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How to Stop Your Midlife Crisis
description
Transcript of How to Stop Your Midlife Crisis
How to STOPYOUR
MIDLIFE CRISIS
Ian Paul Sharpwww.StopMidlifeCrisis.co.uk
CONTENTS
Introduction 3
How You Can Stop Your Midlife Crisis 5
How I Stopped My Own Midlife Crisis 8
Why Are So Many Men Reluctant to Seek Help? 14
Why Talking Must Be Supported By Action 16
Why You Must Learn How to Make Great Decisions 18
Why Investing in Yourself is the Key to Moving Forward Fast 21
How You Can Get the Life You Want 23
Why There Are Two Ways to Get the Changes You Need 25
Thank You For Reading ... Time for Action 28
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INTRODUCTIONThank you for requesting this free report ‘How to Stop Your Midlife
Crisis’.
This report is based on my own experiences when I went through a
MidLife Crisis. You’ll read my story and also discover how I turned my
life around, and how you can do the same. There are a number of
practical exercises too, and when you do those you’ll find you’re on
your way to stopping your own Crisis.
Over many years I’ve worked with people both on a one-to-one basis and in a teaching or
workshop setting. Since 1988, when I began to train as a teacher, I’ve learned and
discovered many of the deepest techniques that make people tick and a vast range of
ways of enabling people to change their lives for the better.
When I began my formal training in NLP in 2005 it was as if a whole new level of
understanding had been introduced to me, and since then I’ve dedicated my professional
life to enabling people like you to get the changes they need. My work has been
described as ‘transformative’. Yet of the many clients I’ve worked with, I’ve discovered
a group of people who are least likely to seek deep change, and are the most in need of
change - men in Midlife Crisis.
You may be reading this report because you’ve recognised one of many possible Midlife
Crisis symptoms. You may even be reading this with a voice inside your head saying
“Well, I’m not in Midlife Crisis but I am wondering about the direction of my life” or “I
am feeling depressed” or “This is okay, but is this it?” If you’re asking those or other
questions about your life, then this report is for you.
When I went through my own Midlife Crisis, I really had to make up the solutions as I
went along. Of course, there was plenty of help out there, but it was outside of my
experience and so I didn’t even begin to know where to look. When I saw my doctor,
other than diagnosing depression, he didn’t have much to offer.
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Ian Paul Sharp
I always find it alarming when people struggle and there’s no need for it. So many
people - especially men - suffer in silence. My intention in giving this material to you
with my complements is to give you, at the very least, a starting point - knowledge and
encouragement, that, first of all, you’re not alone and then, even better, the tools to
make the changes you need.
So enjoy this Report with my compliments and begin your transformative change. I
overcame my Midlife Crisis (which included abandoning a career I thought was the
defining work of my life at the age of 42) using the methods included here, among
others. If I can do that so can you, because one of my core beliefs is that we all the the
tools we need to achieve anything in our lives. We just have to use those tools and,
sometimes, receive a little help in locating and using them.
Study this report carefully and you can turn your life around. When you stop your Midlife
Crisis your life can open up to all the possibilities you can imagine.
Let’s go!
Ian
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“Ian Paul Sharp shows competence and the desire to keep current in the field of NLP and beyond. He should be prepared to teach others the road to freedom and personal success.”
Dr. Richard Bandler, co-creator and developer of NLP
HOW YOU CAN STOP YOUR MIDLIFE CRISISYou’re reading this report because you’re in a place you don’t want to be with your life
right now.
There’s no one agreed definition of what makes a midlife crisis. In my experience,
though, it begins when you start to ask the big questions about your life. You might now
be asking what the purpose of your life is; are you in the right career; is your
relationship the one you want; are you living in the right place surrounded by the right
people; is there ever going to more than this or is it already too late?
Now it’s not that we never ask those
questions at any other point in our lives. In
our teens and early twenties we ask similar
questions - and at that early stage of life, of
course, we know that we still have time to
change everything fundamentally. We’re
wondering about life purpose and expecting it to emerge as our life unfolds. Our career
may not have started yet and even if the path seems settled because of the education
we had, it’s actually easy to completely change direction if we want to. And
relationships can change too - with a lot of pain and emotion perhaps, but very possible.
