Ask HN: Has anyone here turned around their life in their 40s?

Lots of people change their careers, go through a divorce, change continents, or go through other objectively tough experiences around this time in life. It's certainly not too late to build a family should you find someone.

The mid-life crisis is cliché for a reason.

Some people find help in therapy, but many manage without. If you have a tendency to procrastinate, maybe start with applying for a job that you won't get. I find that to be a reasonably effective method to get started with pretty much anything. With the ice broken, the next gets easier.

Stop thinking like that. Stop boxing yourself in with presumptions and "prevailing wisdom."

You've made the important first step, which is realizing that a change needs to be made. The next step is to identify specific goals (ex: "I want to be married within five years"), which should be broken down into sub goals ("I want to go on 15 first dates this year"), which should be broken down into actionable next steps (1. "Sign up for a dating site today", 2. "Send a message on the site today" 3. "find local singles meetups for this week").

This might sound abstract, but it's necessary to crystalize your abstract goals into concrete next steps. The thought of "turning your life around" is so big that it can be oppressive and depressing. But "sign up for a dating site today"? You can do that. "Send a message on the site today"? You can do that!!

....but!

Don't fall into the trap of "working on yourself" at the expense of taking action toward your goals. You can waste days and years planning and thinking about how you will improve tomorrow. You can spend years reading self-help books about how to improve this or that aspect of your life. Take care that "working on yourself" does not become just another avenue for procrastination and self-deception. All of that thinking and planning is important, but it shouldn't come at the expense taking action. Make a plan that you can take action on today. Take those actions today. You can improve the plan later.

Also, if you're like me, your self-improvement journey will not be without back-sliding. How can you hold yourself accountable? How can you remind yourself that these goals are worth the time and effort? IMO, the answer is journaling. If you'll dedicate 5-10 minutes a day writing. Don't just list out what you did, commune with yourself. Write about your goals and your aspirations. Write about what you're doing to pursue them, write about how you fail and how you can avoid failure. Self-deception is hard as hell when you're journaling every day.

Books: Meditations, Atomic Habits, Dopamine Nation

Godspeed, sir!