Amid Life is a weekly newsletter about reinvention. I publish stories about managing and making change, prompts to help you write your next chapter and monthly round-ups, kind of like this one. Thanks for reading!
Welcome new subscribers! I’m happy you’re here. You showed up just in time.
I write about change. What, how, why, and when change happens to us or because of us—especially because of us.
In a mid-September post, I wrote that realizing our dreams of a personal or career reinvention begins with making a choice1. “Decide what you want and then make every decision after that to get it.”
I sounded so confident! Too confident?
Behind the self-assured words, I was an anxious woman with chronic back pain. The heating pad on which I sat—along with my usual overwhelm and sabotaging self-talk—was set to HIGH.
In between spurts of drafting that post, I doom-scrolled. Did I have adult-onset ADHD? Lupus? Lyme? Were my hormones out of balance? I internet-diagnosed herself deep into the abyss, bottoming out in (what did Michelle Obama call it? Ah, yes) a low-grade depression.
Fear not, and please don’t chime in with diagnoses. I’m fine. A prescription for anti-depressants, sunnier weather, and a cortisone shot to the hip helped shake off my malaise like a freshening autumn wind. I took stock of my achievements and tapped out a quick NOTE with a timeline of my midlife reinventions.
Then YOU happened!
Within a few days, I broke 500 subscribers, and I’m close to 1,000 as I write this—bush league for some, but a BIG MILESTONE for me!
Numbers are numbers, though. What matters to me is connection. I came for the party, and YOU brought the gifts. Readers restacked and added their reinvention timelines. They wrote of their adventures, doubts, and excitement for the future in the comments.
I learned new concepts like “fear shift” from Amanda Kelleher, and I was inspired to think differently about accountability by Karen Rand Anderson.
I don’t know if I’ve responded to all your comments yet, but I will, and I can’t wait to connect with more Substackers writing about reinvention, self-discovery, and midlife awakenings.
The squiggly line strategy
I was introduced to the concept of a “squiggly line” strategy during one of those quarterly all-hands meetings at a former employer. My coworkers and I sat on orange plastic chairs, facing the video screen PowerPoint, exhausted from yet another reorganization, another new manager, and shifting business models.
The CEO explained that the path to achieving our business reinvention goal wasn’t a straight one. We had to experiment, fail, and adjust, i.e., follow a squiggly line to success. It sounded like a pithy packaging of corporate chaos. (Sorry, I can’t help myself with the alliteration today!)
I wanted a plan—a straightforward, linear, milestone-driven XL spreadsheet. Give me the checklist, and I’ll do the work. It wasn’t until I decided to leave that job that I learned straight-line thinking leads nowhere.
We look at that long, straight line like we’re walking a tightrope strung across a canyon. What if I misstep? The fear of doing the wrong thing prevents us from moving forward.
In a recent LinkedIn post, author and organizational psychologist Adam Grant drew a fantastic illustration of this theory in practice. Squiggle around as you’d like, but don’t stay in one box too long. It only works if you take action.
My Squiggly Substack line
I launched my Substack two years ago as My Reinspired Life, migrating about 100 subscribers from my WordPress blog. I wrote consistently, left the paid option turned off, and watched the subscriber count grow —tick, tick, tick—slowly. I wasn’t using NOTES yet and knew nothing about mentions or recommendations.
Enter Sarah Fay of Substack Writers at Work membership. She diagnosed my site, prescribed actions, then showed me around NOTES and told me to turn on paid. “You’re just preventing people from giving you money,” she said—and she was right.
Sarah also advised me to do something that I was not capable of. Stop overthinking. Write well, but not toward perfection. Look for your audience, show up, and be yourself. They will find you.
I learned. I gave it some thought. Then I went to work. My reinvented Substack launched last September as Midlife Anti-Hero, and I saw a small bump in the number of subscribers, followed by more tick-tick-tick. Mentions and recommendations boosted growth, and I became better connected to the community when I spent more time reading than re-designing my logo.
A few months passed, and I struggled to find my content footing. I posted less and less. Something didn’t feel right.
The rain was incessant—Felix and I called it the summer of dank. My back was killing me. I became a grandmother one week, and the next, I heard my Dr. say, “hip replacement.” WTF?
I stopped writing. My memoir in progress languished. Essays incomplete. My Substack gathered dust for months. (But take note, writers, I didn’t lose a single subscriber!) I despaired.
I re-read old journals and looked hard at what I wanted to write about—why was I writing at all? I didn’t want to be a midlife crusader; that much became clear. But also—I knew I had a story to tell—wisdom, perhaps even inspiration, a laugh or two, to share.
More than that, I wanted to find my people, to practice and learn— to stumble in a safe place. I wanted to connect. Long story short, welcome to AMID LIFE!
I’ve reinvented myself many times
I’d been reinventing since I was 18—maybe younger. That’s what women do, I think. Women are born reinventors. We’re resilient because we need to be, but we’re also open-minded, big-hearted, curious, ambitious, high-spirited visionaries who seek change, embrace change, and make change.
Why stand still when you can keep growing? Why follow someone else’s straight and narrow path when you can follow your own squiggly line? We learn by doing.
How to double your Substack subscribers almost overnight
How about that 👆headline👆 —a true but blatantly reductive grab for clicks?
Don’t fall for it.
Granted, I’m a small potato in a giant field of experts, but here’s my advice for other emerging publishers watching the tick-tick-tick and despairing. These are the lessons I learned from digging myself out of the hole of Substack self-doubt.
Don’t overthink it. Post the note. Write the comment. Restack. Recommend. Be generous. Be you. Reflect. Reinvent if it feels right. Rest. Then go back to your work.
My timeline says I started this Substack at 60. But really, I’m just getting started.
Thank you for walking the squiggly line along with me!
Work hard. Be Brave. Believe.
Catherine
Exactly what I needed to hear ❤️
Thank you, Catherine. This gives me hope and a reminder to remember the line will be wiggly. I will try to be patient with the slow tick, tick, ticks.