Ep 148: Chrononormativity

So many of my students reach a point in life where they’ve checked all the boxes: career, marriage, kids, home, stability. They’ve climbed every rung of the ladder they were told to climb. And then one day, they look up and think—now what?

In this episode, we explore that moment of disorientation that comes after meeting all of life’s early milestones. You’ll hear why so many of us feel stuck once the path runs out, and how we can begin to build our own ladders, guided by passion, purpose, and authentic desire rather than social expectation.

I’ll share how I discovered the concept of chrononormativity—the belief that our lives should follow a standard, linear timeline of education, work, marriage, kids, and retirement—and how this subtle cultural force can keep us trapped in patterns that look “successful,” but feel hollow.

You’ll hear stories from my own life—dropping out of college to heal, having kids before marriage, walking away from a prestigious leadership role—to illustrate what it looks like to step outside of the “normal” timeline and into a life designed from the inside out.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

• What chrononormativity is and how it quietly shapes our decisions and expectations.
• Why so many high achievers feel lost or bored once they’ve met society’s milestones.
• How to recognize when you’re living by someone else’s timeline instead of your own.
• A powerful exercise to create your next vision from a place of wild, authentic possibility.
• How allowing yourself to imagine something “ridiculous” can lead to your most fulfilled and aligned life.

By the end of this episode, you’ll be invited to question the rules you’ve been following—and to ask yourself where the “acceptable” timeline might be limiting what’s possible for you. Because when you trade expectation for imagination, you unlock the kind of freedom that makes your life feel worth every moment.

Write your vision. Let it feel bold, maybe even a little ridiculous. Because all great ideas do—until they become real.

Mentioned in this episode:

Chrononormativity — a term originally coined by Elizabeth Freeman 

How to connect with Marie:

• On the Web | The Local Bloom
• Instagram: @the.bloom.coach
• All Things Marie on LinkTree

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Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_00 (00:08):
Welcome to the Bloom Your Mind Podcast, where we take
all of your ideas for what youwant and we turn them into real
things.
I'm your host, certified coachMarie McDonald.
Let's get into it.
Hey everybody, welcome toepisode number 148 of the Bloom

(00:33):
Your Mind podcast.
We are creeping up on 150,couple weeks.
I have just spent the last twodays with my videographer.
He is a magical human being.
His name is Tone.
And we are re-recording all ofthe Bloom Room content and a

whole bunch of other content (00:50):
a Make Ideas Real course, a
foundations course, the art ofself-love in course, a time
whispering course, arelationships course.
I have so much content that I'vecreated for y'all.
And I am so excited.
I am just buzzing from thisexperience of recording with
him.

(01:10):
We've got a ton of recordingdays scheduled for the next few
months to get this all down andpolished for you.
Because I have neverprofessionally done it before.
I've always just rolled thecameras and started talking.
And now I have completely, youknow, written everything out and
organized all concepts into sortof a really clear syllabus that

(01:32):
I've spent days and days andweeks and weeks editing so that
it is the most impactful work.
Taking all of my last five yearsof really focused work and study
on this, but really the last 20years of studying all these
concepts that I share with youand, you know, funneling them

(01:53):
down into the most potent piecesof information, the most potent
practices and concepts and waysof thinking about your life and
your body and your mind and theprocess of making any idea that
you have into a real thing.
So I've taken all of these andmade them into these courses,
and it has been so fun torecord.

(02:14):
Today we were just laughingabout how we didn't know what we
were getting into.
We both kind of knew each otherand liked each other, but just
said, Hey, we should we do this?
And after two days of workingtogether, we were just like, we
are a great team.
This is amazing.
And we kept having these momentswhere we would wrap the take on
one of the sessions, and hewould just look up at me and be

(02:36):
like, damn, whoa, boom.
You know, just he was listeningto the content for the first
time and it was landing withhim.
And he said, I am so distractedbecause I just want to take this
course, consume this material.
I am blown away by what I'mhearing, but I'm trying to focus

(02:57):
on your image and like recordingand the white balance.
So it was it was really fun tomake this idea into a real
thing.
And I am on this journey tooffer you so many good things in
2026.
And I'm so glad you're here withme.
So today we're gonna talk aboutsomething that I coach students
on all the time and that I havefor the last five years.

(03:18):
Coach a lot of students on thisexperience of getting past the
first major milestones of lifeand then feeling lost.
Like they had a clear directionfor the first few decades of
life because decisions were setout in front of them to make.
So for all of us, there's thisnarrative that we have these
specific things to decide and toplan for in our first 30 years,

(03:41):
especially if we are traditionalgender roles, traditional gender
identification, traditional kindof roles that we play in
different ways in our life.
There's a lot of this like realnormal stuff we're supposed to
do, which can feel reallyalienating if you don't conform
to those stereotypical genderidentities or roles, right?

