Ep. 227 Make Your Midlife Resolutions Stick with an Abundant Mindset and Coping Skills That Ease Anxiety and Stress

What if your resolutions could feel doable instead of draining?
You deserve goals that support you, not stress you out.

In this episode, you’ll discover:

1. How creating resolutions that align with your demanding life reduces midlife anxiety and creates meaningful motivation
2. Why allowing discomfort — instead of resisting it — builds stronger coping skills for lasting change
3. How to set resolutions that honor your worth, your values, and the real life you’re living

🎧 Take 8 minutes to build calm, supportive goals this year—you’re worth it.

****

About the Host:
MJ Murray Vachon LCSW is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with more than 48,000 hours of therapy sessions and 31 years of experience teaching her Mental Wellness curriculum, Inner Challenge. Four years ago she overcame her fear of technology to create a podcast that integrated her vast clinical experience and practical wisdom of cultivating mental wellness using the latest information from neuroscience. MJ was Social Worker of the Year in 2011 for Region 2/IN.

Creating Midlife Calm is a podcast designed to guide you through the challenges of midlife, tackling issues like anxiety, low self-esteem, feeling unworthy, procrastination, and isolation, while offering strategies for improving relationships, family support, emotional wellbeing, mental wellness, and parenting, with a focus on mindfulness, stress management, coping skills, and personal growth to stop rumination, overthinking, and increase confidence through self-care, emotional healing, and mental health support.

Transcript

M.J. Murray Vachon LCSW: 0:00

In this episode, you'll discover how to create goals that support you, not stress you out. Welcome to Creating Midlife Calm, the podcast where you and I tackle stress and anxiety in midlife so you can stop feeling like crap, feel more present at home, and thrive at work. I'm MJ Murray Vachon a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with over 50,000 hours of therapy sessions and 32 years of teaching practical science-backed mental wellness.

0:30

Welcome to the podcast. Happy New Year again. If you caught Monday's episode, I introduced a fresh way to think about 2026. The good life with its pressure to achieve, hustle, compete, and look good while you're doing it. Versus the abundant life, a more grounded approach, rooted in worthiness, patience, connection, and compassion. This isn't a self-help trend. It's something that naturally awakens in midlife. Your value shifting toward what matters more deeply, and that shift affects everything. Including your New Year's resolutions. In this episode, you'll discover the two final anchors of the abundant life, how they can transform the way you approach your goals, and Why this mindset isn't trendy or gimmicky, but actually a return to who you've always been. But let's begin by checking in on Monday's Inner Challenge. On Monday I invited you to reflect on one goal, rooted in the pressure of the good life, and one rooted in care, the abundant life, and notice which one feels like support instead of stress. I was working with a client who wanted to lose 20 pounds. Her good life goal was lose 20 pounds fast. Her abundant life goal, became eat a real breakfast every morning, yogurt with some almonds and toast, something she had never done if you didn't do the Inner Challenge, no shame here. It's January and you're still recovering, but if you did, beautiful, you're already practicing abundance. now let's complete what we started on Monday. Anchor number four, consumption versus contribution. The good life teaches you to measure success by what you accumulate. Possessions, recognition, financial gains, check marks on your to-do list. The abundant life shifts your focus towards what you offer. Presence, purpose, creativity, support, meaning when you ask, what do I want to have more of? That's the good life speaking when you ask who do I want to be more connected with or how do I want to contribute? That's the abundant life. I recently went to a celebration of life for a beloved Notre Dame psychology professor. His best friend told a story of trying to convince him to buy the hottest new car. George smiled at his bestie and said he just wasn't all that interested in pouring his energy into comparing cars anymore. He was giving his attention to his new passion, ecos psychology. It wasn't that he was against things or didn't like cars. He was simply for what mattered. More contribution, affirms I matter. I belong, in my own little way, I can make the world a bit better, and that feeling sustains change in a way that consumption never could. Which leads me to our last and final anchor. Resisting versus transcending Suffering. The good life promises. If you do it right, you'll won't feel pain. So when pain comes, you resist it, deny it, numb it, push. Harder or blame. But the abundant life knows pain is part of being human, and suffering when met with reflection and compassion can deepen us. Years ago, I worked with a midlife woman grieving infertility. Drinking became a way to numb the pain as she did her Inner work. She journaled and allowed her grief to move her sadness to be transformed. And eventually she opened an in-home daycare for single moms. She didn't erase her suffering, she acknowledged it, moved through it, and her sorrow transcended into meaning, purpose, and connection. When your goals are fueled by fear of discomfort or failure, you're going to be vulnerable to quit at the first sign of struggle, but when your goals allow for compassion for discomfort, you're going to be able to keep going. I wanna invite you to join me this January to help you understand the power of the abundant mindset. I'm going to look all month long at the most common New Year's resolutions through the lens of the abundant life. So yes, we're gonna focus on weight, sleep, money and exercise, but soften how you pursue them. You're in midlife. You have so much Inner wisdom that this mindset shift will actually surprise you. How you can align your goals with what you have learned in life so far. I'm going to encourage you to ask questions like this. Is this goal honoring my worth? I, can I allow this change? I want to take some time. Can I do this in a way that helps me connect more deeply to myself, others, my values? Can I learn to meet discomfort, g. And how does this goal contribute to my life in a way that provides meaning and depth and purpose? When you're doing that, you are setting abundant life goals and those are goals that are built to stick. You might be thinking, Hey MJ, I do not do New Year's resolutions. That is totally fine. Stick with me this month because we're exploring a mindset shift around eating, sleeping, exercise, and money. And I bet you do some of those things. Most of us were raised to believe we are what we achieve. But abundance says this, your mind is meant to be calm. Your body is meant to be well. Your heart is meant to be loving. Your soul is meant to be compassionate, and your person is meant to be relational. This is about you becoming more of you, not a perfect version of you. I hope you'll join me on Monday. We're gonna bring this into everyday life, super practical, and even backed by science. We'll be starting with eating and weight in midlife, not from shame. but But from self-worth, if you feel frustrated with food or your body, this next week is for you. I hope you'll join me. In this episode, you discovered how shifting from consumption to contribution gives your goals deeper. Meaning, why compassion not resistance helps you move through discomfort and suffering. How abundant life goals aren't gimmicky. But once understood, naturally align with your worthiness and your desire for connection. These five anchors remind us. Worth. Patience, connection, contribution, compassion. This is what Midlife wants to grow in you. I hope you join me and pass this episode onto a friend

M.J. Murray Vachon LCSW: 8:12

Thanks for listening, and I'll be back on Thursday with more creating midlife calm.