Why Confidence Hits Different in Midlife

Apparently, somewhere around 50, women are supposed to wake up, run out of f*cks and stop caring what anybody thinks.

Yeah… that hasn’t exactly been my experience.

I still care. I still overthink. I still replay conversations in my head and occasionally wonder whether I’ve made a complete d*ckhead of myself.

What’s changed is that other people’s opinions don’t automatically get the final vote anymore.

In this episode, I’m talking about why confidence hits differently in midlife — and why I think it has far less to do with becoming fearless and much more to do with learning to trust yourself.

I get honest about the difference between being capable and actually feeling confident, how years of overcompensating for being bipolar shaped the version of me everyone saw, and what happened when the roles I’d built my identity around started changing.

We’re also talking preferences, personal style, social confidence, saying no without submitting a 14-page supporting document, admitting when you need help, allowing yourself some bloody joy — and doing things before you feel completely ready.

Because maybe midlife confidence isn’t about finally becoming certain of yourself.

Maybe it’s about becoming much harder to talk out of yourself.

Transcript

Welcome, New Grammy, Real Life Noise

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Welcome to Unfinished and Unapologetic, the podcast where we get into the nitty-gritty of real life, starting over and figuring out who the hell we are now. No filter, no shame, a little messy, still not done. I'm your host Paige, and if you're a woman over 40 who's ready to embrace the chaos, unpack the bullshit, and navigate the next chapter of your life without pretending you've got it all together, you're in the right place. Let's dive in together. Hey beautiful people. If you've been following me on socials, you'll already know I became a new Grammy recently. Needless to say, my house is now ruled by one very tiny human and it's about as beautifully chaotic as it gets. Which also means finding a perfectly quiet moment to record is practically impossible. So if you hear footsteps, doors opening and closing, shushing, or the occasional protest from Baby Girl in the background, that's just life carrying on around me while I attempt to keep up with my slightly ridiculous schedule. Honestly, it all feels pretty fitting for a podcast called Unfinished and Unapologetic. Anyway, let's get into it. Apparently,

The Fearless Midlife Myth

SPEAKER_00 1:32

somewhere around the age of 50, women wake up one morning, stop caring what anybody thinks, buy a brightly coloured jumpsuit and become completely fucking fearless. That seems to be the story anyway. We've reached midlife, we've run out of fucks, and suddenly we're striding through the world with our heads held high, our boundaries firmly in place, and absolutely no concern about whether anybody approves of us. And look, I love that for you or for anyone who has genuinely achieved it. But that has not been my experience. I still care what people think. Sometimes more than I'd like to admit. I still overthink things I've said, I still wonder whether I've made the right decision, I still occasionally walk away from a conversation and replay it from the beginning like I'm reviewing security footage at a crime scene. Should I have said that? Did that sound stupid? Did I explain myself properly? Does that person now think I'm a complete dickhead? So no. I haven't reached some magical stage where nobody's opinion affects me. I'm still human. I still want to be liked. I still want to be understood. I still want the people I care about to think well of me. The difference is I no longer automatically allow other people's opinions to overrule my own. And that's what confidence looks like for me now. It isn't that I've stopped caring, it's that I've become much harder to talk out of myself. So