(04:05):
But even if you do identify withthose, there's this narrative
that we have these specificthings to decide and plan for,
basically like in our first 30years.
What will we do for a living?
Will we get married?
Will we have kids?
Where will we live?
What are we gonna do?
What do we like?
Many of my students get most ofthat stuff figured out and then
look up and think, now what?

(04:26):
They are so accustomed tomeeting the expectations that
have been set on them that whenthere's not a clear expectation,
it feels like daunting.
And they come to me and theysay, Is this what it's supposed
to all be about?
Like, I'm kind of bored.
And I'm living my days workingand taking care of everybody,
and I'm exhausted, and I justwant to help have some help
finding something more than likekids to wake me up and give me

(04:49):
purpose in the morning.
And I'm like, I got you.
I am all about it.
I am all about helping anybodywho needs it to find where their
passion meets the world's needs,to find ideas for what they want
to put their time and focusinto, what they want to give
their life energy to that willfeel worth it for them, worth

(05:10):
the moments of their life.
I love doing it.
I do it all day, every day withmy students, and it's never too
late to strip the socializedexpectations away, find the
things we're truly passionateabout being and doing and
creating, and creating a life weare obsessed with.
I've seen it over and overagain.
But let's take a step back andlook at how we got there in the

(05:32):
first place.
Why are we so paralyzed andconfused when we've been
climbing this ladder that wasset out for us?
And then all of a sudden wereach up and find that there's
no next rung to climb to.
What I see in my students isthat they're really great at
meeting what's expected of them,at accomplishing what they set
their mind to.

(05:53):
I can relate to that, but theyaren't really clear on what they
want to set their mind to, and Ihave been there.
Our culture has such a clear,normal path for what a human
life is supposed to look likethat when that path gets like
lost in the overgrowth, we feellost.
We aren't accustomed to tappinginto our real authentic desire

(06:14):
and passion and finding newpaths that fit who we want to be
if there isn't a path therealready that someone else has
laid out for us.
I've been coaching my studentson this for years, but I
recently found out that there'sa word for this whole concept
and this whole phenomenon.
It's called chrononormativity.

(06:37):
My husband was actually readinga book next to me in bed on
Sunday morning.
That's my favorite thing.
I get up and make coffee, andthen all four of us sit around
and read and watch the wind blowthe trees around on Sunday
mornings.
Ugh, I love it so much.
So he was reading and he pausedthe book and asked me what this

(06:59):
word meant in the book.
And I didn't know.
So we looked it up.
And here's the definition thatwe found.
Elizabeth Freeman first coinedthis term.
And here's what the definitionis Chrononormativity is the
expectation that our individuallives should follow a standard

(07:19):
linear timeline of stages, suchas education, work, family, and
retirement with milestoneslinked to specific ages.
This creates an artificialstructure of time that dictates
what's normal and what's okayand what's expected for us to do
with our lives.
It encourages maximumproductivity and can lead to

(07:43):
feelings of being kind of out ofsync or ashamed for deviating
from the most normal path.
Okay.
What a brilliant definition.
What a brilliant woman.
And even when we are on thatsocially accepted path, we can
still feel directionless.
When we've been climbing thatladder and then suddenly there's

(08:03):
no clear next rung, like wetalked about, when we're used to
meeting expectations and thenall of a sudden there isn't a
clear next one.
We have to ask ourselves what wevalue, what we want, whether
it's socially acceptable or not.
I will tell you about a fewtimes when I experienced this in
my life.
I'm gonna get real with you.

(08:25):
I started undergrad right afterhigh school.
I went to UCSD, University ofCalifornia, San Diego, at 18
years old, quickly developedanorexia and was like 110
pounds, and dropped out for acouple of years to get better.
Now, that anorexia was, youknow, a product of a lot of
things that I a lot of trauma Ihad lived through as a child.

(08:47):
So it ended up being somethingthat I am grateful for because
it allowed me to put aside, youknow, my focus on understanding
why my brain had gotten offtrack and wanted to not feed my
body because of all these thingsI had witnessed and lived
through.
And it allowed me to rewire mybrain and get better.
But I ended up, you know, beingout of school for a year and

(09:10):
going back about a year later,finishing and going to grad
school.
So like I ended up back on thatchronormativity path, right?
I ended up back on the expectedpath of myself.
So there it is.
But in that year, year and ahalf that I was out of school,
everything felt different.
People talked to me differently.

