How to Set Life Goals at 50
Feb 16, 2026Summary
Do you feel like your most productive years are behind you? Maybe the kids have moved out, your roles have shifted, and you are wondering, Is it too late to start something new? The world tells us that at age 50 we should be winding down, but in God's kingdom, this is actually your prime time for impact. In this inspiring episode of the Arise, Women of God podcast, host Tamara K. Anderson joins Sandy Falter and Tiffany Fletcher to answer the question: How to set life goals at 50 (or 40, or 60!).
We redefine midlife not as a crisis, but as a "refinement." Tiffany shares her brave story of going back to graduate school at age 49 to become a mental health counselor, proving that God's timing is never late. Sandy opens up about the "Empty Nest Identity Shift"—moving from being needed as a mom to being needed as a daughter of God with a new mission. We discuss the "GPS Detour" principle, explaining why God often hides the full map of our future to keep us from running away in fear. If you are ready to dust off the talents you shelved for motherhood and embrace your role as a mentor to the next generation, this episode is your invitation to dance, write, and lead again.
Episode Takeaways
- The Empty Nest Reassessment: Midlife isn't an ending; it's a shift. Hormonal and role changes are God's natural signal to reassess your purpose. You have wisdom, maturity, and time now that you didn't have before—use it.
- God's "Both/And" Promise: When Tiffany worried about missing out on being a grandma, God told her, "You can do both." You don't have to choose between family and a new calling; God can expand your capacity for both.
- The GPS Detour: God often takes us on detours (like Sandy becoming a grief coach after a personal tragedy) that we didn't plan. Trust that the "GPS" knows the safest and most impactful route to your destination, even if you can't see the full map.
- Dust Off Your Talents: Many women shelf specific talents (writing, art, leadership) during the intense years of mothering. Now is the time to take them off the shelf. If it was your talent then, it is still your talent now—it just needs some dusting.
Free Resource
Ready to discover your new divine assignment? Download our FREE Guide to Goal Setting. It features the "Sacred Brainstorm" worksheet, specifically designed to help you hear God's voice in this new season of life. 👉 Download the Guide Here: https://www.womenwarriorsoflight.com/offers/WyaLn2gS/checkout
Reflection Questions
- What is one talent or passion you "shelved" while raising your family? Is God asking you to dust it off now?
- Do you view this season as "winding down" (retirement) or "refinement" (new mission)? How does changing that word change your outlook?
- Have you experienced an "identity crisis" as your roles have shifted? How can anchoring yourself as "God's Daughter" first stabilize you?
- If God showed you the next 10 years of your life today, would you run in fear? How can you trust Him with just the next step?
Transcript
Tamara K. Anderson
00:00:00.400 - 00:01:55.930
Do you feel like your most productive years are behind you? Maybe the kids have moved out, your roles have shifted and you're wondering, is it too late to start something new?
Most of the world tells us that at age 50 you should be winding down. But in God's kingdom, this is actually your prime time for impact. Today we are answering the question how to set life goals at 50 or 60, or maybe 40.
By the end of today's episode, you will understand how to dust off your buried talents you set aside for motherhood and solve the pain of the empty nest crisis by discovering your new divine assignment. We're moving from the fear of being done to the excitement of being refined. Stay tuned. Ordinary Women Extraordinary Faith When God calls, we say yes.
The Arise Women of God Podcast hello and welcome to another episode of the Arise Women of God podcast.
I'm your host, Tamara K. Anderson, and today I'm joined by Sandy Falter and Tiffany Fletcher, two members of our Women warriors of Light Advisory Board. And we are redefining midlife today.
First, we're going to talk about the empty nest reassessment and why this season requires deeper, more intentional goals. Second, Tiffany shares her brave story of going back to school at age 49 and why God's timing is never late.
Third, we'll discuss the GPS detour, how to trust God when he shifts your career or your calling. And finally, we'll share how to reclaim your priceless rubies identity so you can mentor the next generation.
But first, let's dive right in with Sandy sharing about the midlife shift.
