MINDSET: Letting Go of Thinking Getting Old Has to Feel Bad
If it feels like you’re aging quickly, have more bad days than good, that every passing year you feel worse, it’s because you’re not giving yourself more options. You also might be devoted to the mindset that things are the way they are, or how they are “supposed to be at this age.” But aging isn’t what’s making you feel bad.
The culprit to feeling bad can be found in your habitual, repetitive daily movements, your commitment to them and the way you think about how things are supposed to be as you get older.👈🏼 It’s not aging that injures us, it’s having those habitual movement patterns - which may be problematic - for a really long time. And being stuck in the mindset that “it’s too late for change” is never going to get you the results you long for.
We so easily succeed when it comes it committing to our long-practiced daily habits. Yet we readily give up on change when we think about making a commitment to doing something different in order to feel better, either through movement, nourishment or mindset. We often don’t realize that to change decades of only doing or seeing things one way, or only eating one way, requires an even greater commitment to experiencing them differently. Your nervous system has adapted to the easiest method of surviving in the world as you. Let’s not mistake easy with beneficial.
Many of us live along the trajectory of convenience and impulse and desiring instant gratification and results, but then offer no variety or resistance as balance into the equation. This is why it seems like we are aging faster and that our efforts to make a change never seem to yield any positive results. What we fail to recognize is, this significant imbalance we may feel in our bodies and minds NOW, took YEARS to take up residence in us. Consequently, we also fail to recognize that although making a positive change requires a massive effort from us, it only needs to be tended to a little bit every day for you to develop commitment to sticking with it, and to see positive results present over time.
We have to SHOW UP TO DO THE WORK - which can be as little as 5 or 10 minutes every
day. The time required to wait in the drive-up line for your Dunkin’ Donuts, Iced Tea, 5-10 minutes - we don’t even think twice about. Why is it then, that we spend so much energy on validating all of the reasons we DON’T have 5-10 minutes to dedicate to our wellbeing, to feeling like we have some control over how we get to feel as we get older?
Without introducing variability into our lives, into our daily movements and into other less than healthy habits, we just end up with more of the same, and the way we feel about ourself only worsens. At first, of course making lifestyle changes are not easy work, but in variability, and accountability through regular commitment - by being devoted to our well being and longevity - we eventually discover freedom from our long-standing aches, pains and repetitive work or play habits and injuries. WE FEEL HAPPIER and WE FEEL YOUNGER!
If you are trying your best to stick to your new year’s intentions, MINDSET is the glue that will help you gravitate towards success. Your mindset is what will help slow down your aging trajectory. 🛑 Stop thinking the way you feel now has to do with how old you are! Not only are our repetitive movements injurious to us as we age, so is this way of thinking about what it’s supposed to feel like “getting older.” Anything that has been done, can be undone to the degree where a sense of freedom can be discovered. 🌀
🎯 Start showing up for the you you wish you felt like everyday you don’t feel like showing up! Nothing that lasts is ever easy work. And you won’t ever feel proud of yourself for accomplishing something easy.