Anyone find turning 40 hard? Any tips on how to get over it?

[Herecomes40]

Turned 40 recently and didn’t think I’d be bothered. But have started to get depressed. I keep thinking about what I haven’t done with my life, and how I have wasted my youth etc (blah blah self involved whine!).

Don’t know how to get over it.

Now my body is playing tricks on me and trying to persuade me that having a baby will fix this!

Ahh!

Anyone else have a classic 40 freak out? What did you do to get over it?

I’m really struggling. I feel like life is disappearing away. Doing basically nothing over lockdown (like lots of others I was furloughed) has probably given me more time to dwell than I ordinarily would have had.

What do you wish you'd done when you were younger? Surely having a baby will just restrict you more. Do you have children already?

I'm looking forward to focusing on getting fit and healthier in my 40s. I'll have some time to myself back after having babies/ young kids in my 30s. I can focus a bit more on career and hobbies again. I can hopefully go on a few nice holidays. I'm probably happier and more content than I've been before.

Work out what you'd really like to do and make break it down into small steps.

That’s a good way to think about it, spikeypineapples! I have young children already, but having another would set me back.

I think I was very shy and not confident when I was younger so I sat in a job I didn’t like for almost 10 years (and a career I didn’t love for longer - still doing that) and didn’t travel or put myself out there much. I keep looking back and thinking “what did I do with my time?!”. Think I’m worried I’ll waste more of it, or that it’ll go too fast or something!

Would love to travel more now. But baby or no baby, we definitely can’t afford that at the moment.

But I really like the suggestion of making a list of what I’d really like to do!

If you had a life limiting diagnosis that meant you didn't have a hope in hell of reaching your 40th birthday I think that would be life disappearing away.

You're looking at another forty or fifty years of life to do pretty much anything you fancy.

What makes life feel meaningful to you? What brings you joy? Even small doses. Not the big dramatic stuff, but the small stuff you can build into every day whether locked down or not.

You have children and by the sounds of it a partner. Not sure how that's a waste of any of your life to date.

Life isn't a race to win as many achievement badges as possible and cram it full of stuff. It's just about finding meaning, connection and fulfilment in the many small moments that fill each day.

You can cram your life full of stuff but if none of that stuff feels meaningful either you'll still have the same feelings.

I didn't have those feelings at 40, but now at nearly 46 I'm plagued with them. I agree that being on furlough (I have been too) has allowed for too much time to dwell on these things.

Thanks user - that’s a good point and I totally agree on finding meaningful things every day. I don’t think I look for them, and I definitely spend too much time on my phone (symptom of being down) when the kids are occupied or in bed. I like the idea of building joyful stuff into every day!

Sorry to hear that, June - having so much time to think and so little variation is a real bugger, isn’t it?!

Yup, I can relate to spending too much time on my phone as well!