Confidence Without Universal Approval

SPEAKER_00 3:15

today I want to talk about why confidence feels so different in midlife. Because when I was younger, I thought confidence was something you either naturally had or you didn't. Confident women walked into rooms knowing everybody would like them. They knew what to wear. They always had something clever to say. They didn't stumble over their words or doubt themselves afterwards. They knew exactly who they were. At least that's what I thought back then. Now at fifty one, I think confidence has way less to do with believing everybody will like you, and much more to do with knowing some people probably won't, and staying yourself anyway. That's different. That kind of confidence isn't always shiny. It doesn't necessarily look impressive from the outside. It can look like quietly changing your mind, walking into a room by yourself, or leaving early because you're tired and don't feel the need to invent a more socially acceptable excuse. It might be wearing something because you love it, even though it isn't especially slimming, age appropriate, or approved by the imaginary panel of judges that women seem to carry around in their heads. Or saying no without preparing a 14-page supporting document. I don't think confidence at this age is about becoming fearless. I think it's about learning that fear, uncertainty, and other people's opinions can all be in the room without being given the final vote. And for a lot of us, that kind of confidence has been built the hard way. When I look back, I probably appeared confident at different points in my life. I was functioning, I was getting shit done, I could handle a crisis, I could manage a household, raise the kids, I could keep things moving, I could anticipate what everybody needed and make sure it happened. I was capable. And capability can look a lot like confidence from the outside, but they're not necessarily the same thing. Because even while I was handling everything, I was still looking outside of myself for validation. Are they happy with me? Do they need me? Do they think I'm doing a good job? Am I making life easier for everyone? Am I being a good partner, a good mother, a good employee, a good friend? Am I useful? Am I wanted? Am I approved of? I knew how to perform competence. I knew how to become whatever the situation required. What I didn't always know was how to check whether the situation was right for me. And that's a really different skill.

When Roles Change, Identity Wobbles

SPEAKER_00 6:10

I didn't realize how much of my confidence was being propped up by roles. I knew who I was when I was somebody's wife. I knew who I was as a mother. I knew who I was when people needed me. I knew who I was when there was a problem to solve, a mess to clean up, a schedule to organize, or somebody else's emotional temperature to monitor. But when those roles started changing, when my children became adults, when my marriage ended, suddenly there wasn't always a role telling me who to be. And that can feel a lot like losing confidence, even if what you're actually losing is the performance that used to hold your identity together. For me, there was another layer to it too. I realized that for most of my adult life, I'd been overcompensating for being bipolar. I'd spent years trying so hard to look capable, reliable, and together because I didn't want anyone else to see how truly messy I felt on the inside. I didn't want to be the unstable one. I didn't want people questioning whether I could cope, whether I could be trusted, whether I was too emotional or too much work. So I buried myself in other people's expectations or what I imagined their expectations were, and became very good at being whatever I thought the situation needed. I could be the strong one, the practical one, the rational one, the one who kept going, the one who could carry everyone else's shit while quietly shoving my own into an overfilled cupboard and leaning against the door. And for a long time, I mistook that for strength. Sometimes I even mistook it for confidence. But a lot of it was camouflage. The harder I worked to hide the mess, the less opportunity I gave myself to actually understand it. I wasn't learning how to live honestly with my condition. I was trying to outrun it by being useful enough, productive enough, needed enough, and impressive enough that nobody would look too closely. And all that overcompensating didn't make me better. It made things worse for far longer than they needed to be, because I never gave myself permission to deal with what was actually happening. I didn't allow myself to work through it properly. I didn't allow myself to be honest about what I needed. And I definitely didn't allow myself to find out who I was underneath all that proving. Because when so much of your identity is built around not letting anyone see the parts of you that feel unacceptable, confidence becomes another performance. It looks solid from the outside, but inside you're still waiting to be exposed. So when the roles changed and the performance started cracking, of course I didn't feel immediately confident. I felt exposed. Because it's one thing to ask, am I doing this role properly? It's another thing entirely to ask, who the fuck am I when nobody is handing me a role and I'm no longer hiding inside one? I think that's where a lot of midlife women find themselves. We've just reached a point where the versions of us built around everybody else are no longer enough. And that can be deeply unsettling. There can be this strange gap between who you've always been and whoever you're becoming next. You don't feel like the old version of yourself anymore, but you're not entirely sure who the new version is. You know what you don't want, and you're still working out what you do. You've become more aware of the ways you've abandoned yourself, but you haven't necessarily learned how to stop doing it every single time. And that awkward in-between stage does not feel confident. It feels messy, it feels uncertain, it can feel lonely. But sometimes what looks like a confidence crisis is actually an identity transition. The old ways of earning your worth aren't working anymore, and you haven't yet learned to believe you have worth without earning it.

