Five to Thrive - Edition 12

This is a feisty one!!

Mar 06, 2026

Welcome to the 12th edition of Five to Thrive!

Here you’ll discover nuggets of inspiration, gather wisdom & resources, and read ideas that’ll encourage and motivate you to prioritise your thriving in 2026.

I want this to be a place for us all; where diverse, relatable stories of thriving from around the world sit alongside advice, ideas and expertise shared by me and other midlife women.

So, let’s start getting our thrive on!

1. One day isn’t enough

It can’t have escaped your attention that Sunday 8th March is a big day!

It’s the day we recognise the achievements of women across the world, while looking ahead to a future in which women are truly equal, valued and respected.

I guess what I’m supposed to say to you on this day is ‘Happy International Women’s Day’, yet I can’t quite bring myself to do so. Right now this sentiment feels jarring, and at odds with the reality of so many women around the world.

When we look at what has unfolded globally over the past year, it’s difficult to feel celebratory. In fact anger feels much more appropriate.

The long-promised vision of safety and equality for all women seems no closer, and at times, further away than ever. Dare I say it: if we continue on this trajectory, this vision may never be fully realised.

Everywhere we turn, there are stories of women being oppressed by those in positions of power. Those with political, economic, ideological, religious, technological, and gender dominance continue to silence, abuse, and diminish women, and their rights, through deliberately chosen policies, actions, and doctrines.

As you read this, examples will no doubt spring into your mind. Only in the last month we’ve finally seen the epic scale of abuse of women and girls exposed in the Epstein files, the Taliban approving an acceptable level of violence that husbands can lawfully inflict on their wives, while a school in Iran was bombed killing 168 innocent girls. And just as I was writing this I found out about the horrific assassination of Yanar Mohammed - a prominent women’s rights activist in Iraq.

And beyond these headline stories, in more insidious and unreported ways, women and girls in every country, city, town and community continue to face harm and inequality. Over the past year, it has not eased and in many ways, it has intensified.

That’s why I struggle to offer a more uplifting message for International Women’s Day this year. I think we must use this day, and every day to reflect on all of this.

So yes we can celebrate each other’s strength, resilience and achievements, and acknowledge the progress that’s been made. But let’s not allow the pink bows, champagne lunches, polished panels, well-meaning hashtags and corporate lip-service distract us from a harder truth: there is still a long, long way to go.

And while the impenetrable power structures (mostly built by men, for men) over the last 125 years since IWD started, aren’t going to be easily dismantled, we mustn’t lose hope or give up on our fight to challenge and expose them.

On a positive note, I read about a global coalition for action against gender-based violence aligned to the amazing Annie Lennox’s The Circle organisation. This new celebrity backed funding appeal aims to support global organisations that tackle violence against women and girls. If you want to find out more or get involved then take a read of this.

And I was pleased to learn of the UN’s IWD 2026 message which focuses on Rights, Justice, Action which feels so much more aligned to where we are now than the vacuous and frankly infuriating official IWD tagline ‘Give to Gain’ (don’t even get me started on that!!)

What do you think about IWD - I’d love to hear!

2. What’s age got to do with it?

Let me introduce you to my great auntie Clarice.

I’m not exactly sure when she was born but I think it was around the early 1900s. For a woman of that time, she liked to do things differently, you could even call her a bit of a rebel, though I very much doubt she ever thought of herself as one!!

She never married or had children, and ran her own business for most of her adult life; a women’s clothes shop. It was on the same high street as her brother Ron’s mens outfitters shop. I remember eventually she sold her own business and took over her brother’s shop when he became unable to run it himself.

But get this, she continued running that shop well into her 80s and eventually passed away in her mid 90s. I think it is no coincidence that she lived healthily right up until the end of her life as she remained active and engaged for so long.

Running a business later in life gave her purpose, helping, I believe, to prolong her lifespan. She’s my ancestral proof and inspiration that there are no limits when it comes to age!

So why am I hearing more and more stories about women (and men) in their 50s currently struggling to find work, frustrated that their experience and expertise is no longer valued, and as a result are being pushed off the cliff-edge because they’re suddenly deemed too ‘old’.

And it’s not just these real life examples that prove the problem, I read some recent research from the Centre for Ageing Better that showed how much ageist attitudes abound here in the UK.

A poll of 4,000 UK adults found that the average age that people believe someone becomes undesirable to recruiters is 55, with more than a third (36 per cent) believing the cut off point is 50 or younger. Yes you read that right!

And while these biases and opinions become entrenched, scientific research blows their validity completely out of the water.

