The truth is, we can’t avoid vulnerability, emotional pain, and heartbreak.  To be alive, to love, to be a parent, to navigate in the world in our mortal bodies is vulnerable and at times painful.  It’s part of life.

If you’re familiar with Brene Brown, you’ll know that she has done some fantastic work on vulnerability.  She says, “Vulnerability is not weakness: it’s our greatest measure of courage.”

What became even more apparent to Brene is that when we numb our vulnerability to protect ourselves, we are also numbing ourselves to joy, gratitude, and happiness.

Intimacy, possibility, and transformation can only occur when we are willing to bring our whole heart to life.  It is a risk, it takes courage when we are vulnerable, because it’s an entry into the unknown.  We don’t have control of the outcome.  Things may not work out the way we want, and yet if we want a fulfilling life filled with joy, gratitude and happiness, the willingness to be vulnerable is essential.

There are many ways we experience vulnerability on a daily basis.  We can build our capacity for it by exercising discernment, setting healthy boundaries, and practicing intentionally.  A few examples are saying no to someone we love risking anger or rejection; trying a new experience we’re not good at; admitting a mistake; allowing ourselves to feel shame, grief, fear, and disappointment.

Living into vulnerability doesn’t happen without practice.  You don’t have to start with the big thing.

What is one thing you can begin to do or say differently to create more space for vulnerability to live and grow in your life?

Sabrina Roblin, CPCC, a former executive and co-founder of Life Reinspired, is happily enjoying her best chapter of life. She now helps others do the same. Schedule a free Life Reinspired Strategy Session or email info@lifereinspired.com to learn more.

What is hope and why is it essential to living?  Hope is a desire for a certain thing to happen, or a feeling of trust in a positive outcome even when things are difficult.  Hope is essential to dreaming of a better future and creative problem solving.  It is a flame in the heart that gives us the fuel to dream and move forward even in the face of uncertainty.

Without hope we no longer extend the energy to imagine something better and take action to make it real.  Hopelessness engenders despair and inaction.  And if you take a daily dose of the 24/7 news cycle, there is plenty of information to engender despair.  Life circumstances can also engender despair – a health or financial crisis, the loss of a job, home, or loved one.

We must have hope to dream and create a compelling future for ourselves and others.

Hope is a spiritual practice and something we can develop to lift our spirits and inspire our creativity.  Hope opens up possibility.  Research has shown that it decreases stress and improves our health and quality of life.  It opens and lifts the heart which fuels love and generosity, improving relationships.

So, feed yourself a daily dose of hope and optimism.  Here are a few ways:

• Have a daily gratitude practice. Write down at least three things you’re grateful for on a daily basis.  It could be simple things like a loved one, a meal, clean running water and sunshine.
• Read articles daily on one of the many good news websites like the Daily Optimist, the Good News Network, or Daily Good.
• Listen to upbeat music and dance around your kitchen in the morning or sing in the shower.
• Create a vision of your compelling future and take one action each day to make it real.

What we focus on grows.  With daily practice your hope muscle will strengthen which will make a positive difference in your outlook, sense of well-being and life experience.

Sabrina Roblin, CPCC, a former executive and co-founder of Life Reinspired, is happily enjoying her best chapter of life. She now helps others do the same. Schedule a free Life Reinspired Strategy Session or email info@lifereinspired.com to learn more.

Those summers were some of my best teachers and healers.  They informed my life and taught me the essential values of rest, play, and time spent in nature.  They restored my spirit and optimism.  I would return to the new school year ready to engage in learning and creative projects.

Just normal life is stressful and challenging.  The times we’re in are unprecedented, driving up stress levels to new heights, making the need for rest and play that much more essential for our health and well-being.

So, take time this summer to recreate your favorite summer memories and create some new ones.  Unplug and allow yourself rest, play and laughter.  Pleasure is one of the five P’s, a foundational pillar of a balanced, fulfilling, and ‘Reinspired’ life.

Sabrina Roblin, CPCC, a former executive and founder of Life Reinspired, is happily enjoying her best chapter of life. She now helps others do the same. Schedule a free Life Reinspired Strategy Session or email info@lifereinspired.com.

