Andrew Waddell - Finding Purpose in Midlife

After 20 years in advertising agencies working with lots of well known, and highly demanding, brands, Andrew suffered severe burnout. Andrew re-found his direction and purpose in life through therapy and coaching. This resulted in him leaving the corporate world, taking a Masters in Organisational Psychology and qualifying as an Associate Certified Coach with the ICF.

From there he set up The Midlife Coach focusing on supporting men struggling or stuck in midlife. For the past three years he's worked with a wide range of midlife men. This includes those on the verge of depression, desperate to rediscover the joy in life, to energetic self-starters looking to build their own meaningful legacy through work and family - and everything in between.

They come from all backgrounds and professions with very different needs and goals. What unites them is that they have reached the realisation that they are stuck in a rut and cannot break out of it alone.

Andrew speaks about his background in advertising which led to a breakdown, with him crying  on the kitchen floor, going through therapy, dealing with grief and eventually discovering what he wanted to do as a new career.

He said that the main takeaway is The massive learning was that he could change his life. Comparing life to a swimming pool, he says you cannot change where you jump in, but you can swim down the lane and change direction.

He set up his own coaching business in order to help people changing their life. Our generation starts figuring out what the term ‚being a dad actually means. Our fathers didn‘t show emotions or spoke about what they wanted in life necessarily. As a result our generation is figuring out what it really means to be a dad that is in touch with our emotions – learnings that we can pass on to our children to be better parents than we were.

We discuss legacy and how even organisations today try to be more ‘wholesome‘ and make a difference. That legacy seems to be a common theme in middle aged men.

We also discussed how there is a trade between any role that we take up – if we want to spend more time with our children, that might require a financial sacrifice. However, if we’re working all the time, to provide a better life for our family, that means we might not necessarily see them.

It‘s not only about balance in life but more about having control and being choiceful of what we want to do with our time. However, it‘s about making a conscious choice rather than compromising.

Burnout, according to Andrew, comes from reactivity and losing that control in life.

David quotes Benjamin Disraeli, that: “Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action.”

As Andrew says, we shouldn‘t feel regret of things we did in life, and we shouldn‘t be paralysed by our dreams. In coaching he can utilise his experience and help others to get unstuck, and understand mid life. Mid Life is about making decisions and taking control back in your life. And often, time is all kids need from us.

You can find Andrew as the Midlife Coach on Facebook, LinkedIn or www.midlife-coach.co.uk

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