Never in a million years did I think I would be where I am right now.

After 40 years of being on this earth, I find myself starting over from scratch. 

When I envisioned my life growing up and as an adult, never in a million years did I think I would be where I am right now.

Where Am I right now, you’re wondering.

Well, I am 40 years old, separated from my common-law husband of 18 years, a stay-at-home mom of three, and living with my parents. 

Those are the biggies.

So, while I haven’t got life figured out just yet, I am certainly trying.

I think it’s important to note that this is my experience, and yours might look different. 

While no situation is exactly the same, there are common factors that brought you to this article.

Here are the nuts and bolts:

• I am 40 years old
• Newly separated from my husband
• Stay-at-home mom for the last 7 years
• Earning a very part-time income (not nearly enough to support a household)
• Unhealthy (overweight with poor eating habits)

In order to address these issues that are weighing on my very soul, I took some time on my 40th birthday weekend to set some lofty goals for myself to achieve within specified time limits. 

I will go over these goals later in the article. First, I want to answer some common questions about starting over at 40 years old.

Is 40 too old to start over?

I certainly hope not. I honestly feel that I haven’t even started my life yet. Yes, I am raising three pretty cool kids but I feel like I have not lived up to my potential AT ALL.

In the past, I had a decent career that earned a good income, but it came at the cost of raising my family, so I decided to step away and become a stay-at-home mom.

This is a decision that I do NOT regret. 

In fact, I do not want to go back to my old career because I still want to be around for my kids when they need it. 

One of the main reasons why I am starting over at 40 is to find a new career that can support a family well (very well, in fact) without having to work crazy hours away from home.

As I get older, I find myself valuing happiness more than money. Don’t get me wrong, I want to earn a substantial income so I can do all the things I want, but I am no longer willing to be unhappy all the time to do so.

How do I start a new life after 40?

For my 40th birthday, I booked an Airbnb for my husband and me to go to for the weekend. It was literally 10 minutes away from where we live, but it was a weekend away nonetheless.

Unfortunately, we decided to separate a few weeks before my birthday (happy birthday to me) so I decided to go by myself.

I was having a really hard time with our separation and crying a lot, so I thought I would take the opportunity and stay at the Airbnb and work on myself.

The main task that I wanted to accomplish that weekend was to set goals for a future that looked very different from just a few weeks prior.

I started by working on the macro- where I wanted to be in 15 years. I chose fifteen years because by then my youngest would be out of high school and I saw this as kind of a retirement planning. What I wanted to do with my life after raising kids.

I asked myself the following questions:

Where did I see my life?

What did I want to be doing?

How much money did I want to be earning?

How was I going to earn said money?

What was it going to take to get there?

After planning for my 15-year goal, I planned for 10 years from now.

I then asked myself the same questions for the 5-year mark.

I wrote down the answer to these questions in a lot of detail so I would have some sort of map of how to get there.

Since five years is not that far away, I took a lot of time to figure out the next 5 years of my life.

What was I going to do in 5 years time that would drastically change my life for the better?

I asked myself the same questions as listed above and came up with a plan to achieve my lofty goals.

I tried to be as specific as possible.

After figuring out the next 5 years of my life, I tackled what my one-year goals are.

There are specific goals that I want to accomplish in the next year (by October 2023) that will help me attain my 5, 10, and 15-year goals.

They are broken down into three categories:

• Professional
• Personal
• Family

These are the areas that I am concentrating on for the next year of my life.

I found this weekend away to be so beneficial that I came up with a plan to go away on my birthday weekend every year by myself and re-evaluate my goals and adjust as necessary.

Is it too late to turn my life around at 40?

No, absolutely not. I have to believe that because it’s exactly what I am doing right now.

I am trying to go from making very little income to a life-changing amount, from fat to fit, and improve my relationship with myself and my kids.

Honestly, the best time to start turning your life around was 10 years ago, the second best time is NOW.

I am choosing NOW instead of NEVER because I firmly believe that when we set goals, come up with a plan to achieve them, and stay on task, we can do anything. 

How do I restart my life with no money?

My situation is a bit different from others. I currently live with my parents which is a blessing and a curse. The blessing is that I have substantially lower bills than those who live on their own and I have more freedom with childcare so that I can be in more than one place at a time as my parents are able to cover my slack if I am with one kid and the other needs to be picked up, etc.

The curse part of this is that it is a constant blow to my pride and ego living at home at the ripe old age of 40. As well, I feel guilty about my parents babysitting my kids because they should be enjoying their retirement and not having us as a burden in their home. 

So, how I am restarting my life with no money is that I live with my parents, work during the day when the kids are at school, started an online business that I can work on before the kids get up in the morning, and after they go to bed at night.

Although I have not made a ton of money online so far, I know that the potential is there, and takes a lot of perseverance and consistency to make it happen, something I have lacked in the past.

I think you really need to figure out what you want in life by doing some soul-searching and setting fifteen, ten, five, and one-year goals.

Then take action to achieve your goals. It’s not an easy road by any means but if you don’t take action, you will be right where you are now in a year’s time.

I know I want to be as far away from where I am right now as possible because I am not happy or fulfilled with my current life.

Summary

My advice for starting over at 40, as someone who is in fact, starting over at 40 is to:

• Set Goals
• Take Action
• Persevere
• Do Not Give Up

From one loser to another, we can do this.

It is possible.

Keep going, keep going, keep going.