Self-Trust, Not Certainty

SPEAKER_00 10:59

For me, confidence is now much more closely tied to self-trust. Not certainty, self-trust. There's a big difference. Certainty says, I know this is the right decision. Self-trust says, I've thought about it, this feels right to me, and I trust myself to deal with whatever comes next. I don't trust myself because I always get it right. Fuck, there is plenty of documented evidence to the contrary. I trust myself because I know I can get something wrong, regroup, change my mind, and keep going. That's a relatively new kind of confidence for me. When you've spent years doubting your instincts, ignoring your discomfort, or allowing other people to explain your own experiences back to you, trusting yourself can feel dangerous. You make a decision and immediately start looking around for confirmation. Is this okay? Am I being reasonable? Do you agree? Would you do the same thing? And there's nothing wrong with seeking advice. I still do it. Sometimes we need another perspective. Sometimes we're too close to something to see it clearly. But there is a difference between asking for someone's perspective and handing them the final authority over your life. There's a difference between being open to feedback and allowing every confident sounding person to override what you know. And I have absolutely done all that. I've had moments where something felt wrong, but somebody gave me a good enough explanation, so I stayed. I've had moments where my body was practically setting off emergency flares, but I told myself I was overreacting. I've accepted somebody else's interpretation of events because they seemed more certain than I felt. And that's the problem when we confuse confidence with certainty. The loudest person in the room starts sounding like the wisest. Sometimes they're just loud. Midlife confidence for me has been learning to pause before I immediately abandon my own position. Maybe I am wrong. Maybe they have a point. Maybe there is more information that I need to consider. But I don't have to throw myself under the bus while I work it out. I can listen without disappearing. I can reconsider without surrendering. I can change my mind without deciding I was stupid for having the original thought. That's a much more mature version of confidence than simply planting your feet and refusing to budge. Because being immovable isn't always confidence. Sometimes it's fear wearing steel cap boots. Sometimes confidence is holding your ground. And sometimes it's realizing you're standing in the wrong fucking paddock. One of the biggest changes for me has been learning that confidence doesn't always arrive before the thing. Sometimes it comes afterwards. Sometimes you have to do the thing while feeling uncertain, awkward, and slightly nauseous. And then your confidence slowly catches up. Living

Living Alone And Finding Preferences

SPEAKER_00 14:36

alone for the first time at 47 didn't happen because I suddenly felt completely ready to live alone. I wasn't. I had spent my entire adult life building a family, being in relationships and sharing space with other people. Then suddenly it was just me. There was freedom in that. And there was also loneliness. There were moments when I loved the quiet and moments when the quiet felt fucking suffocating. There were decisions that were entirely mine, which sounds wonderful until you realize there's also nobody else to blame when you choose badly. I had to learn what I liked. Not what worked for the family, not what my husband preferred. What did I like? What did I want my home to feel like? How did I want to spend my evenings? What did I want to eat? What did I want to watch on TV? Did I want the room quiet? Did I want music on? Did I even like the things I thought I liked? Or had they simply belonged to the life I was living? These sound like small questions. They're not. When you've spent decades automatically factoring in everybody else into your decisions, having to make those decisions for yourself can be brutal. I'd spent so many years being useful that when I started asking myself what I actually enjoyed, my brain practically displayed an error message. No preferences found. Please try again later. And I think that is one of the quieter ways confidence returns. Not through dramatic declarations, but through figuring out what actually suits you. I like this. I don't like that. I want to go. I'd rather stay home. I love that shirt. I don't care whether horizontal stripes are supposedly trying to ruin my life. I want my hair like this. I want my home to look like this. I want to spend my money on this. I don't want to spend three hours at an event I'm not enjoying simply because leaving early might require a brief explanation. Having preferences and allowing those preferences to matter is a form of confidence. Especially for women who were taught that being easygoing was a virtue. How many of us became the woman who was happy with anything? Where do you want to eat? Anywhere's fine. What do you want to do? I don't mind. What do you think? Whatever you think. And sometimes we genuinely don't mind. Not every decision needs to become an exercise in personal empowerment, but sometimes I don't mind really means I've learned it's easier not to want too much. That's different. Confidence is about being able to say what you prefer without believing everybody else now has to obey you. It's not control, it's participation. It's allowing yourself to exist inside the decision. Personal

