get started early, right?
The thought of not striving for balance is especially thought-provoking. I’m not good at balance, but doing more of what I’m best at? That I can do.
Hi Michelle, another brilliant blog that always gets us thinking! It reminded me of an incident that happened to me a few weeks ago.
So, here I am attending a very trendy cocktail party—and my girlfriend alerts me to the fact that the room is full of beautiful and well-put together women. Suddenly, a sadness comes over me, and like the good coach I am, I ask myself: Hmm, what is the thought I just had that’s making me feel sad? And there it is oh so clear (actually, there were quite a few thoughts)…I’m not as attractive as I used to be… I used to turn heads…I used to be one of those women that others would comment on…
I’m going to be 55 in next week, and I have to admit, I do miss the attention I used to get about my physical appearance from men and women. Yeh, I know, it’s superficial—but when you’ve been used to hearing this your whole life, and then you don’t hear it, you have to stop and ask: so, if I’m not that attractive woman anymore, then who am I? And what will be the new source of my pleasure?
It’s interesting that this issue should come up for me as I encounter it so much in my female clients who feel pressure to look good so as to keep the guy! It’s a bittersweet situation: it’s great to look good, but it’s such a source of stress to keep it from diminishing. The new thoughts I came up with were: Despite the extra wrinkles and the extra ten pounds, I can actually say that I truly love who I am and who I’ve become, and I’m truly finding my joy in my work and friends—that’s the difference—although physical beauty is a high, it’s also fleeting and it’s always accompanied by stress and pressure because it’s bound to diminish. But love of self is a deeper more satisfying pleasure that has the potential to get better as we age!
Linda Ford
Great post, Michele! (And I appreciated the article when you shared it on FB earlier this week.) I was immediately intrigued both by the topic, and because it’s Marcus Buckingham.
I’ve used that ‘well-behaved’ quote three times this week alone.
My tagline for my blog used to be “a search for balance and sanity” until I discovered that it wasn’t balance, which is still usually determined by other people’s definitions of what I should have in my life, but fullness.
You’re spot on with your post. I hope we teach the next generation not to put off authentic living until they’re 47.
All the best!
deb
I’ve now had to change to read Marcus’s piece in its entirety and it has led me to believe that a woman’s downhill lack of satisfaction/depression, is hormonal. In the past women were deemed to be ‘mad’ during her menopausal period. And during this time, having lost the children, and most of the things she’d once had; the things that gave her some purpose in life,all she sees are drooping breasts, wrinkles, and ‘time passing her by’. Maybe this is the reason midlife women, especially, are trying to ‘regain’ their youth by buying into media hype: botox, lipo suction, and other modern techniques.
It is precisely because of this feeling of emptiness that, as I prepare for my 6th decade, and with confidence, I’ve decided to run my retreats for women of a certain age. I’d like them to access their inner beauty. Some may, and indeed have, said to me, ‘look at your skin.. you’re lucky, you’re black’. As far as I am concerned, that has nothing to do with it. It is my attitude. I’ve seen some black women with skin like silk at seventy, completely miserable with their lot. There are black women who also use botox!
So, yes, I believe it has to do with the menopause. It is depressing if you are not satisfied with life to watch your body slowly morph into something else, something you equate with ‘old age’. It is equally depressing to watch women, loaded with numerous gifts in the form of experience, concentrate on the superficial; thinking they have nothing to offer.
That’s it from me!
As a mother we are so busy serving our family that we forget who we really are and what really makes us happy. When our kids grow up and move out we are left to find ourselves again. Sometimes it takes some real soul searching to find out what makes us happy and what do we enjoy doing. I think middle age is a check point. Is our life where we want it to be? What have we accomplished or what do we want to accomplish? And again, what makes us happy!
I want to hear how you’re misbehaving, Michele!! hee hee
(For real.)
Interesting. For me it wasn’t so much “be a good girl” as it was the ideal of being able to “bring home the bacon and fry it up in a pan.” It wasn’t enough to be a wife and mother. It wasn’t enough to have a career. You had to do all of it and do all of it well. All that was shown to us as empowering – you don’t have to stay home with your kids anymore, you can go out and get a job. Yay! Be powerful! Be all that you can be!
But what I found by the time I hit my 40s is that I was exhausted, working in a job that I hated in order to make enough money to support my family in the manner they (and I) had become accustomed to. In the manner that I thought I needed to live. It took losing my job and ending my marriage (at the same time) to shake me out of the stupor. Now I’m working towards something I’m passionate about. I’m writing and going to school and spending my time trying to help other people. I may not make as much money as I used to. I may not be successful in the ways I had thought I needed to be. But I am happy (most of the time). And hopefully I’m teaching my daughters that it isn’t healthy to want everything or to try to balance everything. It’s healthy to seek out a full and authentic life – whatever that means to them.
Thanks for the thought-provoking article!