So what marks the difference between the ages of, say, 20 and 40?
The answer is TIME. When you were 20 you knew you what still seemed like forever to
sort out all those fundamental issues. They were painful, of course, but a part of you
knew it was possible to change and change again until you felt all was good.
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“We don’t understand life any better at 40 than 20, but we know and
admit it .” Jules Renard
In our 40s we begin to become aware of the fact that we don’t live forever. We begin to
feel it’s now or never - there’s still about half of our life left, and so there’s time to
change. And there’s a massive BUT ...
We’ve had time to grow strong, deep roots. What if our purpose isn’t what we thought it
was? And that might be linked to our career - especially if we’re defining our purpose by
our work. By now we’ve had time to be in our career for long enough to feel a change of
direction is impossible. Or we fear a forced change via redundancy and the possibility of
not being able to get another job (perhaps even believing the lie that ‘you can’t teach
an old dog new tricks’.) So we feel stuck.
And we’ve been in a relationship for so long that it feels as if uprooting and changing is
just not an option. It might be simply that your relationship is too familiar, too
comfortable, which again feeds into ‘there must be more than this’. Or it might be that
you’re in the perfect relationship for you and you need to look at your partner though
new eyes and remind yourself what made it all so
magical to start with.
And then there’s all the stuff we haven’t done. At 20
there’s plenty of time to travel the world, ride a
motorbike or drive a sports car, become a rock star or
sports star - to do something remarkable and perhaps
gain the trappings of fame and celebrity that goes along
with that. When you’re 20, who knows what the future
holds?
When you’re 40, you think you know what the future holds. And it’s more of the same.
Except there’s just time to do something about it, if we make some far reaching
decisions right now ...
Does any of that seem familiar?
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I promised you the secret to solving your Midlife Crisis and that’s exactly what I’m going
to deliver. As you work with me, you’ll discover I always keep my promises. So here’s the
secret in one line ...
Your midlife crisis is your unconscious mind pushing you to wake up and make the
changes you need - now.
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HOW I STOPPED MY OWN MIDLIFE CRISIS To answer that I’m going to tell you my story. Read it carefully because you’ll find there
are links to how you can move forward and past your current feelings. This is the story
of my Midlife Crisis, how I resolved it, and how I came be be qualified to enable you to
solve yours.
As you sit comfortably, I’ll begin ...
My Midlife Crisis came to a head in 2000. How did I know it was a Midlife Crisis? Well to
be honest that’s a label I’m putting on it from my current perspective ten years later.
This may be the first time you’re applying the term Midlife Crisis to your situation too.
So there I was, training people who wished to become lecturers in further and higher
education in the UK. Teaching them about education, learning and teaching, observing
their teaching, and assessing their progress. Very cool - and the culmination of my own
academic career which led to me gaining an MA in Education before deciding how best to
use that and moving into teacher education.
So where’s that crisis?
Well, as much as I loved the teacher training, there
were several aspects of the job role as a whole which I
found very stressful - I don’t need to share the details
with you here now but they were enough to take me to
the point where, at the age of 42, I was questioning
the future direction of my life. In ‘The Hitchhiker’s
Guide to the Galaxy’ by Douglas Adams the meaning of
life is given as being 42 - well it didn’t seem that way
to me at the time!
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I was living in one town and traveling to another every day - about an hour’s drive in
heavy traffic all the way, or longer by train. I know many people do more than that
every day, and the key is whether or not it can be accommodated easy into the structure
of your life. Some evenings I returned home at 10 p.m and had to be up at six to get to
an early meeting (which even starting out at that time I would usually miss because I
was stuck in traffic).
It was becoming clear to me that this wasn’t
sustainable long-term. Well, maybe moving
closer was an option? I was questioning where I
lived because I had no reason to be there - my
friends, family and job were elsewhere, and I
was seeking a relationship too. Except houses
closer to my college were even more expensive
than the town I was living in, and money worries were another issue anyway.