Style And Voice That Feels Like You

SPEAKER_00 18:07

style has been a part of that for me too. And I don't just mean clothes, although clothes absolutely count. There's something quite freeing about reaching an age where you start questioning some of the rules you've been following without ever consciously agreeing to them. Is this age appropriate? Is this flattering? Does this make me look thinner? Do women over fifty wear this? Will people think I'm trying too hard? Will people think I've given up? Apparently, as women, we're expected to find the exact visual midpoint between desperately clinging to youth and quietly preparing for death. And it's a very narrow fucking window. But personal style isn't only about fashion. It's the way you decorate your home, the jewelry you wear, the music you listen to, the way you cut your hair, the humor you use, the parts of yourself you let become visible. And the more I've rebuilt my confidence, the less interested I've become in presenting the most universally accepted version of myself. Not because I don't care what anybody thinks. We've already established that I fucking do. But I care more now about whether I recognize myself. Does this feel like me? Do I feel comfortable? Do I feel alive? Do I feel like I'm showing up as myself or dressing as the woman I think I'm supposed to be? That question reaches far further than the clothing. It's applied to this podcast. It's applied to making the videos and putting my face online. It's applied to the way I speak now. Because I know my voice has changed. Not just the literal sound of it, the way I use it. I'm less interested in smoothing every edge before I let anybody hear me now. I'm less interested in taking a direct thought and wrapping it in six layers of cushioning so nobody could possibly feel challenged by it. I'm less willing to turn something real into something polite enough to be ignored. That doesn't mean I want to become cruel. I have nothing against being kind. I have nothing against being polite. I just don't think kindness requires me to erase the point. And finding your voice is not the same thing as becoming the loudest person in the room. Sometimes your voice gets stronger because you finally stop using it to audition. Social confidence feels different now too. I used to think socially confident people always knew what to say. They could walk into any room, start a conversation, charm everybody, and never experience the horrifying moment where their brain went completely blank. Now, I think social confidence is less about being impressive and more about being present. It can mean being quieter when you have nothing to say, but being loud when something genuinely delights you. It can be going somewhere alone, admitting you don't know something or asking somebody's name again because you forgot it within eight seconds of being introduced. And it means meeting new people without performing the most acceptable version of yourself. That last one is a big one. Because I think a lot of us became very good at reading a room. We could work out what version of us would fit best. Should I be funny? Should I be calm? Should I be agreeable? Should I talk? Myself down? Should I sound intelligent? Should I avoid talking about that? And being able to read a room can be useful. But it becomes exhausting when every interaction turns into a one-woman marketing campaign. Confidence isn't about walking into a room knowing everyone will like you. It's walking into a room without immediately trying to redesign yourself for the audience. You can still be considerate, you can still pay attention, you can still recognize that not every thought needs to be released into the wild. That's maturity, not suppression. But you no longer have to leave every conversation wondering whether the version of you they met was convincing enough. And honestly, that's something I'm still working on. I still overthink. I still get socially anxious. I can still feel awkward and misread situations. Sometimes I am too quiet. Sometimes I talk too fucking much because I'm so freaking nervous. Sometimes I walk away and think, well, that was a fucking disaster, while the other person has probably already moved on with their life. Confidence isn't that you're never going to feel awkward. It's not using that awkwardness as evidence that you shouldn't show up again.

Creating Online While Still Caring

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Starting this podcast has probably been one of the clearest examples of that for me. I didn't start it because I suddenly believed I had the most important voice in the world. I didn't start it because I was certain thousands of people were waiting desperately to hear my thoughts. They were not. That's terrifying. You spend hours writing, recording, and editing something, and then release it into the world where somebody can listen, love it, hate it, ignore it, or scroll straight past it while watching a woman organize her pantry. And you can't control any of it. The same goes for putting my face online. There are days when I post something and think, yes, this is exactly what I wanted to say. Then it gets three views, one of which was probably me checking whether it uploaded properly. Confidence does not mean that doesn't sting. It means I'm trying not to let the response determine whether I had the right to say it. And that's a work in progress. A very active work in progress. But every time I show up without a guaranteed approval, I'm building a different relationship with myself. I'm proving that I can be visible without being universally validated. I can be proud of something before anybody applauds. I can listen to feedback without turning every disappointing number into a character assessment. And I can keep going even when the evidence isn't immediately reassuring. That's confidence with teeth. Not because it's aggressive, because it can take a bite and keep going.