The University of Cambridge scanned and analysed the brains of 4,000 people of all ages in the UK, and found that the brain rewires across the lifespan - with distinct fluctuations and phases - and from this they were able to redefine adulthood as spanning from 32 to 66. And as if that wasn’t proof enough, new research has found that humans’ cognitive ability is at its best between the ages of 55 to 60, thanks to accumulated knowledge, judgment and life experience.

So go figure - just at the time that our brain function peaks we’re devalued and discarded!!

As Auntie Clarice, and this scientific research proves, it makes no sense at all to write people off just because the hit a certain age, and get consigned with the dubious and lazy ‘silver’ moniker as some kind of justification!

Ageism is becoming one of the most socially important challenges we’re facing, and with a rapidly growing ageing population that is living longer, we urgently need a wholesale rethink, redesign and reevaluation of careers, work, and life purpose once we hit our fifties.

While I don’t have the answers, I know for one that I want to be like my auntie Clarice, finding purpose well into my old age, and right now at 57 I feel like I’m only just getting started!! How about you?

3. Voices of wisdom

Sarah Knight is a self-leadership coach, keynote speaker and Northern truth teller who champions women with experience at the point where ambition, responsibility and life collide. I met her first on LinkedIn and when we realised we live close by we went for a coffee to talk about the challenges of being midlife women, and how we all need some human scaffolding to keep us steady, visible and high performing when everything shifts around us. So let’s discover thriving means to her….

What do you do to help midlife women thrive?

Women with experience are not fragile. They are carrying the commercial load, the emotional load and the life load, often all at once. They’re always giving pieces of themselves to enable others crack on. Their issue is not capability, it’s support.

That’s where I come in; I enable women to crack on, on purpose; moving from autopilot to intention, reducing the noise in their heads, regulating their nervous systems, so they can make cleaner decisions and rebuild confidence through evidence, not hype.

What’s one piece of advice you’d give a midlife woman wanting to find her thrive?

Stop trying to white-knuckle it alone! Get into a room where you belong, where community, collaboration, connection and conversation is a given. Women do not rise in isolation, but rather in rooms built for them.

So my advice is simple - make sure you’re in the right room for you! Personally, I couldn’t find my one so I built my own! FoundHer Fire brings me joy every single day.

How are you thriving right now?

I am thriving because I am building what I believe in, in public. I’m showing up completely and unapologetically as me - and blimey o’riley it is freeing!

And I bloody LOVE what I do - I have found my purpose, my passion and my potential. I also still send 1738176387 ranty memes to my inner circle and think about burying the husband on a weekly basis but I have found my fire and I’m keeping it. And my mission is to enable brilliant experienced, midlife women to do the same.

What’s the most important lesson you’ve learnt in midlife?

Energy is more important than time. In your twenties and thirties you think you can hustle your way through everything. In midlife, you realise your nervous system keeps the receipts.

Also that joy and laughter aren’t nice to haves…they’re essentials - you deserve to bloody well be happy. Oh, and bathe in HRT!

Who do you think is truly living in their thrive?

Women who have stopped performing competence and started living in alignment.I see it in women who are leading teams while caring for ageing parents. In founders who are building businesses after redundancy. In corporate leaders who have decided their health is as important as their KPIs

Find out more about the FoundHer Fire collective here

Sarah also has an award winning podcast called It’s Got Pockets - a straight talking storytelling movement for women in their plot twist era.

And finally she’s co-hosting Crack On with Permission a 1.5 day Practice Co-Lab where you will find your fire and create the conditions for you to thrive. It’s taking place on 29–30 March at Coombe Abbey, Coventry.

4. Thrive nugget

My Fifty Thrive mission is to help midlife female founders thrive in their businesses by helping them get visible with clarity, creativity and confidence.

If you haven’t heard of Enterprise Nation then do check it out - they have plenty of resources to help you grow your business.

And I noticed that they’ve just published a female founder toolkit for IDW so you can download and check out here.

5. And finally….

When everything feels heavy in the world, I believe making time to prioritise your thrive is even more important!

My own thriving recently has been all about enjoying the blue skies and sunshine (when they deign to appear!) and the early spring blossoms that tell me lighter, brighter days are on their way.

I’ve also been fully embracing one of my thrive foundations - connection. Over the past few weeks, I’ve had the privilege to speak to so many midlife women who are determined to change the script, to challenge stereotypes, to make a difference for others (and themselves). I love every single conversation whether that’s been on Zoom, on a walk or with a cup of coffee in the spring sunshine. The dynamism, and determination of women never ceases to inspire me!

So how have you been thriving recently - I’d love to know!!

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