My money problems arose from funding what I can now recognise to be the beginnings of
my Crisis. I made two classic mistakes - first of all, thinking that I could lift my mood by
buying something. I probably only fell short of ‘Ferarri syndrome’ because my credit
wouldn’t stretch that far. Music is one of the ways my life stays on track even now so my
spending was on CDs and upgrading my hi-fi, as well as on gadgets and computers and all
that techie stuff. And the other classic mistake was convincing myself I needed to buy
something NOW and I might as well use one of my credit cards ... do’h!
All this and more came to a head in the summer of 2000. In the UK, educational
establishments have a long summer break and I had booked four week’s leave. I was sure
that would be enough time to recharge, de-stress and make a better plan for the future.
This was before I’d been introduced to the power of NLP or hypnosis and when, honestly,
I thought self-help books were for new-age weirdoes. A time when if you’d suggested I
go and ‘see someone’ I would have run a mile in the opposite direction. So I just chilled
out and hoped for the best.
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“Here comes 40. I’m feeling my age and I’ve ordered the Ferrari. I’m going to get the whole midlife
crisis package.”
Keanu Reeves
I have a clear mental picture of what happened on my first day back. The staff room was
large, open-plan, and the entrance was through a set of large wooden double doors. I
can still see myself approaching the doors, and feeling worse and worse the closer I got
and the more the image filled my field of vision. There were few people about so I just
went and set at my desk. All the de-stressing and recharging I thought had happened just
hadn’t.
It was a hot summer and no students or many staff were due back for a couple of weeks.
So I was able to go for long lunch walks as thoughts churned over and over about what to
do. I knew that there was no way I could continue either with the job or with my current
lifestyle.
In terms of Midlife Crisis, I was questioning deeply the meaning of my life (without really
being consciously aware of that question). I was questioning my career - beyond location
and into the need to do something else as the next phase of my life. I was stressed about
work and money. I was single and, although as an only child I was good in my own
company, I also desired a deep and long-lasting relationship.
Underlying all that was a fear that this really was it -
nothing better would or could happen for the rest of my
life. Nothing.
When the rest of the staff and the students began to return
I got to a breaking point. I saw my manager and announced I
couldn’t do this anymore. I asked to be permitted to step
down from my role, even though that role was specified in
my contract so the answer could have been “okay, and make
sure you clear your desk before you leave tonight.” As I
recounted my feelings my tears were flowing, and they
returned every time I had to talk to colleagues about my situation that week. My
manager advised me to take some time off and see my doctor - and he diagnosed
depression, although it’s not a lot of use knowing that you’re depressed if not given any
means of doing anything about it. Fortunately he suggested a natural medication, St.
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John’s Wort, and not the anti-depressant medication that I’ve since discovered have so
many difficult side effects.
So there I was, deep into my own personal Midlife Crisis. I’m here to tell the tale and
making a new contribution to the world, so something went right. How did I turn it all
around?
My employer was supportive and I was able to continue as a humble lecturer for as long
as I wished. That gave me a breathing space, although issues such as commuting
remained.
And then I was fortunate because several important aspects of my life changed at once.
Now I am bit hesitant to put all my positive changes down to good fortune because you
might read that as “good for you mate, doesn’t make any difference to me”. But I’m not
talking about winning the lottery as you’ll see.
After years of negative equity I was in a position to sell my flat for a modest profit. I
met my life partner Jane and, as ever with a new relationship, everything looked and
felt different from that point onwards. After a few months we decided the best way
forward was for me to sell up and move to Wales, which is where Jane was living and
would mean a totally new beginning for me.
As we’ve established, part of being in Midlife Crisis is making risky decisions and moving
to Wales was my riskiest one yet. Although it felt like the end of my Crisis, it was also
my biggest risk. Moving from Berkshire to mid-Wales meant finally resigning my job - in
fact, ending my career totally. Not a surprising decision, but I was doing that without
another job to go to. I could live off the proceeds from my flat for a while, and then ...?
