| Welcome! Are you approaching 60 and a bit bothered about it? If you want to make peace with and live joyously at 60 & beyond, you’re in the right place. |
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Bonnie McFarland has a message for you about savoring your sixties. To watch it, click the picture above and then click the play arrow. |
Baby boomers have quite the track record for changing society. Retirement will be no different. Our retirement is not going to be like our parents retirement.
A recent US News article lists 10 ways that baby boomers will reinvent retirement from living longer to retiring with debt to staying active.
What do you think? How will your retirement differ from your parents? Or from even what you might have thought it would be? Click on Comments, scroll down, & write away.
What could help you slow aging, fight illness and depression, and prolong life?
Friends!
Of course, we know how important friends are. But science is now catching up with recent studies showing friends make your life better in many different ways.
In a New York Times article Tara Parker-Pope wrote about researchers who took students to the base of a steep hill and fitted them with weighted backpacks.
“The students were then asked to estimate the steepness of the hill. Some participants stood next to friends during the exercise, while others were alone.
The students who stood with friends gave lower estimates of the steepness of the hill. And the longer the friends had known each other, the less steep the hill appeared.”
Turning 60, being in your sixties, aging. These can be steep hills in your life. May you stand with friends during these times.
What do friends mean to you? How strong is your support system? Click on Comments, scroll down, and write away.
Gratitude is a cornerstone of joyous living. We can never have too much gratitude.
Brother David Steindl-Rast will fill you with gratitude, and perhaps even joy for “This Good Day.” Give yourself the gift of 5 minutes to experience this moving video.
Remember when you were younger & got a pimple on your face? Ick!
The whole world revolved around that pimple.
It was huge. It was blaring. It was screaming on your face.
You knew everyone was focusing on your pimple. That’s all they saw when they looked at you.
How could you possibly go out with that pimple on your face? What could you do to hide it? When would it ever go away?
As you grew older, you came to realize people were more focused on themselves than you. Most of them didn’t even notice if you had a god-awful pimple!
You also realized your pimple wasn’t you. It wasn’t even your face.
The pimple wasn’t really all that big. It didn’t matter all that much.
You were so much more than your pimple.
What if being in your sixties is like a pimple?
No one but you really notices or cares all that much.
You are not your age.
Your age doesn’t matter than much.
And you are so much more.
What do you think? Click on Comments, scroll down, and write away.
Growing older is the best birthday present according to a recent Dear Abby column. The column is about turning 50 but the same wisdom applies to turning 60.
Abby and her readers make some excellent points about celebrating and being grateful for more years.
Not everyone gets to have 60 or even 50 years alive on this earth!
Yep, there can be some challenges to aging. But it’s better than the alternative, isn’t it?
Thoughts? Click on Comments, scroll down, and write away.
“Baby boomers are going to do something quite spectacular.” according to Daniel Pink, author of A Whole New Mind,in an interview with Oprah.
“They say, ‘Sixty’s not old. Oh, I’ve got 25 years left.’
Then they look back 25 years and say, ‘Holy smokes, that sure happened fast. Are the next 25 years going to happen as fast?
And if they are, what’s my legacy going to be? When am I going to live my best life? What kind of imprint am I going to leave on the world?’”
Baby boomers aren’t going to be content with doing nothing after 60.
Sure, we may take more time for rest, relaxation, and recreation. But we’re also looking for meaning and fulfillment.
As more boomers cross the 60 threshold, we’ll see countless examples of women living rich, full, joyous, and meaningful lives at 60 and beyond. Hooray!
What willl you do with the gift of possibly 25 more years? What does your best life after 60 look like?
Tell us by clicking on Comments, scrolling down to the form, and writing away.
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Turning 60 and bothered about it?
If you’re like many women “in the neighborhood” of 60, you are feeling apprehensive or concerned about being in your sixties. You might even be dreading it.
Yep, some women just sail through 60 but many other aren’t feeling good about their future and don’t know what kind of future they would feel good about.
