"Your life is a do-over," says Billy Crystal in City Slickers. "You've got a clean slate."

Crystal is addressing his pal who, nearing 40, feels he is at a dead-end. "I've wasted my life." Brunno Kirby's character laments. Crystal tells him that he can start over again. His life can be a do-over. In 1991 City Slickers touched a huge nerve with the emerging middle-aged and ushered in a flurry of copycat do-over films.

In Regarding Henry, Harrison Ford plays a sociopathic lawyer shot in a hold-up attempt outside his New York high-rise. The injury erases his memory and gives him the chance to start over in childlike innocence.

In The Doctor, William Hurt experiences a conversion of compassion as this surgeon-turned-patient realizes his former callousness.

In Grand Canyon, a Los Angeles couple decides that things don't just happen in life, but are miracles with a design. The insight changes their midlife perspective and gives them a new purpose for living.

Similarly, Fried Green Tomatoes with Kathy Bates (where Bates laments, "I'm too old to be young and too young to be old") and Groundhog Day with Bill Murray (where Murray has to get today right before he can experience a tomorrow) are do-over films.

Even the Peter Pan sequel, Hook, is not primarily a children's fairy tale. It's a film for midlifers who have forgotten the values and dreams of their youth. In it the modern Pan, played by Robin Williams, gets a chance at a do-over when he revisits the land of his youth, recovers his courage, rekindles his imagination, and remembers his happy thoughts.

Why has Hollywood focused on do-over films for adults? Perhaps it's because we midlife moviegoers long for a chance to recapture the best of our youth, a chance to make up for past mistakes and a chance to start over with a more meaningful and productive life. If you, like me, feel ready for a midlife do-over, I have three suggestions.

Before you decide what to change in midlife, you must decide what to keep. Make a list of your values, strengths and interests. What will you build upon in the second half of life? In City Slickers Crystal decides to hang on to and enhance his role as husband and father.

On the other h and, William Hurt in The Doctor decides that he is lacking compassion in his medical practice. He has been a skillful surgeon; now he will also be a caring one. Once you have decided what to keep at midlife, decide what you will change. What can be improved upon to make you even better at what you do?

How will you accomplish your midlife do-over? What is needed to enhance your strengths and improve your weaknesses? In Regarding Henry Harrison Ford decides a change of vocation is necessary. He can no longer be a lawyer and accomplish what he wants in life. Besides new vocations, do-overs sometimes require new educations, new schedules, a new locales and new friends.

Tomorrow is not just another day on the calendar; it's also the first day of the rest of your life. What can you do to begin your midlife do-over? Sketch out a plan and get started. Your best years are yet to come.