I was up for taking a complete leap in the dark but Jane insisted I go through a process
of writing down all the pros and cons and making this as well-founded a decision as it
possibly could be. And at the end of that process - I moved, so was hours away from my
parents but doing the only thing that seemed right to me. Sometimes that’s just how it
is.
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What next? To really end my Crisis I started reading through Jane’s collection of self-help
books. To be honest, initially I thought most were just daft. But I kept returning to the
ones based on NLP.
When I was teaching I was, for a while, also a tutor for the Open University. At one point
some students turned up still on a high after attending a personal development event at
the Royal Albert Hall, and they were talking about NLP as though it was the solution to
everything. I tended to dismiss it as it sounded too much like a short cut to effective
learning, which in my mind was supposed to be hard work. Something must have stuck
though because it was the NLP books that drew
me in when seeking my own changes.
By now I was ready for my new beginning. One
day Jane saw an advertisement in a magazine for
NLP Practitioner training with Dr. Richard Bandler
(the co-creator), Paul McKenna and Michael Neill.
Her immediate reaction was “we have to do this”
and I agreed. We hardly knew what to expect so
we were nervous as we headed into the week. Yet it was brilliant and we learned so
much.
We were on a journey and I decided this was to be my new profession - and that meant
going way beyond Practitioner level. So we both became NLP Master Practitioners and
were then invited to train to be Advanced NLP Therapeutic Specialists, of which there
are fewer than 100 in the UK. Hypnosis was also a large part of our training and
methodology so, alongside the NLP training, we learned advanced hypnosis skills as
Hypnotic Practitioners and Neuro-Hypnotic Repatterners. And I’m keeping the links to my
interest in learning and training because I’m also an NLP Training Specialist - part of my
passion is taking this material out into the world in a workshop setting, of which more
below.
I set up my practice, which has undergone several different titles as I discovered who I
was best placed to serve. Always at the heart of my business activities, though, has been
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“See, what you’re meant to do when you have a midlife crisis is
to buy a fast car, aren’t you? Well, I’ve always had fast cars. It’s not that, it’s the fear that you’re past
your best. It’s the fear that the stuff you’ve done in the past is your
best work.”
Robbie Coltrane
my desire to enable people to stop struggling and find their potential and purpose. And
this brings me to working with you, now, as I’m dedicating the next phase of my
contribution to working with men to end their Midlife Crisis.
Let’s begin to think about how you can have a story with an equally happy - well, I was
going to write ending, but at the age of 51 I’m not done yet! In fact I feel I’m only just
beginning to live my purpose and passion, and only just beginning to discover my own
full potential.
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WHY ARE MEN RELUCTANT TO SEEK HELP?According to ONS UK, men’s usage of the National Health Service in the UK lags behind
women’s throughout life. Only from the ages of 0 - 4 (when we don’t really have much
say about a visit to the doctor) and 75+ (when the fact that men have, on average,
shorter life spans than women begins to become evident in medical conditions) does the
lag disappear. The rest of the time, men make fewer visits to the doctor each year.
Why? Well there could be a variety of reasons.
My answer - totally untested but then I’m not a
theorist, I deal in practical results - is that men
can be hard-wired not to seek help. For
example, men are notorious for not asking
directions. We’ll drive around and around
convinced that we’re on the right track. We’ll
struggle to work out a route on a map. The one
thing we won’t do, until there’s little other option is to ask for help. So it’s the same
with medical issues - we ‘know what it is’, we’ll take an aspirin, we’ll blame lack of
time to go and see someone.
Now, let’s get serious about what a Midlife Crisis actually is. The symptoms can seem
ephemeral when described to others:
• searching for an undefined dream or goal;
• a deep sense of remorse for goals not accomplished;
• desire to achieve a feeling of youthfulness;
• need to spend more time alone or with certain peers.
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Men in midlife crisis may show some of these behaviors:
• abuse of alcohol;
• conspicuous consumption - acquisition of unusual or expensive items such as
motorbikes, boats, clothing, sports cars, jewelry, gadgets, tattoos, piercings, etc;
• blaming themselves or their partner for their failures;
• paying special attention to physical appearance such as covering baldness, wearing
"younger" designer clothes etc;
• entering relationships with younger people;
• stress or depression.
