Kate Christie is a time management and goal setting coach and the author of 5 books. Her most recent book is called ‘The Life List: Master Every Moment and Live an Audacious Life’.
In August 2023, Kate will be joining Surf Getaways as a guest in Bali because she has always wanted to learn to surf. We would LOVE for you to join us! Get away from your day-to-day, experience the joys of learning to surf and as a bonus - you will learn the art of designing your own 'Life List' with Kate.
We asked Kate to share a little more about where she’s at and what led her to write The Life List.
I have always loved my age, regardless of whatever it is at the time. I am not one of those people who frets about getting older. Most of the time I feel like I’m about 38 or 42, depending on the
day.
I am now in my early 50’s and it has me thinking very deeply about my life to date and the life I want to design from today onwards.
The day I turned 30 I gave birth to my first child. In quick succession I had two more pregnancies and had three young babies within three and a half years. I was the primary carer of my children and I continued to work and, with various iterations of success, downright failure and a good dose of grit and sheer survival, I managed to integrate motherhood with my career.
For much of the last 23 years of my life I have rarely prioritised myself — the order of my priorities has generally been my kids, my partner, my job, my parents and sisters, my friends, me. I have
given and given and given some more.
For much of the last 23 years of my life, I have been the exact opposite of selfish. I have been monumentally selfless. I don’t expect a prize for this. On the contrary, it makes me very much the same as literally every other woman I know— we are all quite fundamentally helpful, generous, altruistic givers.
My kids are now young adults and they are in the process of breaking up with me. It is a long, drawn out and often brutally painful break-up. Some days they want every part of me— mentally, emotionally and physically, and then for days on end they simply aren’t even here. They are at that stage in their own lives where they have one foot firmly planted in childhood and the other firmly planted in adulthood. And they get to choose which role they want to play on any given day: ‘today I am a child and I need every ounce of you and can you please drop everything and book me a haircut because I don’t like talking to strangers on the phone and can you also pay for it, Mum’ OR ‘today I am an adult and please get out of my way and don’t let the door hit you on the arse, Mum’.
I have spent 23 years being their primary carer. But I am no longer the sun they need or want to orbit around. All of which is normal and wonderful and right on time because my children are young adults and they are forging their own lives. But it’s also heartbreaking. For me it feels like only yesterday that we were playing ‘there were five in the bed and the little one said — roll over’.
However, it also means I have the opportunity to forge the next stage of my own magnificent life too. My children are no longer the sun that I need to orbit around. I am only 53. I have my whole life ahead of me and I am desperate to live it stupendously. I feel like I have been waiting for this moment for years. I am very happily moving into the phase in my life where I get to experience the exquisite joy of becoming unapologetically selfish.
I am sick of working every hour god sent. And while I have always strived for and been fuelled by success in my career and business, I don’t know exactly where the finish line is. I don’t know when and where the previous part of the journey ends or what success in my future needs to look like. I don’t know at what point in time I put the tools down, say that I have done and achieved enough and that it’s now time to enjoy everything I have worked hard for.
My life to this point has been incredible and worthwhile and wonderful and exactly what it needed to be and I would not change a thing — but there’s so much more to be had. Because I’m not sure whether all of this ‘current state’ I have been living is fulfilling enough for me any more. I have ceaselessly compromised and I don’t want to compromise any more. I have ceaselessly nurtured my children and, while I will continue to love them endlessly, it is now time to nurture myself.
I am tenacious. I am courageous. I am fearless. I am thriving professionally. I feel very good in my skin. I am brimming with wisdom and experience and knowledge. I am self-reliant and self-assured and somewhere along the journey my confidence and my common sense and my prudence and my self-knowledge have allowed me to discard that part of my ego that used to care what other people think of me. I am exactly where I need to be— which is, I am fast approaching a place of having no more f**ks to give.
It is my turn.
I know I am not the only woman thinking deeply about her life. Every woman I know is having a challenging conversation with herself. Every woman I know has had an eventful journey to get to this point and none of those journeys have been effortless — we all have a backstory.
But here’s the thing - your backstory does not define you. It does not dictate what your future story will be. You define you. You get to design your future story, and you get to start today.
So what are you waiting for? Join Kate, us and some other extraordinary women in Bali this August, where you'll experience the joys of learning to surf, get away from your day-to-day, and as a bonus - you will learn the art of designing your own 'Life List' with Kate.
There are only 3 places left on this tour - SO DON’T MISS OUT! And if you book before the 15th May, use the coupon code YES500 to receive $500 off. What’s not to love!?
This is an edited extract from Kate Christie’s The Life List: Master Every Moment and Live an Audacious Life. Published with the permission of the author and Wiley.
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