The countdown to the biggest day in sports is here. After the thrilling NFC and AFC playoffs, here’s where to buy Super Bowl tickets for 2024 so you don’t miss out on the action. The Super Bowl started in 1966 as part of a merger between the National Football League and the American Football League. […]
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Victorian era author George Eliot wrote, “It’s never too late to be who you might have been.” Do you believe Eliot’s quote is true for you? If you do, you will want to develop a growth mindset to bring forth your innermost desires and dreams.
Developing a growth mindset is essential for achieving your dreams. It is also beneficial to your personal growth, resilience, and embracing new opportunities.
This may sound good, but how do you develop a growth mindset after 60?
In the sixth and final article and video of a six-part series on “Living Your Dreamlife in 2024”, we are going to explore 10 steps to achieving your dreams with a growth mindset.
A growth mindset is open to exploring new ways of being, doing, and experiencing life. It is not fixated on what the past was and instead, is curious and excited to explore new beliefs, behaviors, and opportunities in the present.
On the opposite side is a fixed mindset. With this approach to life, your mind is filled with fear, doubt, and limiting beliefs, all of which are fixed ideas about how life is supposed to be rather than what life can be.
You can easily distinguish between the voices of these two mindsets.
The voice of a fixed mindset is often associated with your inner critic, who will criticize and find fault with any new ideas, beliefs, or opportunities for true growth.
On the other hand, the voice of a growth mindset is expressed through the voice of your true, authentic self. This voice encourages you to be curious and learn new things, viewing the path to your dreams through an open mind and an open heart.
When you are seeking to develop a growth mindset, here are some common challenges you might face:
Failures or regrets from the past can amplify these perceived challenges, making it difficult to embrace growth and move forward.
Letting go of these past experiences with love and forgiveness will help you reframe your perception of what is possible for you today and into the future.
Here are 10 proven steps you can take to cultivate a growth mindset after 60.
Rather than saying no to new opportunities, get into the habit of saying YES!
Challenges are not indicators you are not deserving of your dreams. They are gifts, representing unique opportunities for growth.
The more self-aware you are, the less likely you are going to be manipulated by your inner critic or influenced by limiting beliefs or other people’s negativity.
Without the curiosity to explore new ways of achieving your dreams, your life will become stagnant. Embrace the new and watch your dreams materialize with ease.
You are always evolving and growing. Therefore, the idea of perfection is an illusion. Rather than seek perfection, focus on progress.
A setback is not a failure when you learn a valuable lesson that accelerates your learning curve and puts you on the path to your dreams. By reframing a perceived setback, you open yourself up to a whole new way of living.
Allow yourself to be inspired by other people’s achievements. A fixed mindset criticizes those who are successful. Whereas a growth mindset seeks inspiration and empowerment in a variety of people.
Big dreams can be intimidating. Set small goals that evolve with more achievable milestones. With a goal that stretches out over time you stretch yourself outside of your comfort zone.
Having a growth mindset doesn’t mean you don’t get frustrated; it means you have compassion for yourself and can celebrate progress. Nothing does this better than self-love.
Appreciation is the rocket fuel for your dreams. When you reflect on the journey to your dreams, do so with appreciation. This is about being grateful and not resentful.
When it comes to developing a growth mindset it is important to remember this is an ongoing process. Regularly engage in journaling to explore your thoughts, challenges, and progress.
Also, be sure to adapt and modify your approach to these 10 steps, including adding in your steps that are not listed here.
Everyone’s approach will be different. Keep an open mind and allow your true, authentic self to lead the way to fulfilling your dreams in 2024 and beyond.
I invite you to join me in the video where I will share insights on overcoming challenges to developing a growth mindset. I will also guide you through five journal prompts to help you integrate what you are learning.
Have you developed a growth mindset after 60? In what ways has it helped you enjoy more out of life? If you’re not there yet, what steps are you ready to take to shift from fixed to growth mindset?
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Are you sick of it yet… all the tips and tricks for making New Year’s Resolutions? And at the same time, all of the depressing stats on how quickly we fail (by mid-January!) at keeping those resolutions? Don’t get me wrong. I am a huge fan and believer in being intentional about starting the year with efforts at improving some aspect of life. But maybe there is a better approach.