Part of your reluctance to consult a doctor could be the probability of being prescribed
an anti-depressant which will only mask your real feelings. An anti-depressant might
enable you to feel better on a day-to-day basis but, in the long-term, it’s unlikely to
provide deep contentment or remove a fundamental boredom.
And, of course, as men we’re reluctant to talk. Yes, we’ll go our with our male friends
and talk about football, cars or even careers or relationships on a superficial level - just
don’t get serious, and certainly don’t open up any big emotional boxes. In recent years
my sense is that this has got better than once it was, but the reluctance to talk still goes
deep - and communication is still on a very different plane from the way women are
happy to talk about their feelings.
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WHY TALKING MUST BE
SUPPORTED BY ACTIONAnd here’s the paradox. When men hit Midlife Crisis they may be reluctant to talk but
they are certainly not, in many cases, reluctant to take action. This is where the risky
behaviour I listed above can arise. Risky behaviour can wreck relationships either
directly (an affair, or even an obvious desire to have a ‘fling’ or more given the
opportunity) or indirectly as a result of chasing after unsuitable cars, nights out or a
whole new lifestyle - one incompatible with all that has been put into place up to now.
So how will I work with you? My approach does involve talking, even conversations, yet
in a different style from the ones in the pub or with your partner.
Of course I need to know what’s going on with you. Yet most of my work is ‘content
free’. That means I don’t need to know details. If you tell me you’re feeling depressed,
what I’ll ask you about is “how do you know you’re feeling depressed”. I know, that’s an
odd question isn’t it? When I ask you that what
I’m getting to is how you feel on the inside to be
depressed. Whereabouts in your body do you
have that feeling? What pictures do you see on
your mental movie screen? What do you need to
shift to make your feeling of depression better
or worse? And of course all that you tell me is confidential.
I mentioned action because that’s the next stage of the process. And this can be where
some change programmes stop too early. As you begin to make changes on the inside,
changes which at least begin to end your Midlife Crisis, the temptation can be to assume
that the magic has transformed your life and the work is done. Actually the work has
only just begun.
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“He who has not learned the lesson of life who does not
everyday surmount a fear.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Because unless you then apply the changes you have made on the inside to your life on
the outside, you’ll stay stuck in the same place. It’s the taking action that means your
life will be able to move forward, out of crisis and into the exact life you want. Taking
action how though?
Well, for example, suppose we work on your values and beliefs. One of the reasons
you’re in crisis is that your life has drifted far away from your internal value system -
perhaps the nature of your job has changed over the years and it’s no longer in line with
the ‘you’ that signed the contract. Once we’ve worked on that and discovered what
needs to change - well, the changes have to commence. And that means taking action.
Possibly quite serious action of course and that’s the point, which is why I work with
men who are committed to ending their Midlife Crisis and taking the action they need to
take. Without action, this really would just be talking. Equally, of course, without the
talking, the actions you take might just be the serious risky ones that are ill-considered
and take your life in exactly the direction you don’t want to move towards.
Without either ... well you’re entitled to remain in crisis if that’s what you really
want.
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WHY YOU MUST LEARN HOW TO
MAKE GREAT DECISIONSThe key to emerging from your Midlife Crisis is to gain the ability to make great
decisions. As we’ve seen, when you’re in crisis everything gets knocked off centre and
certainly your ability to think clearly is impaired (and that’s
putting it mildly).
I’m going to share with you a great technique for coming to
the ‘right’ conclusion. The inverted commas are there
because, of course, the only right conclusion is the one that
works for you (and that means one which is synchronized with your value system).
So read these instructions all the way through to the end and then apply them to an area
of your life that you need to make a decision about. One word of warning - if you’re
feeling off balance you might convince yourself that the ‘right‘ conclusion is, in reality,
one that won’t be good for you at all. Say, for example, you’re wondering if you should
trade in your family hatchback for a sports car. It might be very easy to convince
yourself that’s the right thing to do, even if a part of you - your other unconscious mind
- ‘knows‘ that it’s really not. That’s why, when I work with you, I use hypnosis which is a
form of exquisite communication that can bypass your conscious filters and enable your
decision making process to operate at a deeper level in line with your values and beliefs.