I was feeling distressed about it so I talked to one of the teachers, Mike Reid (who wrote, I Can’t Make You Love Me). The wisdom he shared was to fall in love with songwriting, stay engaged in the process, enjoy getting just a bit better each day, and seek to connect with people rather than impress them.  That gem of wisdom alone was worth the money I spent, (and there were many more to be had during the four days I was there) for it was not only about songwriting, it was about life.

After speaking to him, I pondered his words on the stone steps of a nearby chapel that had been hand-hewn and built in 1800.  I saw that my whole life has been filled with gaps – in my childhood, my marriage, my own responses to life’s challenges, and my career.  And sitting on the steps of the chapel reminded me of the huge gap in Christian teaching between the promise of ‘heaven on earth’ and the reality of the suffering that’s lived around the world every day.

I realized that in life we’re always living in the tension of the gap between the real and ideal.  It’s in that tension, in our reaching and growing toward the ideal, that we live and grow.  We can allow the gaps to drive us to despair or choose to have them lift and inspire us to our next level in life.

Choose to fall in love with life in the gap, stay engaged and live into it, seek to improve a bit each day, and connect with people rather than trying to impress them.  If you do this, you will be living a fulfilling Life that’s Reinspired.

Be challenged and supported in growing into and closing a gap in your life.  Reach out for a free Life Reinspired Strategy Session. Contact me at info@lifereinspired.com.

A creative hobby I love, is singing and songwriting, and the pandemic has impacted performing in the community.  During the summer I performed at some local outdoor venues where I felt safe.  Recently I was asked if I would sing at a local hotel. As I live in the midst of a cold, snowy Idaho winter, it would be an indoor gig.  I love performing and I’ve missed it over the last few months, but I was concerned about the risk. To sing, I am not masked and I repeatedly fill my lungs deeply with the air in the room.  I was torn and couldn’t decide what to do.

Then I remembered my Internal Guidance System (IGS) which guides my behavior and life choices. At its core are values, which are the qualities and aspects of our lives that are connected to our heart and integrity.  Examples of values are courage, integrity, health, financial independence, family, respect, spiritual growth, education and kindness.  By reconnecting to my IGS, and my top value of health, my decision became easy.  I said no, not now to the indoor gig and that I’ll wait for outdoor opportunities once the weather warms up.  I looked inside to my IGS to make a decision on the outside.

In this time of great change and upheaval, it’s essential to be living from the inside out.  Living in reaction to outside circumstances, we can lose our way.  If you want a fulfilling and meaningful next chapter for yourself, that is aligned with who you truly are, at the heart of it is a strong IGS.  There is no way around this.  It guides how you navigate your way in the world during the pandemic and how you make life choices in work, family, relationship, etc.

How do you live from the inside out?  Make sure your Internal Guidance System is up to date by exploring two types of experiences you’ve had – those that have been most fulfilling and those that have not been at all enjoyable.  By looking for what defined those experiences, you can uncover your values.

Choose and explore one of each type of life experience at a time and take notes.  Who were you with?  What were you doing?  Where were you? How did you feel?  Capture as many details as you can. For example, I love skiing – being outdoors in the beauty of the mountains, physically active, sharing the experience with friends, and the adventure of it.  That shows some of my values are outdoor adventure, natural beauty, and friendship.

In the experience that was not at all enjoyable, look for what was missing. For example, if it was a bad experience with an old boss at work, what were the character qualities that were missing.  Maybe what upset you the most was that your boss was not truthful or didn’t follow through on promises made.  That would signal that you have a value of integrity.

Now, what are your top three?  Keep those top of mind as you navigate your life.

In addition to individual values, we have shared values in our families, workplaces, and country.  I invite you to take the time to explore those as well.  The opportunity and choice to live into our personal and shared values is always in front of us.  By living into them, we can create a best next chapter for ourselves and for each other.