“Planuary” is a term that seems to have picked up in popularity over the last couple of years. It playfully combines “January” and “plan” to create a word that implies a planning theme for the first month of the year. I love the flexible and ongoing aspect of that idea. The hardest part remains, however, and that is getting started.
One acronym motivates me to take action because it really says it like it is: IYADWYADYAGWYAG (If You Always Do What You Always Did, You Always Get What You Always Got). In other words, if you don’t make a change, nothing changes (or improves!). So let’s get started!
The most common areas we want to improve are diet, exercise, and finances. No matter which one you tackle, coming up with a plan to implement over time will result in more success than trying to do it all cold turkey in a day or two. And then there’s the whole idea that it takes 3+ weeks to turn an action into a new habit.
So planning needs to involve beginning with the end result identified, breaking that into small steps, and then writing them down within a timeframe. You are kind of backing into the goal by breaking it down into doable actions over a realistic period of time. There is a variety of tools out there to help with that process. Sounds so simple, doesn’t it?
Being in the financial industry, I want to share some tools for planning to improve your finances. From my experience, having your financial house in order is the foundation for making wise financial decisions so that is my recommended theme for everyone to start with. Once you see and know what you have, it becomes clearer what you need to improve and do next.
January, or whatever month you start this planning to get your financial house in order, is a great time to fill in a new calendar for the year to schedule your plan of attack. The Financial Awareness Foundation created a free Financial Planning Calendar for exactly that. It gives pre-filled suggested actions and leaves blank lines for you to add your own.
This planning calendar is broken down by months of the year so you can space out your efforts to be accomplished reasonably over time. And it helps avoid overwhelm since each month you are only looking at the tasks for that month, not focusing on the full list for the year. If you are looking for specific personal finance action items that are timely to different months of the year, Schwab has a recent article with several ideas as well.
Another option is to work with how our brains work naturally. Our brains seem to do best in remembering and avoiding overwhelm by keeping our focus to no more than three things at a time. So that is the philosophy behind my Money Makeover Checklist, another planning approach to getting your financial house in order. There are three tasks to complete each month. And you might even have some of them already completed so your homework may only be one or two actions each month!
And if you find checklists to be super helpful, my Everyone Bundle includes dozens of checklists and fillable PDFs to help you get your financial house in order with the goal of getting your estate planning complete and ready for life’s unexpected events. We all have an expiration date, but we don’t know when it is, so be prepared!
Or if you prefer a fill-in-the-blank workbook approach, there are several out there to choose from. A shorter version is Getting Your Life Together Organizer written by a professional organizer or a more comprehensive version is And Then There Was One written by a widow who wrote it in hindsight (what she wished she would have had in place).
One last resource I came across is super helpful for many planning efforts. Whether you are focused on diet, exercise, or some other aspect of living a healthier lifestyle, you will love these too. Post-it notes! Not your everyday yellow or neon-colored Post-it notes. Post-it brand actually has note pads that are designed for helpful planning things like:
The wisest aspect of the “Planuary” concept is that your effort is an ongoing process that allows you to start with a plan that can evolve over time as needed. Remember, IYADWYADYAGWYAG. So what are you waiting for?
What planning tips or tools have you used? What’s your motivation as we start a new year? Anything to share with our community?
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As women get older, their risk for developing pelvic floor disorders increases immensely, specifically the disorder known as pelvic organ prolapse, which affects 50% of women worldwide. This disorder occurs when the pelvic floor muscles that support pelvic organs, including the vagina, rectum, bladder and uterus, begin to weaken, causing these organs to drop down and peak out of the vagina.
The main symptom to monitor that is associated with pelvic floor prolapse is the feeling of an uncomfortable and apparent bulge out of the vagina, along with a heaviness or increased pressure in the pelvis. While this is most obvious symptom, there a couple additional signs women can experience, including:
Typically, anything that puts pressure on the abdomen can cause pelvic floor prolapse, such as a weak pelvic floor triggered by pregnancy, labor or childbirth. Genetics can also play a role in this disorder, where some women are simply born with weaker connective tissues and are more prone to the condition.