So do this exercise with care but do this exercise. I’d suggest you start with something
relatively small just to get a feel for it.
So, first of all think about the decision you want to make and have that outcome clear in
your mind. As you think about how you will feel after the results of the decision have
occurred notice the picture playing in your mind’s eye, your internal movie screen.
Notice how close or how far away the picture is; how big or how small it is; is it in colour
or black and white and how bright the colours are; notice if there’s any sound or voices
(your own internal voice or other people speaking). And can you see yourself in the
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picture or are you looking through your own eyes? Notice all there is to notice about the
picture and just relax for a moment ...
Now, we’ll return to that image in a moment. Right now, I want you to run through in
your mind everything that led up to that moment of decision. The easiest way to do this
is to watch the movie in your head that’s playing as you think about the steps to your
decision. See everything that happened as you roll the movie forward, frame by frame,
through every stage of the process - from the very first moment when you thought about
the outcome that you might want, right up to that moment when you very enjoying (or
at least living with the consequences of) the decision you made. Make your ‘decision
making movie’ as realistic as you can - you could even see it as hyper-real, in
widescreen bright colour, 3D (without having to wear the glasses) and with loud surround
sound. Watch that movie. The final frame is the one you prepared earlier.
Now, as you look at the final frame again, how do you feel? Because now you have the
opportunity to get the feelings you would get when you had made and enacted that
decision before you have actually taken the decision. You could see it as a way of taking
a peak into the future if you wish.
Notice all those feelings as they spin inside you. How good are you feeling - or how bad?
Do you have a sense of “wow, that was definitely the right thing to do” or a feeling of
relief that this is just an exercise and you can actually chose to do something different
in reality?
The crucial aspect to note at this point is exactly
how you feel. If you need to feel bad it’s best to
do so when that’s just a feeling that can be
changed and not afterwards when the money has
been spent, the relationship ended, or the job
resigned. Yes, I know I asked you to think about
something small for the purposes of this exercise
but the reason I’ve introduced you to this
exercise at all is so that you can use it when you have that sort of big decision to make.
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Now, I’m not suggesting this is all there is to it. There are many other layers to making
decisions, changing your deepest thoughts and feelings, and spinning up better feelings
for a new life full of freedom and choices, than one simple (yet powerful and effective)
exercise. Yet this is a good way in and gives you an indication of just how close you
could be to resolving your Midlife Crisis once and for all, and making your 40s, 50s and
60s (and probably beyond - okay let’s just say the second part of your life) everything
you want it to be.
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WHY INVESTING IN YOURSELF IS THE KEY TO
MOVING FORWARD FASTYou can invest in yourself in many different ways. Because you’ve taken action and
requested this report, it’s clear you are serious about getting the changes you both want
and need. Taking the time to read this, and the time to begin to think about how you
can move your life forward, is another investment. The key factor is your recognition
that changes do not come automatically or by magic, although the process is
transformative which is the root of the term ‘magic’.
I understand you need to feel completely at ease with the
mentor you employ. I know there are many good coaches,
NLP Practitioners, hypnotherapists and the like out there
who will get you the changes you need. (If you’re a woman
reading this because you’ve not yet found a report written especially for females, I can
recommend my colleague Jools Parsons who is an expert on ending female midlife
crisis). You can contact her at [email protected].
Think of it this way. Your Midlife Crisis might lead you to spend money on all sorts of
shiny, apparently youth-recapturing, exciting things - up to and certainly not excluding a
motorbike, sports car, fcuk-off home cinema system, or round the world travel. And
there’s nothing inherently wrong with any of those. Unless you’re simply spending the
money because you think it offers you a short-cut to happiness and a promised land
that’s just a mirage; a destination that doesn’t really exist. Then there IS a problem
because you’ll be wasting money (not a great plan even if you can afford it, and if it’s
all getting dumped onto your credit card then that’s a route to disaster).
