What my unfinished 50 before 50 list can teach you about midlife

By Rosie MacLennan-Crump, strength coach, Stapleford, Nottinghamshire

A few days ago, I said to my sister, when I was feeling overwhelmed by the amount of things I’ve told myself that I need to do “why do I bother, I could stop trying, sit on the sofa and watch tv’. But  a couple of years ago, I wrote myself a list of fifty things I wanted to do before I turn fifty. Some of it was big and maybe daft (paragliding, a stand-up gig, writing a book). Some of it was quiet and personal (spend a month by the coast, do a pilgrimage, go to my daughter's graduation). Some of it was ambitious in a way that makes me roll my eyes and question what I was thinking.

I'm 47, I've got about 2.0833 left on the clock and I'll be honest with you, because being honest with you is sort of my whole thing and something I can’t help being: I am not going to finish it.

But I've decided that's completely fine. In fact, maybe the unfinished list has taught me more than a finished one ever could.

Why write a big birthday list at all?

Well, what  a list like this actually does, is focuses your brain. It's not really a ‘to do list’, it's a mirror. It helps you to prioritise what you actually want in life and can have a massively positive impact.

When you sit down and try to name the things you want to do before a big birthday, you find out very quickly what actually matters to you, as opposed to what you think should matter. My list has festivals on it (Glastonbury, the Edinburgh Festival, Hay). It has physical things (a marathon, learning to skateboard, a Welsh zip wire). It has one enormous work dream: set up a gym. It turns out that one wasn't just a line on a list, that one has become The Refectory.

You don't have to be turning fifty for this to work. Whatever your next big birthday is, forty, forty-five, sixty, the exercise is the same. Write down the things you want to do before you get there. Not the things you think you're supposed to want, the actual ones.

I wasted a lot of years, drinking and not getting out of life what I wanted, not enough friendships not enough genuine connection. It doesn’t need to be retraining, it can be walking in the park with friends. Laughing at more comedy on tv. What do you want to look back in 10 years and be pleased that you did.

We can live for today but it’s also good to remember there is a tomorrow and hopefully many more of those tomorrows.

What if I know I won't finish it?

Then welcome to the club, mine is riddled with things I probably won't get to. And I do want to gently push back on the whole culture around these lists, because it can tip very quickly into another stick to beat yourself with. Another place to feel like you're failing.

You are not failing if you don't tick every box. The list did its job the moment you wrote it, because it made you stop and ask what you actually want out of the years in front of you. That question is the point and the ticking is a bonus.

I've ticked some lovely ones, that’s I’ve really enjoyed. I learned to paddleboard at Spring Lakes, Long Eaton, I joined a choir (kinda- I sang at a Crazy Little Sing Called Pub event at the Malt Cross in London with a dear friend I reconnected with after 30 years!), I performed on stage (hip hop dancing, badly- 2 things off my list!), I competed in a physical competition (East Leake triathlon), which, for a woman who was always last to be picked in PE, at the end of the group of kids in cross country at school and spent decades feeling like she should make herself smaller, was a genuinely emotional thing to do. Those didn't happen because I was chasing a tick off my list, they happened because I'd written down what I wanted, and then noticed the chances to do them when they came.

How does a list help you refocus?

Midlife has a way of quietly filling up with everyone else's needs. If you're anything like the women I work with (social workers, teachers, NHS staff, mums of teenagers, women caring for ageing parents), you've probably spent a long time putting yourself somewhere near the bottom of the list, any list.

A big birthday list flips that, for once, it's entirely about you. What do you want to see, feel, try, become? It's permission, written down, and permission is often the only thing standing between us and the things we actually want.

A lot of the things on my list, and probably yours, need one genuine thing underneath them: a body that can do them. You can't walk a coastal path, or run a marathon, or chase a toddler round a soft play, or carry your own suitcase up the stairs on your travels, if your body has been left to seize up. That's not about being smaller or looking a certain way, it's about being capable enough for the life you actually want to live. It could even be on your list, that in 10 years time, you’ve changed your body, you’ve made it more capable. Because if having a capable body is on your list, it is possible.

Where does strength training come into it?

This is the bit where I tell you what I do, because it connects. I’ve opened the doors to The Refectory, a small strength studio in Ilkeston, for women in midlife. I also coach women across Nottingham, Stapleford, and the wider Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire area, both in person and online.

I'm not going to promise you a beach body or a dramatic transformation, because I don't believe in either. What I'll say is this: getting stronger is one of the most reliable ways to make sure the things on your list stay possible. Strength training in your forties and fifties protects your bones, your muscle, your energy, your independence, and your ability to keep doing the things you love for a very long time.

Setting up a gym was number 25 on my list. I built The Refectory partly because I wanted somewhere the women on their own version of this journey could come and get strong enough for theirs. Funny how these things join up! It’s a point on my list and it’s not something that feels easy. It’s a stretch for me, timewise, emotionally and financially. But it’s something that keeps calling me and I want to try.

So, what's your next big birthday?

Here's what I'd love you to do. Work out what your next big birthday is, and then write your list. It doesn't have to be fifty things, it can be ten, it can be five, it can be a scruffy note in your phone that nobody else ever sees or a laminated list proudly displayed on your fridge.

Just write down what you actually want and then, when you're ready, start doing the quiet work that keeps those things within reach.

Mine's unfinished, and I've never felt more like myself, when I get to 50, I’ll look back at the list and things I’ve done, maybe even whilst riding a horse and with a puppy I’ve trained. Come and get sturdy with me, and let's keep your list possible.

Rosie x