Other causes include aging, increased waist circumference, constipation, having a respiratory condition causing someone to cough excessively, pelvic organ cancers and even surgery that removes the uterus.
When going through prolapse, a prominent side effect is women experiencing urinary retention, which can lead to urinary incontinence – specifically overflow and urge incontinence. It’s been found that up to 60% of women presenting with pelvic organ prolapse are also diagnosed with urinary incontinence, and close to 40% of women presenting urinary incontinence, in turn, are found to have some degree of pelvic organ prolapse.
Incontinence occurs when the bladder is unable to fill up as much, and as a result, causes people to urinate more frequently. On the other hand, rectal prolapse can cause constipation and difficulty evacuating the bowels, putting pressure on the bladder and causing it to not be fully emptied.
Before beginning pelvic floor exercises, it’s important to understand the different levels of pelvic floor prolapse.
Grade 1 – Cervix or bladder drops into the vagina
Grade 2 – The Cervix or bladder drops right at the opening of the vagina
Grade 3 – The Cervix or bladder is outside the vagina
Grade 4 – The full uterus or bladder is outside of the vagina (also known as procidentia)
Depending on which grade a woman is experiencing, there are different exercises that can improve pelvic prolapse from 1-2 grades. For example, someone experiencing grade 2 can move back down to grade 1 or all the way back to normal if they perform the appropriate exercises.
While exercise does not completely cure prolapse, it’s still an important preventative measure that can help increase chances of the pelvic organs returning to the correct location. Common pelvic floor exercises include kegels, which are known to strengthen pelvic floor muscles.
The best way to know if you’re doing a pelvic floor squeeze or kegel correctly is to place your finger vaginally, squeeze the muscles around your finger, and then push your finger up towards the belly button to engage the correct muscles.
This can also be done to stop urination mid-stream. While starting pelvic floor exercises on your own is a great start, seeking guidance and advice from a therapist or specialist is the best practice to ensure you are properly engaging the correct muscles and taking the proper precautionary steps.
Another way to treat pelvic floor prolapse non-surgically is through Peseries, which are vaginal, internal supportive devices for the bladder, uterus, vagina and rectum, designed to provide support for drooping organs.
While surgery to fix pelvic prolapse should be a last resort, a common surgical intervention to repair prolapse is a hysterectomy for uterine prolapse or to repair the vaginal wall if there is bladder prolapse. However, for someone still in their childbearing years, the option of undergoing hysteropexy for uterine prolapse instead, which is where the uterine can be pulled up and the structure of the cervix can be kept, is a common treatment method.
Lastly, those suffering from pelvic prolapse can also opt for localized hormone therapy treatment. This method is used specifically for women who are experiencing genitourinary symptoms from menopause, and helps thicken up vaginal tissues, resulting in stronger pelvic muscles to prevent increased prolapse.
Pelvic floor disorders in women become more common as they age, and although conditions like pelvic floor prolapse cannot be prevented completely, there are many measures women can take – such as maintaining a healthy weight, taking part in pelvic floor exercises and not smoking – to lower their chances of contracting the disorder and improve their lifestyles with the overall condition.
If you are experiencing pelvic pressure and symptoms of prolapse, do not wait for symptoms to progress and visit your healthcare provider immediately to start working on a treatment plan and begin practicing the necessary preventative steps.
Have you experienced pelvic floor prolapse? What has your health care provider recommended? Has any exercise or treatment helped? What was it? Do you have any questions you’d like answered?
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A month or so into winter now. Short days, lots of rain, sometimes heavy. And quite a few cold, grey days. It’s not all miserable and depressing though, as we have the wild Atlantic on our doorstep, with kilometers of coastal boardwalks for exercise and fresh sea air.
It’s a spectacle to watch the majestic waves curling and crashing onto the beaches when storms brew offshore.
But if warm, clear days and a sunshine fix is what one needs, it isn’t always practical to just up and jet off to some sun-soaked destination. What can one do?
