Your Life Looks Good. But Is It? How to Find What You Really Want

Have you ever looked around at the life you’ve built and wondered, “Is this really who I am, or is this just who I’ve been expected to be?”

Maybe you’ve built a successful career. Raised a family. Created a beautiful home. Checked all the boxes you thought you were supposed to check.

From the outside, everything looks good.

But inside, something doesn’t feel right.

Maybe you wake up dreading the workday even though you have a great job. Maybe you’ve become so accustomed to taking care of everyone else that you’ve forgotten what makes you happy. Maybe you’ve spent decades living up to other people’s expectations and aren’t even sure anymore which choices are actually yours.

That question is at the heart of my conversation with Lauretta Zucchetti on Living Ageless & Bold.

Lauretta has lived an extraordinary life. She survived an incredibly difficult childhood in Italy, became one of the top salespeople in her field at Xerox, created an opportunity for herself at Apple, traveled the world, became a mother and ultimately went back to school to better understand women, identity and why we so often lose ourselves while taking care of everyone and everything else.

Today, she is a certified life coach who helps women identify the beliefs and patterns that may be quietly directing their lives.

Her message isn’t that you need to blow everything up and start over.

In fact, it’s almost the opposite.

Sometimes change begins by finally paying attention to that little voice telling you:

This doesn’t feel like me anymore.

A Childhood That Taught Her How to Survive

Lauretta grew up in Italy, and the first years of her life were anything but stable.

Her mother was working in other countries, her father had left, and Lauretta spent her early childhood in foster homes.

She remembers trying to escape more than once.

Eventually, one of those attempts worked.

As a young child, Lauretta made her way across town to her paternal grandmother’s home and refused to leave. Her grandmother allowed her to stay, and Lauretta lived with her for six years.

She describes those as some of the best years of her childhood because her grandmother gave her something she desperately needed: a sense that she mattered.

Those years became a foundation of self-worth that Lauretta would carry with her, even as life became difficult again.

At 12, she returned to live with her mother. At first, Lauretta says it was everything she had dreamed of.

Then her mother’s boyfriend left for mandatory military service, and her mother fell into a deep depression.

Lauretta says they eventually became homeless.

She remembers going to school carrying her shoes and eating scraps because there wasn’t enough food.

At 15, Lauretta took matters into her own hands again. She contacted an aunt and asked her to locate her father. She then went to live with him and his new wife in Milan.

Think about that.

Long before Lauretta had any formal education in psychology, coaching or personal development, she had learned one of the most important lessons of her life:

Sometimes you have to become your own agent of change.

From Surviving to Achieving

Despite everything happening around her, Lauretta kept going to school.

She eventually married young, at 19, in part because she wanted to leave her father’s home. That marriage didn’t last.

A few years later, she met the man who would become her second husband in Paris and moved to California.

That’s when her professional life began to take off.

Lauretta went into sales at Xerox with an enormous goal.

She wanted to become number one.

For a young woman who had once been the little girl wondering why her life looked so different from everyone else’s, professional achievement became proof that she could create something more.

She didn’t reach number one.

She reached number three in her line of business.

At Xerox.

That’s still pretty extraordinary.

But this is where Lauretta’s story becomes especially interesting.

Success didn’t necessarily mean she had figured out who she was.

It meant she had become very good at achieving.

And those aren’t always the same thing.

Creating Her Own Opportunity at Apple

After leaving Xerox and her marriage, Lauretta found herself wondering what she had done and what she was supposed to do next.

She walked into a church and asked for help.

Then an idea came to her.

She knew of an executive in Apple’s international division through a friend. Rather than waiting for an introduction or applying for an advertised position, Lauretta did what a great salesperson does.

She called him.

She knew senior executives were often in their offices before or after their assistants, so she timed her call accordingly.

He answered.

Lauretta got the meeting.

Instead of walking in and asking for a job, she started asking questions.

What did Apple need?

Why did they need it?

What would happen if they didn’t solve the problem?

By the end of the conversation, Lauretta says they had essentially developed a job for her.

She began traveling internationally, interviewing Macintosh and Apple clients about how they were using the computers for mission-critical applications. She later proposed working in Latin America, drawing on her ability to speak multiple languages, and eventually moved into a sales role involving Fortune 100 companies.

It’s a remarkable career story.

But even while Lauretta was building this impressive professional life, parts of her past were still with her.

You Can Be Successful and Still Carry the Past

This may be one of the biggest misconceptions about success.

We think achievement heals everything.

Get the promotion.

Make more money.

Build the business.

Buy the house.

Earn the title.

Prove everyone wrong.

Then we’ll finally feel whole.

But Lauretta says that even during those exciting career years, she still carried guilt about leaving her mother to live with her father. Feelings that had become embedded when she was young didn’t disappear simply because she became professionally successful.

It took introspection and understanding to begin working through them.

I think this is something many women can relate to, even if the circumstances of our lives are completely different.

We get very good at moving forward.

We work.

We raise children.

We take care of parents.

We manage households.

We volunteer.

We show up for friends.

We build careers.

We become so busy doing what needs to be done that we don’t necessarily stop to ask why we’re doing it, whether we still want it or what we’re carrying with us from decades ago.

Then one day, often in midlife, there is enough space to hear the questions we haven’t had time to ask.

Who am I now?

What do I want?

Does the life I’ve built still fit the woman I’ve become?

When Doing Everything Becomes Too Much

Lauretta eventually married again and became pregnant.