Sandy Falter
00:01:56.010 - 00:02:46.830
Becoming an Empty Nester if you've had children, or even if you haven't had children, there's a shift that happens with us hormonally, right? Everything changes, and I think it's a really great time to reassess.
And what I noticed is my goals needed to change and I needed to dig a little deeper. I found that God had new work for me to do. I was a little surprised, but he empowers us to be able to do this.
And so if we're open, he can open our eyes to new opportunities. We're not done learning. We're not done growing and we're done definitely not done giving.
In fact, I think we've given in a different way up into this point. And then we have this maturity, we have this wisdom, and we have time that we haven't had before.
And God has a work for us to do that may look very different if we're willing.
Tamara K. Anderson
00:02:47.390 - 00:03:05.860
It really is a time of reassessment but for many of us, this new work feels intimidating because it's so far out of our comfort zone. Right. Tiffany has experienced a major transition at age 49 that felt both scary and perfectly timed.
Tiffany Fletcher
00:03:05.860 - 00:04:13.850
I told Heavenly Father that I still had a lot of life left in me, and I asked him how he wanted to use me, started praying to Heavenly Father, ask him what that looked like beyond homeschooling and raising kids. And for me, he said, I want you to go back to school. And I was like, what are you talking about? You want me to go back to graduate school?
And he's like, yep. So here I am. I am in a master's program for clinical mental health counseling. My mom had mental illness.
I swore that I was never going to go into mental illness. And God's like, nope, your experience is exactly what is needed in the mental health counseling field. So I need you to take this leap with me.
Like, when God asks you to do things, it's scary, but I love how Danny said, God empowers us to do whatever it is he needs us to do, and he still has work for us to do.
And if we are willing to accept it and not kick against the pricks, which I'm really good about, like, kicking against those pricks, like, I don't want to do it. Heavenly Father, please. I. I kind of just wanted to enjoy my grandchildren at 50. And heavenly Father's like, oh, you can do both.
So when we are willing to put God first, he will definitely use us.
Tamara K. Anderson
00:04:13.850 - 00:04:37.630
I love that God told her, you can do both. You can be both a grandma and. And a graduate student. He meets us exactly where we are, and then he accelerates us.
For me, that meant writing a book and launching a podcast in my late 40s. I didn't have the whole vision then. Now Sandy's going to share with us why sometimes God hides the full picture.
Sandy Falter
00:04:37.950 - 00:06:59.930
And I think there's a reason he doesn't show us the whole picture, because I think it would freak us out. Like, you want me to do what? And then what? Right.
Right. It's a lot. If I knew five years ago, eight years ago, what was coming. Oh, my goodness, no. I'm sorry. I would have retreated.
I would have thought, there's no way I can do that. But he is the key. He is the one that can magnify our time. He can magnify our ability.
He empowers us with his power, with his spirit to be able to do all things. And so the first thing is to have a willing heart the second thing is to not be discouraged that we don't have the next step and not question.
It's kind of like when we're going on a road trip, we know where we're headed, right? I'm going to see my grandkids. So I've got it put in my gps and all of a sudden the GPS takes me on a detour.
I don't know why, but I trust the GPS is going to get me there. And it knows that I need to do this detour for safety or for time or for whatever. And I feel like God's that way.
He knows where I want to go, he knows what he wants me to become. And I just need to trust that each of these detours are going to help me get there safely and gather the experiences that I need along the way.
For, for. Then the next thing he puts on my heart and they build on each other. It's amazing.
It started with a challenge that came to my life that was so hard and I didn't know if I could do it. And I did. And then it was like, and now I want you to take that experience and become a grief coach. And I'm like, that's not something people say.
When I grow up, I want to be a grief coach. Right. Like what? And so I became a grief coach. And I love that. And I've done that for many years now. And then he put on my heart.
And now I need you to take over your mentor's business. And now you need to teach other grief coaches. You need to sort of. Well, he had me start teaching that two years ago. He had me start working with her.
I was just helping her. Right. I had no idea his plans for me. And here he is, step by step, little, little bits. If I would have known what was coming, I, I would have hid.
Right. That would have felt too big for me. But nothing is too big for God.
