Five Pillars of Healthy Aging

This list comes to me from my Aunt Donna who lives in Jacksonville FL.  She is 82 and lives an active life with her 87-year-old husband Stewart.  She worked as a nurse and director of nursing facilities until she was 75.  

Here are her five pillars of healthy aging – 

(Not old yet?  Yeah – that’s why this is important!) (List by her – comments by me.)

Healthy eating – we all know this, but must be more disciplined in a world that is a supply chain for the opposite.

Adequate sleep – that’s when the body and brain heal and rebuild themselves.

Social support – you’ve got to have family and friends and social interaction.  Live for others, and don’t be lonely.

Exercise – the body houses us.  Use it or lose it.

Challenging your brain with lifelong learning – When you stop learning the brain says “ok, I guess we are winding up this go around”.  Keep learning and growing mentally.

Thanks Aunt Donna!

You must do what you think you cannot do.

Would it be satisfying to do something that you thought you could not do?

What would that do to your thinking after that?

Growth lies outside of our comfort zone.  By definition, growth is doing things we haven’t done before. We create our own boundaries.  Who said you couldn’t do it anyway?  Did you buy into a story that was told to you, or was it just convenient to say you couldn’t do it yourself so you could get out of the work and risk?

You are who you say you are.  Declare something more and take action.  

Amaze yourself.

The superpower state of your mind

Focusing – it’s your superpower to use or ignore.

You can’t accomplish anything meaningful with your mind wandering, scrolling, and in constant distraction.

Do you focus your mind on something important each day?

Yes means no.

You only have so much time.  

When you say yes to something, you are saying no to all the other things you could be spending that time on.

Say yes to something by all means – to the best uses of your time.

Say no to much, by choosing your yeses wisely.

How much should we expect?

I was reading thoughts on expectations, and honestly, most of them were quite negative.  Like this – 

“Expectations are a hunger for the best in a world that too often provides the worst.” – Dr. Mardy

“A life that is burdened with expectations is a heavy life.  Its fruit is sorrow and disappointment.” – Douglas Adams

Wow.  These guys are downers! 

How about this one – “Expectations are resentments waiting to happen” – Anne Lamott

or “Life is so constructed that the event does not, cannot, will not meet the expectation.” – Charlotte Bronte

Ok – I call BS.

Having a positive expectation and a belief in your abilities, a good outcome, and a better future is critical to you doing well!  Period!

It seems the people above are talking about expecting something wonderful that you don’t work for, and persist towards when there are setbacks.  Maybe it was their expectation that in fact was the problem – they expected it would be easy!

We must be skillful at this thing called expectation and belief if we are to live a high-performance life; the balancing of positive expectation with reality.  We must expect to improve, to do well, to become better.  At the same time, we understand what it will take to get there and we are prepared to pay that price.  We make no illusions that other people will deliver success to us.  It’s up to us.

In my time, when I have been most disappointed, I did have high expectations; but they were based on false facts or an absence of facts, or facts I ignored because I wanted it to turn out so badly.  But what happened wasn’t what disappointed me in the end.  I can see now that it was my poor construction of expectations at the beginning that was the setup for the upsetting ending.

I misused my power of imagination and my expectations were fantasy.  My bad.

When some grand expectation is not met, some people stop “dreaming”, or give up and become bitter, and start expecting the worst.  Don’t do that.

Expect that you can do more, be more, and make more great things happen.  Know that some people will help you, some will ignore you, most won’t care about you and your goals (that’s ok), and some will be jealous/envious/or stupid jerks (just get away from them, don’t try to change them).

Get lots of information from the right sources to form challenging but realistic expectations.  If you find your expectations were unrealistic while chasing them, adjust them.

Expect to work hard for what you want.  The greater the goal, the more work and time it will require.

Will you be let down at times?  Yes.  Progress is not a straight line.  But keep going.  Believe in yourself.  And believe in a life of your own construction.

Will everyone see this email?

If it’s inflammatory, stupid or insulting – maybe they will!

Don’t put anything in an email that will embarrass you in the future. 

Assume the whole world will see your email.

New Podcast!

My friend Zach Cohen who runs a Junkluggers franchise in Manhattan and has over 100 employees started a podcast recently.  He interviewed me – and here is the episode!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSz3RKUcTpk

Scarcity conciousness

Scarcity consciousness is thinking that there isn’t enough to go around; that more for them is less for me.

It’s believing in lack, versus abundance.

Scarcity consciousness breeds envy, jealousy, and thoughts of unfairness and injustice.  Often it can be used, consciously or unconsciously, as an excuse for not doing what it takes to share in the abundance that is out there.

The reality is there is plenty to go around. 

See it. 

Move on it as you wish – and as you are willing.

Victim Thinking

There seems to be a lot of this going around today – “I am a victim”.

Are there real “victims” in the world – yes.  But what many point to in order to prove it is just an excuse or failure to take responsibility.

Declaring you’re a victim of some overarching conspiracy and believing it can be self debilitating – especially when you can’t change what you are pointing to as your oppressor/aggresor.  If you believe it, you begin to live like a victim and take your own power away.

Are there people who don’t share your views and goals?  Of course, just as you don’t understand so many others.

Is life hard at times?  Of course.  But “hard” is relative.  Life, on the whole, is very easy by historical standards.

I refuse to be a victim.  I’m going to take advantage of this opportunity.

How about you?

Limitation thinking

Here’s the thing about people – we created our own limits.

We’re like the elephant tied to a stake who can just pull it out if we knew we could.  But we don’t really know we can – until we do it.

Never having done something before is no indication that you can’t do it.

What false box have you created for yourself?