She was juggling a demanding career, motherhood, a large home and a marriage to a man who was also intensely focused on his career.

She became overwhelmed.

Then Lauretta became pregnant a second time and lost her baby at birth.

In our conversation, she described herself during that period as being almost like a machine.

Do this.

Do that.

Keep going.

Keep performing.

Keep handling everything.

The joy she once felt was gone.

That devastating loss forced her to stop and recognize that something wasn’t working.

So she went back to school.

Lauretta studied women’s studies because she wanted to understand why women across cultures do so much for everyone else while forgetting themselves.

She earned a master’s degree in transpersonal psychology, began exploring the spiritual side of identity and eventually earned her certification in life coaching.

Her marriage did not survive, but Lauretta found a new direction for herself.

The woman who had spent so much of her life surviving, achieving and pushing forward began helping other women understand themselves.

Why Do So Many Women Feel Empty When Everything Looks Fine?

During our conversation, Lauretta said she sees women continuing along the same path even though they feel empty inside.

They don’t feel connected to their true passions or to themselves.

And yet they keep going.

That really struck me.

Because how many women over 50 have spent decades becoming exceptionally good at doing what was expected of them?

For many of us, there was a very specific path.

Work hard.

Build a career.

Get married.

Raise children.

Take care of everyone.

Be successful.

Be grateful.

Don’t complain.

And when you’ve accomplished those things, you’re supposed to be happy.

But what happens if you’re not?

It doesn’t mean you’re ungrateful.

It doesn’t necessarily mean you made the wrong choices.

Maybe you’ve simply changed.

The woman who made those choices at 25 or 35 isn’t necessarily the same woman you are at 55 or 65.

You’re allowed to ask what you want now.

You Don’t Have to Blow Up Your Life

This was one of my favorite parts of my conversation with Lauretta.

When I asked how women can begin breaking old patterns, she didn’t tell everyone to quit their jobs, leave their marriages, sell their houses and move across the country.

Lauretta has made some enormous changes in her own life, and she was very clear:

She doesn’t recommend starting there.

Instead, she recommends small steps.

Start by asking where in your life you aren’t respecting yourself.

And then pay attention to what you feel.

Lauretta believes our bodies often tell us when something isn’t right.

Maybe it’s a lump in your throat.

Maybe it’s the feeling in your stomach.

Maybe it’s waking up and thinking:

“Oh my God, I have to do that. But do I really want to?”

And then you drag yourself through the day.

Maybe you stay because you’re paid well.

Maybe you stay because people respect your position.

Maybe you’ve created an image in your community that you feel obligated to maintain.

Maybe changing feels scarier than being unhappy.

So you don’t change.

Not because everything is wonderful.

Because you’re afraid.

What Are You Afraid to Change?

That’s the question I kept thinking about after our conversation.

What are we holding onto because it’s right for us?

And what are we holding onto because we’re afraid of what happens if we let it go?

Those are two very different things.

Maybe you’ve spent 30 years building a career and can’t imagine admitting you don’t want it anymore.

Maybe your children are grown and the role that defined you for decades has changed.

Maybe you’re staying busy because you don’t know who you’ll be if you slow down.

Maybe everyone tells you how lucky you are, so you feel guilty admitting you want something different.

The answer doesn’t have to be dramatic.

You don’t have to know what the next 20 years look like.

You just have to be willing to get curious.

Start by Getting Quiet

When I asked Lauretta for one thing someone could do to begin releasing the past, she suggested meditation.

Not hours of meditation.

Ten or 15 minutes.

Time to quiet your mind, breathe and let go.

For Lauretta, that space helps us look at what we’re carrying and begin loosening our grip on things that may no longer serve us.

And maybe that’s where reinvention really starts.

Not with a resignation letter.

Not with a moving truck.

Not with a dramatic announcement.

With quiet.

With curiosity.

With finally asking yourself a question you may have avoided for years:

What do I actually want?

Your Next Chapter Gets to Be Yours

One of the things I love most about talking with women on Living Ageless & Bold is seeing how many different forms reinvention can take.

Sometimes it’s a new career.

Sometimes it’s a new relationship.

Sometimes it’s travel, entrepreneurship, creativity, health, friendship or simply learning how to prioritize yourself again.

And sometimes reinvention isn’t about becoming someone new at all.

It’s about uncovering the person who has been there all along, underneath the expectations, responsibilities, old beliefs and roles you’ve accumulated over a lifetime.

Lauretta’s life has taken her from an unstable childhood in Italy to extraordinary professional success, motherhood, loss, education and ultimately work that helps other women better understand themselves.

But perhaps the biggest lesson from her story isn’t how much she accomplished.

It’s that achievement alone couldn’t answer the question of who she really was.

Only she could do that.

And so can you.

If your life looks good but something inside you is whispering that it doesn’t feel right anymore, you don’t have to ignore it.

You also don’t have to change everything tomorrow.

Start small.

Get quiet.

Pay attention.

Ask yourself where you’re living according to expectation instead of desire.

Ask what you would choose if you weren’t worried about disappointing someone else.

Ask what still brings you joy.

And most importantly, give yourself permission to listen to the answers.

Because after 50, we don’t have to keep living a life simply because it’s the one we’ve always lived.

Listen to my full conversation with Lauretta Zucchetti on Living Ageless & Bold wherever you get your podcasts. And if you know a woman who has been wondering whether the life she’s living is still the life she wants, share this episode with her. This might be the conversation she needs to hear.

Watch the full episode here: