One of our deepest human desires is to be seen, heard and understood.

It’s intrinsic to us; it runs silently in the background with the same energy that gives us breath and beats our hearts.

In the first half of our lives, we diligently follow the life blueprint we were given, the distilled essence of that blueprint:

Externals will make you happy and accepted by others.

When we diligently follow that blueprint, we create a dynamic where our outward success guarantees we’ll be seen and heard.

One can’t help but notice a beautiful home, car, clothes, and job title.

At the midpoint of our lives, we begin to reflect; we begin to feel that there’s more to life than checking off external markers of success.

We’re seen and heard, yet something’s “off.”

Those external markers may make us seen and heard, but they do not and cannot make us understood.

Because we’re not understood for who we are; we’re understood for who we believed we had to become to be happy and accepted.

We followed a life blueprint that wasn’t ours, and it doesn’t matter how much professional and materialistic success we acquire; we aren’t living authentically.

We left a part of ourselves behind when we followed that hand-me-down blueprint. We sacrificed our dreams for shoulds, expectations, opinions, and perceived safety and comfort of conformity.

We focused on our external voice and how we appear to others. When this becomes our only focus, we live fragmented lives, desperately wanting to be whole.

Our wholeness resides in the inner voice we sacrificed to gain acceptance through our external voice.

The life blueprint we followed in our first half won’t create the life we desire in our second half.

We must draft a new, authentic life blueprint to craft our remarkable second half of life, one where we are seen, heard, and understood.

The foundation of our new blueprint is rooted in giving life to the unlived, unspoken inner voice within us.

We do this by connecting deeply with ourselves and expressing our inner voice through the language of our Life Calling.

Whether that be the painter, writer, composer, craftsman, entrepreneur, or mentor living inside us.

We are seen, heard, and understood as our authentic selves when we connect with and express that version of ourselves.

This is how we master midlife to craft our extraordinary life story.

But how?

These are the 3 simplest techniques to implement immediately.

Journaling:

Invest 10 minutes daily, you, a piece of paper, and your thoughts.

In time, patterns will emerge: things you don’t like, things you find frustrating, things that light you up, things that make you curious.

Dig into those patterns and be open to what you find.

Self-Trust:

Leaving the old blueprint behind means leaving behind the identity that’s associated with it. Crafting a new blueprint means moving into uncertainty.

Both of these actions are terrifying.

We must cultivate a sense of deep self-trust.

Self-trust isn’t the belief that everything will work out; we have no control over the outcome and have no way of knowing that.

Self-trust is the deep inherent wisdom that, regardless of how our actions work out, we know that we will survive.

Most importantly, we’ll thrive because we’ve expanded our lives by taking action.

We cultivate self-trust by making and keeping commitments to ourselves. When we do this consistently, we become the person who does what they say they will do.

Meaningful Action:

We not only have to connect with our inner voice, we have to express that inner voice. We must put the rubber on the road and take meaningful action every day.

We can do this in as little as one hour at a time. One hour is enough time that it requires a commitment; it stands out on your calendar.

One hour embodies the saying, “Sawdust makes a pile.” An hour a day stretched throughout a life equals thousands of hours.

When used correctly, an hour is enough to create massive change in your life.

Here’s the thing:

Pursuing our Life Calling doesn’t require 100% of our time. However, it requires 100% of our effort for the time we commit to it.

Follow these 3 simple techniques for 6 months, and you’ll learn to speak in the language of your inner voice.

You’ll reinvent your remarkable life.