Saying No Without Over-Explaining

SPEAKER_00 26:06

Saying no feels different now too. And yes, I know we've talked about boundaries, we've talked about shrinking ourselves, we've talked about the ways women become convenient. But the confidence behind a no is different from simply knowing you should have boundaries. You can understand boundaries intellectually and still feel like a complete asshole every time you use one. You can know you need to say no while still wanting the other person to smile, understand completely, and reassure you that you've done the right thing, preferably in writing. But confidence means accepting that sometimes your no will disappoint somebody. Sometimes they won't understand. Sometimes they'll think you're selfish. Sometimes they'll tell the story in a way that makes you the villain, and you may never get the opportunity to tell your side. That doesn't automatically mean that your boundary was wrong. A no does not become cruel just because somebody wanted a yes. And I think the more confident version of me is learning not to stay in the courtroom defending every decision. Not every person needs to agree with my reason. Not every person needs access to the full explanation. And not every disagreement requires a closing argument. Sometimes the answer is just no. Sometimes it is that doesn't work for me. I can't do that. I've changed my mind. I'm not comfortable with this. Or quite simply, I don't want to. No tragic backstory, no medical certificate, no prior engagement. I just don't want to. And I'm not pretending I deliver that sentence effortlessly every time. Sometimes my no still arrives wearing a small hat and carrying six apologies. But it arrives. We're making progress. On the other side of this for me has been learning that confidence isn't always about proving I can cope. For most of my life, being capable was one of the safest identities I had. I could be struggling, overwhelmed, in pain, mentally exhausted, or completely running on fumes. But if I could still get everything done, I could tell myself I was fine. And other people usually believed me because I'd trained them to. Sometimes it's believing yourself when you know you've had enough. Another thing nobody tells you is that confidence can make you more flexible. We tend

Flexibility, Joy, And Changing Your Mind

SPEAKER_00 31:02

to imagine confident people as decisive. They know what they believe, they know what they want, they pick a direction and never look back. But I think one of the most confident things you can do is change your mind. To say, I thought I wanted this, but apparently I don't. I agreed to this, and now I need to reconsider. I defended this decision and it still turned out to be wrong. I've outgrown something I once fought very hard to keep. That takes confidence because changing your mind can feel embarrassing, especially if you've already announced the original decision to everybody you've ever met. Sometimes we stay with things long after they've stopped being right because we don't want to admit that we chose badly. But staying committed to a mistake does not make the original choice smarter. It just gives it more of your life. The older I get, the more I'm willing to say I was wrong. I didn't know then what I know now. That made sense to me at the time. Or even I don't have a particularly noble explanation. I've simply changed. And that's allowed. We change. Our needs change, our bodies change, our circumstances change, the things we value change. Confidence isn't creating one perfect identity and defending it until death. It's trusting yourself through the changes. And then there's joy. I think reconnecting with joy is one of the most overlooked parts of confidence. Because joy can feel vulnerable. Enjoying something openly gives people another part of you to judge. Is that silly? Is that childish? Is that a waste of time? Shouldn't you be doing something more productive? Women are often encouraged to pursue hobbies only when they can be turned into something useful. Can you sell it? Can you teach it? Can you monetize it? Can you post it? Can you use it to improve yourself? But what if you simply enjoy it? What if you are bad at it? What if it serves no purpose beyond making you feel a little more alive? Confidence is allowing yourself to enjoy something without needing to justify the return on investment. It might be dancing badly in your kitchen, wearing the ridiculous earrings, taking yourself somewhere, or trying something you may never be especially good at. It's laughing too hard, getting excited, and letting people see that something fucking matters to you. Joy reconnects us with the parts of ourselves that we buried under responsibility. And for a lot of women, midlife is the first time in decades that there has even been a small amount of room for those parts to reappear. That doesn't suddenly mean life becomes easy. We still have responsibilities. We still have families, we still have work, we still have bodies, bills, grief, stress, and all the other deeply unglamorous shit that does not disappear because we bought a new pair of earrings. But there may be moments where we can ask, what makes me feel like me? Not useful, not productive, not impressive, alive. And then have enough confidence to make some room for it.

