Midlife Coaching - Mid-Life Coach - Sharon Teitelbaum, Massachusetts

Experienced midlife coach Sharon Teitelbaum helps clients "get unstuck" in the Boston, MA area and worldwide.

If, by the time we reach an age at which we expected to feel content, whether it’s thirty, forty, or beyond, we are not living with purpose, meaning, and many real moments, we will find ourselves dissatisfied and unfulfilled. "Is this all there is?" we ask ourselves."

Barbara deAngelis

You can learn new things at any time in your life if you're willing to be a beginner. If you actually learn to like being a beginner, the whole world opens up to you."

Barbara Sher

Giving Yourself Permission to Explore

Hilary was a highly-educated dean at an elite, urban university. At 55, she was bored and underutilized. She hired me as a career coach to help her figure out whether to stay at this job (with the golden handcuffs) or move on to something better -- and then help her figure out what the "something better" would be. I had her launch a very concrete exploration into other potential jobs and careers. I also had her investigate her financial situation: exactly how much net income she and her husband needed to maintain their current lifestyle and retire when they planned. During this work, Hilary fell in love with the financial planning process, and decided to leave her job and become a financial planner. She is now a licensed, certified financial planner, doing well in her own business. She recently wrote, "Given the joy I am now getting out of my new profession, I can really speak to the bridge our work together provided for me and the incredible change it has made in my life."

Not all mid-lifers make career transitions, but many consider it, along with other huge potential changes as well. Why? Because many people in this age group have outgrown some of their structures and patterns over the last decade or so. This can be terrifying, as they have been living a good life – who in their right mind would want to mess with it now?

But when your life really isn’t working for you in some way, you can’t ignore it -- at least not for long. The restlessness or discomfort you may be feeling at midlife is your invitation into some new adventure that's not yet visible. First there are hard questions to answer, such as, what’s not working in your life? You may need to let go or renegotiate parts of it. As you clear some space, you will be able to tackle other questions, such as "What do I want the rest of my life to look like?" Then, the new chapters in your life can begin to open up to you in delightful and amazing ways. As a life coach, I can help you answer these questions.

Are you . . .

• Longing to have more meaning in your life?
• Worrying about significant relationships that seem stuck in a rut?
• Determined to make some changes in your life, but you’re not sure what they are?
• Clear on what’s next for you and need some help pulling it all off?
• Unwilling to continue being owned by your work or your schedule?
• Yearning to do something in your life that you haven’t yet done?
• Feeling like it’s now or never for career advancement?

How I Can Help

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I will become your co-investigator and your witness. Listening very closely to the way you talk about yourself and your life, asking out-of-the-box questions, and engaging you in the exploration of your dissatisfaction, I can assist you in translating your general agitation into concrete areas that need attention. Once we know what the areas are, we can start working with them; I can help you structure a way to do this that is based in action rather than contemplation.

Most mid-lifers’ sense of themselves is quite out-of-date with who they are NOW. Chances are you have not yet integrated into your self-concept many of the accomplishments, milestones, and insights that you’ve reached in the last ten years. I can take you through this process of "taking ground," that is, assuming full ownership of who you have become, which is essential to your midlife transition. You have some hard work ahead of you – you need to know what your strengths and your depths are!

You may have big things at stake for you now: marriage, career, relationships with children, lifelong dreams as yet unfulfilled. The midlife conversation is a substantive one! This is a time when people resolve questions like "Whose life do I envy?" or "What’s my biggest fear?" or "What’s not OK in my life?" I know the material, both because I have been through several iterations of my own midlife journey, and because I have coached many people through midlife transitions.

I’m biased toward strengthening and enlivening what’s already in place rather than leaving it behind, though sometimes the latter is called for. If your marriage seems dead in the water, I am likely to refer you to a couples therapist, not a divorce attorney. Old dreams, too, can be brought back to life. At 54, I dusted off my old, discarded dream of completing an athletic endurance event, took up distance cycling, and rode the Pan Mass Challenge, a 2-day, 170 mile charity ride. If I can do that, who knows what you can do?

Midlife is often a time to assess and modify your work-life balance. You may need to re-allocate your time and energy so that your current work/life balance needs are satisfied.

You are bringing out a new release of yourself. Call it "You, Version 5.0" If you’ve ever been part of a commercial product development cycle, or the birth of a child, you know it’s a complex process. And in this case, it’s most certainly not a linear process! I offer you design and development experience that can help you do your midlife work more efficiently and with clearer intention.

Client Quotes

Listen to what my clients say. Here is a sample:

Your support feels like you are solidly, irreversibly on my team. Working with you has helped me move toward the fuller, more expressive, more integrated, more joyful person I am: more sure, inspired, directed, focused, optimistic about the possibilities, more aware of things that can get in the way."

Chris F
writer
VT

Thanks to Sharon Teitelbaum, Personal Coach Extraordinaire, who planted the seed and fed and watered it lovingly and skillfully."

Joan C
musician

I believe my work with you was a very significant factor in getting me to pay attention to myself and decide which changes I needed to make to have a new vision. It is hard for busy people involved in the demands of their day-to-day lives to stop and focus on what other choices they might make. I could not have done that process my myself. I’m not sure anyone can. It’s hard to believe so much has been accomplished in the last year, but the facts speak for themselves. My thanks to you for your skills, your talents, and your ongoing support."

Pat K
attorney, now politician

For many, there is great urgency at mid-life to come into one’s own already! There is the sense of having just a finite amount of time left to fully BE what one is meant to BE (but just what IS that, anyway?)."

Sharon Teitelbaum
Personal Coach