(09:31):
Dropping out of college, notsucceeding, not knowing what I
was gonna do next, just workingjobs, serving, managing
restaurants, bartending, waitingtables.
It just like people treated medifferently.
And I felt that for the firsttime, this real feeling of like,
huh, this ain't what they want.
And then for the second time, myhusband and I met when I was

(09:54):
about 30 and decided that wewere like ready for whatever the
next thing was when I was 32.
So he said, What do you want todo now?
Do you want me to ask you tomarry me?
I love that he checked in first.
I think it's so weird to justlike, you know, pop the question
on someone if it's in a socialsituation or has a lot of

(10:14):
pressure without like checkingin to make sure that's kind of
like where you want to go next.
It's beautiful, it's great, butalso I was glad to be asked.
So I knew I wanted more than onekid, and it was taking some of
my peers a long time to getpregnant.
So I asked him if we could havea kid first.
I don't want to do all themarriage stuff yet, but I did

(10:36):
someday want to have like a lovefest.
Like I cared about gettingeverybody that I loved together
and everybody that my husbandMax loved together and having
like a three-day party that wasjust a love fest.
I cared a lot about that, but Icared way more about having some
kids first, about making somelittle humans with him.

(10:56):
So when we told people in ourlives that we were having a kid
before getting married, therewas so much weirdness from
people in my life.
And I remember thinking, why doyou care?
This is my life.
And I felt that oddness thatcame from making a decision that
was not in line with the normalpath.
They did not approve.
They were worried about us.

(11:17):
They were worried that wewouldn't make it, all these
things.
I was like, who are you?
You know nothing about ourconnection with one another.
You don't know about us.
Why are you so scared?
Then I remember after gettingmarried and having my kids,
after having that big party,having a second kid, and
excelling in my career, I wasleading an innovation company

(11:38):
and working so much.
I was moving my family to livein LA during summers to oversee
programs and spending most of mytime in operations, on budgets
and strategy and working likenine to 10 hours every single
day by myself while my littleones were in aftercare, before
and after school.
I was missing all this time withtheir tiny little miraculous

(11:59):
selves.
And one day I just thought soclearly, this is not what I
want.
This is what success looks like,but not for me.
And I did the work we're aboutto do and upended everything.
And that was what started me ona path to creating the life I'm
obsessed with that's superauthentic to me that I'm living

(12:19):
now.
I quit my prestigious job tofollow my dream.
And I had the same kind ofreactions from people.
People were scared for me.
There was more belief in mestaying locked in a job that was
burning me out, but that hadclear upward mobility than there
was in me breaking free,doubling down on myself and
pursuing my dreams.

(12:40):
And I just think that's soweird.
I am not down with that.
So, my question for you is whereis the socially acceptable
timeline keeping you stuck inways that you don't want to be
stuck?
Where is chrononormativitylimiting your vision for what's
possible in your life?
What if you listed all the ideasfor what you could do next from

(13:03):
a place of wild blue skythinking and from being
ridiculous at first?
All great ideas sound ridiculousat first.
And then as they become real,they just sound normal, right?
Light bulbs, cars, the internet.
What if you write out a wildvision from the perspective of
your future self that's just soamazing, it feels a little

(13:26):
ridiculous at first.
Make it vivid.
Make it feel like this wilddream feels kind of real.
When I did this, when I wasgetting ready to make the big
change out of that job that Ifelt so stuck in, I remember
typing out the vision I had andsending it to the coach I hired
to help me make this life changeand career change.

(13:47):
I described going from 50-hourwork weeks to working only
during school hours so I couldbe with my kids as much as
possible.
Never have them in aftercareunless they wanted to be.
Working only three to four daysa week, but making twice as much
money as I was making on thenonprofit pay scale for company
leadership.
My vision included coaching,speaking, doing speaking events,

(14:09):
leading group programs, having apodcast, leading retreats, and
being a published author.
And it felt ridiculous at first.
When my coach wrote back that itwas a bold vision, I felt kind
of embarrassed.
Like, oh yeah, it's a littlebold.
But I allowed the feeling to runthrough me instead of shoving it

(14:30):
down or acting it out.
I let it be there.
I allowed it.
I was like, okay, I'membarrassed right now.
It's all right.
And I started making movestoward making the idea for my
future real.
Now it's four years later, andthat is the exact description of
what I do.
I haven't finished and publishedmy book yet, but it's coming.
It's halfway done.

(14:52):
So, where are you fitting intochrononormativity in a way
that's limiting who you can beand what you can offer this
world?
Because you are limitless, myfriend.
And no one else's timeline orexpectations for your life or
any of your business.
Write that vision out and seewhat happens.

(15:14):
That's what I've got for youthis week.
And I will see you next week.

(15:45):
We're all there to make ourideas real.
One idea at a time.