What would be wonderful is a mental ‘tele-transporter’, to borrow an idea from Star Trek, to sidestep the less appealing side of winter for something more uplifting. We’re not there yet with tele-transporter technology. But might it be possible to improvise?
A great way is to have something exciting and memorable in the pipeline to look forward to. Everyone will make their own choices on what that might be, depending on their circumstances and interests.
And for us this turns out to be our next adventure trip later this year. A trip to hike some of the Via Francigena trail in Tuscany, Italy. Probably about 10 days of hiking, or about 180km, from Lucca south towards Rome. For us this is super-exciting and adds to our experience of hiking in many countries.
Choosing and planning the trip is a great way for us to keep the winter months buzzing with a sense of anticipation. Giving the imagination some ammunition and freedom to conjure up scenes and paint mind-pictures around the possibilities.
I think we all do this – imagining people, places, things before the event, before we’ve ever set eyes on any of them. And it’s all part of the fun, part of human nature.
The reason we’ve chosen this particular adventure is we enjoy classic multi-day hiking trails and exploring the historic villages and towns along the way. And my lovely partner has a smattering of Italian from her younger years. It’s also within a couple of hours’ flight from the airport that’s very convenient to our home.
But, how ambitious or extravagant an adventure is enough, or too much? It all depends.
Setting the scene for us, our combined age is just one year shy of 140 years. So it’s not as if one has to be Gen Z or Millennial to push the boat out like this. Though if one has had a sedentary lifestyle over the long haul, I wouldn’t recommend starting with something at this level. We’ve been quite active for as long as I can remember and plan to keep that up.
The idea of where to go or what to do can come from anywhere. Maybe something we’ve read, seen on TV, or someone has mentioned. So, we’d recommend keeping an open mind if one is in the market for some kind of adventure.
For us, the best ideas have come from personal contacts, recommendations and conversations. A few examples would be the Camino Frances in Spain, the Le Puy Chemin in France, some adventures and hikes in Brazil, Ireland, the UK, etc. And so many still to do.
Of course the Internet is a great source of information and ideas. But we found it better for just filling in the blanks, like maps, prices, best flight and accommodation bookings, all that sort of thing, once we had discovered a really interesting idea and wanted to look closer.
Sixty and Me has tons of travel ideas to offer.
The issue with placing too much reliance on information from the Internet is credibility and verifiability. It can be a challenge to discern between genuine information and misinformation, such as fake reviews, exaggeration, bias, vested interests, and the like.
While companies like Google do a creditable job in the online security and safety space, one also needs to be careful of potentially malicious websites and bad online actors in general. A good motto is to take nothing on the Internet as gospel and use other methods to cross-check and verify critical information.
But a good balance between experience, ideas and recommendations from word-of-mouth sources, and online sources should set us up to have a great time. Wonderful aspects of a unique, ‘personalised’, adventure like this are many. Such as the planning, excitement of imagining what it could be like, packing our bags and departing, and finally coming back with stories and memories to treasure. And maybe giving others ideas for their adventures.
I guess one of the important things for us is we have kept fairly close to themes that we’ve always enjoyed, and stable countries we know well. Due to the scope and depth of our experience , we haven’t felt the need to go for pre-packaged adventures. I guess another motive for our approach is we prefer to be independent rather than part of a group with a ‘tightly-defined’ program.
Others may prefer to leave the organisation and program to a tour operator. That’s fine if it’s what one prefers and there’s no shortage of great possibilities.
Certainly, the experience to put together a practical, workable plan is important. And it’s usually great fun to improvise on the finer details on the ground. We’ve found that’s where the most memorable and fun experiences come from, including connecting with and tapping into local knowledge.
The Italians are well-known for their friendly, helpful nature. And looking forward to the authentic Italian cuisine, hoping the hiking is enough to burn off some of the pasta and pizza calories.
If you like walking adventures, you can further read ARE YOU A WALKING ENTHUSIAST? 6 TIPS TO ENJOY A WALKING VACATION EXPERIENCE AFTER 60.
Do you use the cold months to plan for warmer weather adventures? What are you planning for this year? Where did you get your trip idea? Do you prefer to plan your own trip itinerary or depend on tour operators?
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