Sabrina Roblin, CPCC is a retired executive, founder of Life Reinspired, and a coach, trainer and speaker who is happily enjoying her best chapter of life.  She now helps others do the same. To learn more or schedule a complimentary Life Reinspired Strategy Session, contact Sabrina at: info@lifereinspired.com or www.lifereinspired.com.

A few weeks ago, Sabrina Roblin and I led a Life Reinspired three-day retreat for a group of high-powered dual-career couples contemplating their next phase of life—both individually and together. (The weekend emerged from a program we designed and deliver regularly to Stanford Business School alumni who are at least 25 years out.) The weekend centered around our 3Ps:

Purpose—Pinpointing the best use of your talents in service of what matters most to you

People—Cultivating relationships with self, partner, family, friends, and community to support you in the next chapter of life

Pleasure—Building a list of desired adventures, relationships, projects, and other elements of a fleshed-out Bucket List, giving you plenty to look forward to

We allotted generous time to explore purpose during the retreat…and the group uniformly wanted more. We define purpose as a combination of the strengths and competencies you most enjoy deploying in service of what you are passionate about. The Blue Zones project—which identifies the common factors that distinguish healthy centenarians around the globe—defines purpose more simply as your reason for getting out of bed in the morning that gives your life meaning.

The talents/strengths/competencies component of purpose tends to remain stable over your lifetime, but the expressions of purpose transform with new circumstances, learning, and passion.

For example, one participant knew from the time she was a little girl that she’d be a physician some day. Jessica Nutik Zitter ended up saving lives in the ICU. After too many experiences resuscitating people with virtually no chance of recovery, though, she became an advocate for “good death” and authored the book Extreme Measures: Finding a Better Path to the End of Life. Same purpose. Different expression.

It’s essential to revisit and refresh purpose—your own and your partner’s–as you embark on your next stage of life. It’s also critical to carve out time to reflect on the next expression of your purpose. Here’s why: Successful people are much in demand and the state of “not knowing” is uncomfortable. These pressures from the outside in and the inside out mean that, if you don’t use purpose as a compass to help you sort out your “Yesses” and “Noes,” your calendar and brain instantly fill with busy-ness that may or may not relate to what you value most.

Sabrina and I are big fans of carving out interludes of think time and quiet mind practices as “bubble wrap” between bouts of activity; this allows you to ascertain what has the most heart and meaning going forward.

It is hugely satisfying to witness couples clarifying their individual and joint purpose and getting on the same page about designing their next frontier of life and the contributions they want to make. This is big talk, not small talk, and we all need to spend more time thinking and talking about what matters most—to us and to each other.

Find out more about our programs.

Caroline MacNeill Hall is Co-Founder of Life Reinspired, a reset lab for successful Baby Boomers contemplating a meaningful next chapter of life. She is President of MAC Advisors, an executive coaching and leadership development company. She’s also senior faculty for the Coaches Training Institute.

To design your next chapter of life as one that is fulfilling, a key is to identify and then live into your values.  So, what does that really mean?  The Oxford English Dictionary describes values as “principles or standards of behavior; one’s judgement of what is important in life”.  If life purpose is the keel of your boat, then values are the North Star that guides your choices.  They are a definition of who you are in your life, and a way of being or believing that you hold as most important.  Examples include accountability, faith, family, freedom, health, integrity, travel, and well-being.  When you live into your values you are energized and look forward to getting up in the morning and meeting the day.  Living a life that is contrary to your values can lead to burn out, frustration, resentment, disappointment, and even depression.

The first step to living into your values is naming them.  One of the easiest ways to find and name your values is to remember the best day or phase of your life, then describe it in writing in detail.  You’ll find your values in the description of why it felt so good.  It could be you were with your child (value of family), or that you were skiing down a mountain (values of freedom, health and well-being), or that you managed a particularly successful phase of your company (values of excellence, contribution or collaboration).  After you have a list of them – there could be 10 or more – circle the top three to five.  Then create a design for your next chapter that honors your list of values, making sure those three to five top values are at the center of your design.   For example, if your top value is travel/adventure, you aren’t going to be happy working behind a desk in your office day after day.  You’ll want to design a next chapter that has you traveling as part of your work and/or pleasure.  If family is your top value, you’ll want to design a life that has you close to home with a lot of family time.

