Feeling Stuck? Ready to Take a Leap?

A LIFE COACH COULD HELP. HERE'S EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW

- Jennifer Goldberg

BY HER OWN ADMISSION, Lisa Murphy should have been happy. At 50, she had two thriving teenagers and a great marriage. She had recently left a successful career in media and was looking forward to figuring out what was next. It should have been the prime of her life. But it wasn't. Perimenopause symptoms had triggered a severe confidence drop. She was anxious and drinking more than usual. "I was feeling disconnected from myself," she says.

She'd been so focused on work and family that she hadn't made time for personal growth, and she lacked a vision for what she wanted for herself in the future. "I felt like I was on a hamster wheel." In an attempt to get herself unstuck, Murphy, who lives in Toronto, signed up for a six-month group life-coaching program. Twice a week, she joined hour-long sessions to learn strategies to shift the way she thought about her life. One exercise was to envision her life as a movie and imagine the plot as she'd want it to play out. Another was to imagine her ideal birthday and life 10 years in the future.

She also met with a coach every two weeks for oneon-one sessions that focused on her specific needs and did daily homework to consider what steps she needed to take to "live in alignment" with her goals. "As soon as you start thinking about what makes you happy, you start moving in that direction," she says. "That was the most powerful part of the program."

So powerful, in fact, that it changed her life. She began meditating and exercising regularly. She used coaching tools she learned in the program, as well as on her own, to quit drinking. She also started a side project she cared about: the 50 Forward Club, an Instagram account dedicated to uplifting women who are over 50. "Coaching gave me the tools to discover what I wanted next for my whole life, not just my work and family life."