What you’re setting up is long-term problems. You’re not investing in yourself at all,
really, are you? All you’re doing is digging a massive hole for yourself, and when you’re
in a hole your first action is to stop digging.
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I invite you to look at it this way. For much less than the cost of any of those items you
can invest in the SOLUTION to your crisis, and open the doors to creating the life you
really want. How good does that sound, when you know you can start out on that road
right now? In fact, by reading this you’ve already started!
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HOW YOU CAN GET THE LIFE YOU WANTNow it’s time to get switched on to how you can get the life you want. Just relax and go
with me for a few minutes and you’ll discover something important about the life you
REALLY want. When you follow my instructions now you’ll be able to gain a whole new
perspective. In fact, people have told me this one exercise alone has made an incredible
difference to how they see their lives, and it’s yours free now with my compliments.
Read the whole exercise first of all, right through to the end, because it’s best to close
your eyes. You’ll be perfectly safe, just ensure you’re sitting somewhere comfortable
and you won’t be disturbed for the next twenty minutes or so.
So ... imagine you’re taking a trip forward in time. You’re reviewing your life from the
comfort of your favourite arm chair, looking back as you celebrate your 80th birthday.
Maybe there were times you didn’t think you’d make it this far, right? Well, here you
are, talking time out to review your life ... so far.
Now drift back towards today and notice everything you did that you’re proud of. Is that
a long list?
Notice everything you did that you’re not proud of. How long is that list?
Now think about all those things you wish you’d done in your life but you never did. You
never did simply because you were too busy buying stuff, drinking too much, chasing
after cars and chasing after younger women ... all those mad things that, at the time,
you thought would make you happy. Fulfilled. King of the Universe. And did they? Well if
they did I guess you’re looking back at them now and feeling proud of what you did, and
that’s brilliant. If you’re noticing a sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach I guess it all
didn’t work out so well, did it?
Now here’s the thing. If you’re reading this you’re probably in your 40s or 50s, and I
asked you to drift forward to your 80th birthday. So all those regrets you could be having
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about the way you lived your life when you were in midlife crisis need not apply -
there’s time now to end your crisis or potential crisis before any destruction sets in.
This sort of exercise was what helped me to resolve my Midlife Crisis - looking back I was
able to invent these sorts of ways of changing my life even before I was formally trained
to advanced levels in NLP and hypnosis, which is one reason why I found it easy to learn
the techniques and processes when I was first introduced to them, and I why could be
the right person to lead you out of yours.
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WHY THERE ARE TWO WAYS OF LEARNING TO
GET THE CHANGES YOU NEED
I know from my own experience that people have different preferred ways of interacting
when they want to learn and make changes. So, when I decided to dedicate my skills to
working with men in Midlife Crisis, I was concerned to ensure there were several ways of
accessing my material. After all, there’s little point in my working through all of this
deep change material if you pass it by because you can’t see yourself working in the way
I’ve decided you must!
One-to-One Mentoring Sessions
When you want to make a start right now you can do so by applying to become one of
my private clients. This means you get time with me (either face-to-face or via the
‘phone or Skype) every week or two, and of course that’s time in which I’m focusing
exclusively on you. I say every week or two because I respect your individuality and each
programme is designed around your needs. And in that time together we can explore
deeply the state you’re in now, determine your values and beliefs, and I’ll be with you
all the way as you take action to end your Midlife Crisis and discover your life purpose.
Even better than that, I’ll enable you to uncover the life you’re really passionate about
and to live that life.
Of course all of these changes (and they may very well be deep changes) could mean
letting go of people, places, work, habits, and limiting beliefs. The key is to be able to
end your feelings of crisis (depression, drifting, wondering what you’ve missed out on so
far) and discover what you really value. You may well find yourself valuing your life
partner even more deeply than before; recognizing your career for the achievement that
it is and maybe finding a way to refresh it within the same employment or solo effort;
you may change your diet (a great way of changing your mood by the way) or recognise
the habit you’ve been battling to break actually is good for you; and you may realise all
those times you’ve not even attempted to learn something new come from a place of “I
Can’t” when by making a few easy changes you’ll KNOW that “YOU CAN!”
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When you find your purpose, you can also find meaningful work, make those important
decisions, achieve success, and ultimately feel happy and fulfilled.
All this and more flows from your private consultations with me. And, of course, all that
I offer you is personal to you - the massive advantage of working in this way is there are
no compromises. You will be able to apply everything straight away and, if you discover
any blocks, fears or phobias as we work, then I have the tools and techniques to solve
those too. My skills come from the fields of neuro-linguistic programming (NLP),
hypnosis, and coaching. I use all three of those and other ideas too to get the changes
you need - one of my key beliefs is anything that works - just works - so if from my wide
reading and experience I can teach you a technique that will benefit you I’ll do it.
Group Sessions
The second powerful way you can end your Midlife Crisis is in
a group workshop setting, which I run around four times each
year. The benefit of a group workshop weekend is that you
can learn and experiment with all the techniques I’ll teach
you, in a safe environment, with like-minded people. You can
draw the energy of the group into your being, and you can get
all the changes you need quickly and safely. You could arrive on the first morning feeling
depressed and in despair at the stage your life has reached, and leave on the final
afternoon with the answers to your big questions, and with your passion and purpose
newly discovered - and with the tools and support to go back into the world and live the
life you were born to live.
And a group workshop weekend is the most economical way of experiencing what my
Mind Mentoring can do for you. If you prefer not to receive one-to-one support over a
period of a few months, or you like to be given the tools and go and do the job for
yourself, then this is the best way of moving forward with your life.
If you prefer support, tools and techniques designed just for you, and be safe in the
knowledge that I’m only a phone call away, then you need a one-to-one programme.
And, of course, I’ll also make it very easy for you to combine the two by attending the
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workshop to get a flying start and then following-up with a one-to-one private
programme.
Either way, as you’ve read through to the end of this e-book I’m mind reading that, at
the very least, you have questions about your life that you want to address. So on the
next page is a reminder of what you can do next to get answers.1
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1
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful
beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most
frightens us.”
Marianne Williamson
THANK YOU FOR READING ...
TIME FOR ACTION
Ian Paul Sharp, The Mind Mentor
01970 626415 or 07790 513629I’m as happy working with you by telephone as I am working face-to-face, so your
location can be ... anywhere. If you need the international dialing code it’s +44.
Or contact me on Skype - my user name is ian_sharp
You’ll receive full details of the next END YOUR MIDLIFE CRISIS AND FIND YOUR PURPOSE
workshop by e-mail. Please note numbers on this workshop are always limited to 25, so
you’ll need to move swiftly to secure your place. The quickest and easiest way to
confirm your seat is by visiting http://www.stopmidlifecrisis.co.uk or give me a ring.
Finally, thank you for letting me have your e-mail details. I’ll always respect your
privacy, and I’ll be writing to you again over the next few weeks to ensure that you’re
getting the most value out of this e-book.
If there’s one way of ending your midlife crisis quickly, it’s to get an external
perspective on your life from someone who has been though crisis himself and has
used that experience to build the rest of his life. You have choices and freedom
about your life. Have you even scratched the surface yet of how good your life
could be?
Warmest wishes,
Ian--
Page 28- How to End Your Midlife Crisis Special Report © Ian Paul Sharp, 2010 www.StopMidlifeCrisis.co.uk
http://www.stopmidlifecrisis.co.ukIan Paul Sharp, MA in Education (Open), PGCEA (Surrey)
is certified by the Society of NLP as an Advanced Therapeutic Specialist, Neuro-
Hypnotic Repatterner, Practitioner of Hypnosis, Training Specialist,
and Master Practitioner.
www.PureNLP.com
For my soulmate Jane with love ... you turned everything around and make everything worthwhile, everyday.
Images published under a Creative Commons licence via Flickr.com. Thanks toarclients, mtkophone, midom, bark, skippyjon, Y, filtran, DeclanTM, Hare Guilzer and
Worldislandinfo.com
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