Piloting Your Life Quotes

“Midlife blindsided me; I was totally unprepared for it. No one told me what to expect. No one told me how to prepare. No one told me how to take advantage of it. As I opened up to other women about some of these things, I learned I was not alone and decided to do something about it.”
― Terri Hanson Mead, Piloting Your Life

“Eleanor Roosevelt said, “Do one thing every day that scares you.”
― Terri Hanson Mead, Piloting Your Life

“The bottom line here: we can put ourselves first while maintaining an awareness of our impact on others. By doing so, we eliminate guilt. When we stop trying to overcompensate, and let our presence shine, our brilliance will be enough. And damn it, be the first in the buffet line, and take the last fucking cupcake.”
― Terri Hanson Mead, Piloting Your Life

“And damn it, be the first in the buffet line, and take the last fucking cupcake.”
― Terri Hanson Mead, Piloting Your Life

“It’s time to rewrite the rules and create ones that work better for us. We women live in a world that wasn’t designed by us or for us. Very often, we don’t have a voice in a lot of what happens in this world. This, too, is changing. My friend Marie is fifty-one and is loving her fifties. She said, “I was finding my voice in my forties, but really found it when I turned fifty. I turned off the edit button. I discovered what I wanted to say, and I wanted to get out into the world. I love meeting women in their fifties because they, like me, are so over everything. We are done diminishing ourselves to make others feel better about themselves.” If that isn’t inspirational, I don’t know what is.”
― Terri Hanson Mead, Piloting Your Life

“What is my ikigai? What do I want my legacy to be? Am I living my soul’s purpose?”
― Terri Hanson Mead, Piloting Your Life

“For many women who have been caring for and putting others first, midlife is the time when there’s finally space to start thinking about you. You may feel compelled to make room for you, to live with greater purpose, or to answer the call to do something big in the world. It’s during this time that we can begin to define what legacy we want to leave.

If you’ve lost sight of who you are and what you want, it’s time to explore and experiment and define your own new milestones. Up until this point, there have been socially defined milestones like college, first job, maybe marriage, maybe kids, maybe grad school, maybe the first house, and then if there are kids, the kids’ milestones. The lack of milestones can make midlife feel like uncharted territory.

It is, and it’s ready to be explored and conquered.

If you’re reading this book, it’s time. Time for you. Time for vision. Time for clarity. Time for you to resolve unresolved issues from your childhood, adolescence, and early twenties. Because if you don’t, they are going to keep resurfacing. Trust me on this one.”
― Terri Hanson Mead, Piloting Your Life

“As we are creating and assembling the pieces of our lives, it's difficult to see the bigger picture. We can take a step back to try to get a broader view, but even then, we don't necessarily have all the pieces or the right vantage point. We must have faith in the process and that we are doing our best possible work.”
― Terri Hanson Mead, Piloting Your Life

“In midlife, it is way too easy to be on autopilot, but it's also the worst thing we can do for our health, happiness, and longevity. Midlife is an amazing opportunity to define what we want and who we want to be in the next half of our lives. We need to step outside our comfort zone , take risks, and claim our lives for ourselves.”
― Terri Hanson Mead, Piloting Your Life

“Our enemy is not age, but the media and product companies creating—or capitalizing on—the insecurities of aging women. The pressure to always be more of something, less of something else, and to walk the tightrope of acceptable behavior, is ridiculous. I, for one, would like to see more campaigns that stop putting women in tidy, little boxes.”
― Terri Hanson Mead, Piloting Your Life

“If we look at midlife as a time of exploration and let go of the end goal, we never know what might show up. It’s a time to play, be curious, experiment, and see what happens. It means getting uncomfortable (but really, if you’re in midlife, you’re already uncomfortable!) and letting go of expectations. The process never ends, which means you keep playing and experimenting, and there’s really no getting it right. It just is.”
― Terri Hanson Mead, Piloting Your Life