Saying Yes With Fear Present

SPEAKER_00 35:04

I've recently said yes to a job offer that is a much bigger role than the one I've been doing for years. And I'd love to tell you that I did that with complete confidence. That I read the offer, nodded calmly, and thought, obviously, I'm exactly the woman for this. That's not quite how it went down. There was excitement, there was some pride, but there was also a lot of doubt. Can I do this? What if I'm not ready? What if everybody discovers that I've been winging it for years? What if I get there and realize I've made a terrible mistake? But I said yes. Not because I knew I wouldn't struggle, not because I believed that I'd walk in and instantly know everything. I said yes because I trust myself to learn. I trust myself to ask questions. I trust myself to make mistakes, fix them, and keep going. And that's the kind of confidence I wish I'd understood earlier. You do not have to feel completely ready before you're allowed to move. Readiness is often something we create by moving. The same is true of buying my own home, the podcast, living alone, putting my opinions online. None of these things happen because fear disappeared first. They happen because fear stopped being the only voice I listened to. I think younger confidence often says nothing bad will happen. Midlife confidence says something bad might happen, but I know more about myself now. I know I can survive disappointment. I know I can rebuild after a relationship ends. I know I can live alone and make decisions for myself. I know I can feel lonely without running back towards something that made me feel worse. I know I can be embarrassed and continue existing. I know I can be misunderstood and still know what I meant. I know I can fail without becoming a failure. That's confidence built from evidence. Not evidence that life will always work beautifully, evidence that I've lived through things that I once thought would destroy me, and I'm still capable of creating a life afterwards. That kind of confidence is quieter, but it is stronger. It isn't based on believing you're untouchable, it's based on knowing life can touch you, change you, even knock you flat, and still not get the final say on who you become.

Confidence With Teeth Closing

SPEAKER_00 38:02

And I want to be careful here because I don't think every woman reaches midlife and automatically becomes confident. Age alone doesn't heal us. Turning 50 does not unlock a secret vault of self-esteem. You can carry the same fears, patterns, and wounds for decades if they're never questioned. You can keep abandoning yourself well into old age. There are women in their twenties with extraordinary self-trust, and women in their 70s still tired of disappointing people. This isn't about age magically fixing us. It's about what age gives us the opportunity to see. We've watched patterns repeat. We've lived through consequences. We've learned that keeping everybody happy doesn't guarantee they'll treat us well, that being useful doesn't guarantee we'll feel valued, and that ignoring ourselves doesn't make our needs disappear. And at some point, confidence becomes a decision. I'm going to hear myself before I immediately explain myself away. I'm going to stop requiring universal approval before I move. And I'm going to become someone I can rely on. Not perfectly, not every day, but definitely more than I used to. So no, I haven't stopped caring about what everybody thinks. Most women haven't. I still notice disappointment. I still feel the sting of criticism. I still have moments where one person's opinion gets into my head, moves the furniture around, and refuses to leave. The difference is I'm getting better at recognizing that it is an option, not an instruction. I can feel guilty after saying no and still leave the no standing. I can walk into a room feeling awkward without deciding that awkwardness means I don't belong there. I can make a decision without knowing exactly how it ends because confidence at this age is not the promise that I'll never get it wrong. It's the belief that I won't abandon myself when I do. That is what feels different now. I'm not fearless. I'm not completely unbothered. I'm not walking around in a brightly colored jumpsuit with zero fucks and flawless self-esteem. But I am listening to myself more. I am backing myself more. And when somebody disagrees, disapproves, or simply doesn't understand me, I'm learning not to immediately hand them the pen and let them rewrite who I am. That confidence has teeth because it's lived through something. It knows what it costs to keep disappearing. It knows what happens when you spend years becoming who everybody else appears to need and never ask whether she's someone you actually recognize. And it has decided that being disliked, misunderstood, or occasionally getting it completely fucking wrong is still better than becoming a stranger to yourself again. I am still unfinished, still overthinking sometimes, still making questionable decisions, still learning, still getting things wrong. But I am no longer quite so easy to talk myself out of. And honestly, I think she was worth waiting for.