And so I think a willing heart being okay with the detours, knowing that he is our ultimate guide and it's going to be okay. Just praying for his ability to magnify you, magnify your time, all of it. He can do all of it.
And it is remarkable when we're willing to sacrifice for him, our time is magnified. It's. It doesn't make sense in a 24 hour period.
Tamara K. Anderson
00:07:00.329 - 00:07:20.710
God magnifies our time when we give it to him. This season isn't about retirement.
It's about the stewardship of the talents you might have put on the shelf while you were raising Your family or busy with a career. Tiffany is now going to share a beautiful realization about those rusty talents.
Tiffany Fletcher
00:07:21.110 - 00:09:27.770
I love the story of the talents. You know, we don't want to hide our talents and we don't want to bury them in the ground.
And as a mother, I used certain talents of loving and nurturing and strengthening my children.
But now, like, I have other talents that I maybe have put aside to be a mother and that I maybe haven't used in a while because motherhood was, was so demanding and, and so now it's time to take those talents off the shelf, dust them off, get back into them, recognize how much you love them. I, I don't know about you, but those talents that, that I kind of put aside for motherhood, like writing. I didn't do a lot of writing.
I did writing for other people as a job, but not like for myself. And, and so now I'm taking that off and dusting it off again and it feels lovely. I really love it.
I think we forget that we have these talents and, and I think that because we haven't used them for so long, sometimes we may think, oh, that's not my tal anymore. I, I can't do that. It's. It's been too long. It's. I'm rusty. But the truth is, is that you can. If it was your talent, then it's your talent now.
You just got to get back up on that horse and you got to keep riding. Once you start doing it again, God is going to bless you.
My daughter, she's taking dance classes at local theater and she said that there's a 54 year old lady in there in the dance class.
And she said, mom, I love watching her because she is so beautiful in her form and she's like, I want to be like her and feel like that's what we can do.
When we have more time, we can go out there and we can be mentors and we can be these beautiful women that help the younger generations come up and recognize, hey, there's still life at 50, there's still life after 50.
And yes, even though our bodies are older, we can still dance, we can still sing, we can still write, we can still perform, we can still do whatever it is we feel inspired to do and we can bring joy to our lives and to the lives of those around us.
It's inspiring for me to know that I can help inspire the younger generation as they are moving through their hard things because we have been there before and we can help them move through It.
Tamara K. Anderson
00:09:27.850 - 00:09:48.410
It is never too late to dance, to write, to lead. But to do that boldly, we have to settle the identity crisis that often comes when our titles and roles change.
Sandy is now going to share how coming back to the deep core of who she really is changed everything.
Sandy Falter
00:09:49.050 - 00:11:09.090
I think that we have a shift in our identity when we become an empty nester, and all of a sudden our kids are adults and they don't need us like they needed us before, like an identity crisis. And what I recognized is I had to be really clear in who I was and. And go to the deep core of who am I? I am God's child.
Yes, I'm a mom and a nana, and I love all those titles, but first and foremost, I'm his. And. And I have divine potential because I had this little identity crisis. Like, I'm not needed. Actually, that is not true.
He just needs me in a different way now.
And coming back to who I am and tapping into that power of being his daughter and having divinity in me has really helped me to be bold and courageous to step into this new space of refinement. It has been a lot of refinement. It's been some redesign, and I am loving it.
I am loving it so much because I'm figuring out things about me that I didn't have time to figure out before, and now there is. And so I'm grateful that this new time of life is actually joyful, even though there's some sadness and some shifting.
Oh, it is so joyful because we're creating with God in a new way.
Tamara K. Anderson
00:11:09.330 - 00:11:52.550
All right, my friends, whatever God is placing on your heart today, whether it's a master's degree, a book, or a new way to nurture those around you, know that he believes in you. Age 50 and beyond is not your sunset. It's your refinement.
If you're ready to dust off those talents and discover your next right step, go download our free A Guide to Goal Setting for Christian Women. It features the sacred Brainstorm, specifically designed to help you hear God's voice in this new season of life. The link is in the description.
Go create something beautiful with God today and until next time, may you arise. Do it God's way. God strong.