Once you’ve named your values, take stock of how you are or aren’t honoring them.  It’s only by being honest with ourselves about where we are that we can make changes to close the gap on what we want.  Here are a few questions that will help you with your values work:

• Which of my behaviors support my value(s)?
• How do I know when I’m living into my values? How does it feel?
• Who in my life supports my efforts to live into my values?

Whatever your current situation – whether you already have a life you love and yet circumstances dictate that you have to move on, or you have a life you can’t wait to change because it doesn’t honor your values – being clear about your values and living into them will guide you in both good times and bad.  They will help you make choices at each cross-road and decision point along your journey.

Sabrina Roblin is Co-Founder of Life Reinspired, a reset lab for successful Baby Boomers contemplating a meaningful next chapter in life. Sabrina is an experienced executive, mentor, trainer, and coach. She has worked for organizations that include Wells Fargo Bank, Broderbund Software, and The Coaches Training Institute. In addition to her work with Life Reinspired, Sabrina is available for one-on-one coaching. Find out more.

I’m 67. My husband Michael has been retired for five years. I sincerely want to be moving (er….inching) toward my next chapter of life, too. In fact, a significant portion of my business is devoted to helping people navigate that transition. And yet, my old habit of behavior and beliefs die hard—and I suspect I’m not alone.

Habitual behaviors? Here are a few (of mine):

• Saying “yes” to most new work opportunities that interest me. (This may sound like a good thing, but trust me, it isn’t given that so much interests me.)
• Not doing what it takes to find a skilled assistant to take all administrivia off my plate (since I get worse and worse at it and it sucks the joy from life).
• Not protecting unscheduled time for reflection and adventure.

Habitual attitudes? Here are a few (of mine):

• I’m only smart when I’m working (so I’d better work as much as possible).
• Working is the best use of me (If I’m not working I will not be contributing and thus will become a monster of selfishness).
• Who am I if I’m not an executive coach and leadership consultant? Do I even exist?
• I really should take this project (for the money, for the experience, because I owe it to…..somebody).
• If I don’t check my e-mail, texts, news apps at least 10 times a day, I’ll fall hopelessly behind.

I coach my clients toward new perspectives and behaviors all the time.  And, did I say that old habits die hard? It actually takes constant vigilance to remember the promises we make to ourselves. And to remember to be kind to ourselves when we forget, because transformation is a process and a journey more than it is a target and most of us forget pretty often along the way.

So here are beliefs and attitudes I am cultivating for 2019 (except when I forget; thank goodness I have a coach to remind me):

• If I don’t have to do this project (and I usually don’t), do I really want to take it on?
• The next best uses of my brain and heart are out there; I just need to make some space to find them.
• It’s better to let my legs do some walking instead of my fingers. E-mails and news apps make me anxious about what’s slipping through the cracks and the state of the world, respectively. What’s “falling behind” anyway? The faster I go, the more e-junk there is to slog through. Go take a walk!

And, here are some behaviors I’m calendarizing for the new year:

• Once a month, take off a full week bracketed by two weekends—or three 4-day weekends. During free days, only go on-line for less than hour per day—and use the rest of the time for reflection, adventures, hanging with my husband, family, and friends, and planning what’s next.
• Continue to build business for our Life Reinspired project for the sake of joining really smart people in conversations about how to make their next chapter of life the best chapter ever—and what has heart, meaning, and vibrancy on the other side of now.

That’s enough for 2019, eh?

Retiring from a long time successful career is a big transition that means change on many levels.  One of the most challenging of these changes is the move from being an expert with years of experience on a career track, to a learner in a new chapter of life.  As an expert in a long held career, we have the respect of co-workers and employees; a known schedule and structure to the day, week, month and year; company benefits; purpose; and the satisfaction of successful problem solving and project completions.   As a learner in a new chapter of life all of this changes and the discomfort and vulnerability this creates can be overwhelming.  Not everyone has this reaction, but if you do, it’s natural to feel disoriented and be tempted to distract from or cover up the feelings which will keep you from the fullness of what’s possible in the next chapter.  A measure of our success is the measure of our capacity to be in discomfort.

If we want to successfully navigate this transition and create a new chapter for ourselves, we have got to embrace the discomfort of the losses and vulnerability this transition presents to us.  This takes grit, focus, patience, trust, flexibility and the willingness to ask for help- qualities we can call on that we’ve likely honed over a successful career.  And I say “we” as I’ve been through this transition and the first year was more uncomfortable than I expected.  I grieved the loss of my career, my role, my colleagues and the life that went along with it.  It took some time for me to process all the feelings and it was only by embracing the fear and vulnerability that I found my way to a new vision and purpose for the next chapter of my life. So if you’re launching into or in the midst of this transition:

• embrace the feelings and if you become overwhelmed or depressed, get support from close friends, your significant other and experts
• spend some time doing things you love and have a measure of competency doing, whether it’s a sport, a consulting project, or a hobby
• take time to dream
• spend time in nature
• eat well and rest well
• get a journal and when the inspiration hits, capture the ideas, thoughts and visions you have about how to create the next chapter of your life
• be patient, the transition may take more time than you expect

It was the challenge of navigating this transition and what I learned along the way that inspired me to co-create Life Reinspired and a program which has the tools, guidance and support to help individuals successfully navigate this life change.  So whether you’re an individual looking to retire or an HR Manager looking for a program to support employees in exiting well, please contact us for more information.

Sabrina Roblin is Co-Founder of Life Reinspired, a reset lab for successful Baby Boomers contemplating a meaningful next chapter in life. Sabrina is an experienced executive, mentor, trainer, and coach. She has worked for organizations that include Wells Fargo Bank, Broderbund Software, and The Coaches Training Institute.

By Sabrina Roblin

When the leaves fall from the deciduous trees in Autumn, the tiny buds of the new leaves already exist on the tree branches, just waiting to break open in the Spring.  We are like the trees.  As we leave a long held career and all that it represents, we can feel as vulnerable and exposed as a tree without it’s leaves in Winter, and yet inside us are the buds of our next chapter, just waiting to open up.  The time in between the last chapter ending and  the next chapter beginning, can feel at times like a cold, bare Winter.  We can feel loss, grief, anxiety, and vulnerability.  It’s a natural part of the transition process, and the more we can stay present to and trust the process with all its feelings, the more fertile we will make the ground for what’s to come.

This can take courage, support, and good self-care.  You are going on a journey from your old life to a new one, and just like you pack well for traveling, it’s important that you gather your resources and companions for this journey as well.  What are the self-care practices that work best for you?  Who are your most trusted life companions and confidants?  Who in your life will champion you and your dreams? What do you reach for when you are in fear or doubt to help you get back on track? What are the personal skills, qualities and experiences you have to draw on?  These are important questions to answer as you prepare for and begin your journey into the next chapter of your life.

Another key piece to keep with you is a vision of who you want to become in your next chapter.   It has been well-researched, that where you put your focus and what you visualize is what you create in your life, so it’s important to focus on what you want rather than worry about what you don’t want. You may already have this vision of what you want your life to look like and it may take you some time to get clear on what it is.  Take that time.  The more specific you make your vision and the more present you keep it in your heart and mind, the more clear your steps will be to creating it.

Enjoy and stay present to the process. It can be a very rich time of personal growth and new beginnings.  Trust yourself. You have come this far, been successful, gained a lot of experience and wisdom, and navigated other life transitions.  You are prepared for what’s next and have everything you need to make it happen.

Find out about the programs Life Reinspired offers to support you in that jump to your next chapter of life.

Sabrina Roblin is Co-Founder of Life Reinspired, a reset lab for successful Baby Boomers contemplating a meaningful next chapter in life. Sabrina is an experienced executive, mentor, trainer, and coach. She has worked for organizations that include Wells Fargo Bank, Broderbund Software, and The Coaches Training Institute.