The secret of getting what you want begins with being clear about what you want.  Without that clarity, it is nearly impossible to have the focus and motivation to make your dream real.  It sounds easy, but, perversely, gaining clarity can be the hardest part of achieving your vision. What's a woman to do?

Dr. Ann Daly PhD , is a life coach, speaker and author who specializes in coaching women to clarity. In this interview, she shares her thoughts and insights into how we can accomplish what matters most to us.  

Ann Daly has had several professional lives.  Starting out as a journalist for a daily newspaper, she eventually moved into academia.  A university professor, she taught in University of Texas’ theater and dance department with a focus on 20th century, experimental dance and women’s studies.  After 17 years of teaching, researching and writing, she found herself ready for a new challenge. 

In addition to her teaching, she had begun doing workshops for artists.  The skills she had developed over the years of asking probing questions, listening carefully, and knowing the cultural issues women cope with came in very useful as women began asking her to work with them one on one. 

Eventually, Ann’s new frontier became combining her journalism, teaching and women’s studies experience into a new profession:  Helping women clarify their vision for living a more gratifying life.


In your coaching experience, what is unique about women’s mid-life search for clarity about what they want for themselves?

What I find unique and love working with is that newfound sense of freedom women in mid-life often have.  The willingness that comes with age to say ‘I don’t care’, ‘I don’t care that you think that’...shedding the desire to please leaves these women in a very powerful place. 

I love working with them in that moment because they’re ready and poised for something new.  Living long enough to lose that baggage of wanting to please our family, our partners, our bosses, and our colleagues gives us a unique power. 


The search for one’s passion/dream can be frustrating.  Knowing what to expect can help people better relax into it.  What do you find is ‘normal’ about a mid-life search for clarity? 

I don’t think of it as ‘normal’ or ‘abnormal' but as an essential process of life.  The basic process of life is to figure out who we are and what our capabilities are.  Stretching and challenging ourselves as far as we can is what makes us feel alive.  Learning, trying and risking new things makes us expand, life gets bigger.  I don’t mean in the sense of having more on our plate but in a sense of being larger in the world, more connected with it and with other people.   

It’s a journey that starts when we’re born and ends when we die.  But unfortunately in our culture, we don’t really learn how to engage with it when we’re young.  When we are coming of age, or graduating from college, or finding our calling, we are more focused on the standards of the external world.  It’s not a bad thing necessarily since we learn some good things from that, but we are trained in life basically by seeking external rewards, not by looking inward. 

So I think that mid-life is an opportunity to re-engage with that process from an internal place.  We can take more control of our journey.  We get the chance to purposefully, intentionally, consciously and joyfully engage that essence of ‘beingness’…even though it can be frustrating at times.