If you want to live with joy, passion, and purpose at 60 and beyond here are five steps to help you move from dread to delight, from struggling with 60 to savoring your sixties.
Did you know you had an internal GPS?
What “lights you up” – what energizes and enlivens you – is your own wise, simple, easily accessible guidance system for your life.
Paying attention to what lights you up (and what doesn’t) connects you with your inner GPS. That guidance system points the way to a life you will love, a life with energy, aliveness, vitality, passion, joy, and purpose.
Make a Lights List for yourself. Tune into your inner GPS as you do this.
What lights you up? What energizes and enlivens you? What brings a smile to your face just thinking about it?
Now do more of the things on your list more often.
When you do more of what you love, you’ll find more joy in each day
Well, duh! Isn’t this obvious? Yes, and it’s amazing how many of us are so focused on the busyness, the “shoulds,” and the routines of life that we forget about ourselves and what we want.
If turning 60 or being in your 60s troubles you, you’ve likely got some fears about this time of your life.
Take some time to identify your fears.
Which ones can you do something about? Do what you can do.
Which ones can’t you do anything about? Find ways to accept and make peace with what you can’t change or control.
Remind yourself of what has helped you deal with life’s challenges in the past.
Meditation? Exercise? Talking with trusted friends? Being in the present moment? Time in nature? Ways of quieting your Monkey Mind?
Whatever life tools have helped you before, bring them out now and put them to work on your 60s challenges.
You know you’re not ready for life to be over at 60. But what is your vision for your life in the next year or five years or 10 years?
Take some quiet time by yourself to reflect on what you truly, deeply want in your life. Don’t worry about if or how it could happen. For now, assume anything is possible (which it just might be!)
Ask yourself, “If I could wave a magic wand, what would I ask for in my life? What would I want my life to be like?”
Again, pay attention to what lights you up, to your inner GPS as you do this.
When you have a clear, compelling, energizing vision, it’s much easier to get excited about your future.
Now it’s time to begin taking action to bring your vision to life.
Let your lights, your internal GPS guide you in choosing which actions to take.
What lights you up? Where do you have some energy? What are you curious about? Take those steps next.
You don’t have to be miserable while you’re on the path to what you want. The steps toward your vision can be energizing and enlivening, not more draining tasks to do.
Lights on actions immediately put more of what you love into your life. They create more energy to move you toward your vision. Plus they make the journey – and your life – more fun!
Tune into your internal GPS.
Do more of what you love.
Face your fears.
Create a vision for your life.
Take energizing steps in the direction of your vision.
These five steps can help you move from dreading your sixties to delighting in them, from struggling with 60 to savoring your sixties.
P.S. I’ll be writing more about these five steps as well as offering individual and group coaching for women who want additional support applying the steps to their own lives.
In the meantime . . .What do you think about these steps? What questions do you have? What else would you like to know? Click on Comments below and write away.
All of us experience dark times. Times when we are discouraged and want to give up. Times when we fail. Times when we stumble and fall.
Nick Vujicic, a man with no arms and no legs, shows us the strength to get back up. This video is less than 3 minutes and well worth watching.
Nick will move you, give you perspective on your challenges, and inspire you to make the most of the life you have been given.
What helps you get back up? Click on Comments, scroll down, and tell us.
“60 is a good neighborhood to be in,” said my friend.
“When I turned 60, I decided to make a decade resolution. I had done something similar when I was 50 although I didn’t think of my plan then as a 10 year deal. It led to my adopting my 3 kids which is more of a lifelong commitment.
This time I resolved to take a lot more and better vacations, both explorations of places I hadn’t seen and relaxing days doing nothing. So far, at 62, I’ve made very good on my resolution with some amazing trips already.”
Personally I’m not a fan of resolutions but I found this idea intriguing. You could tweak my friend’s idea a bit and make it a focus or a theme for your 60’s. Or maybe resolution works for you.
What do you think? What would you like your resolution/focus/theme for your 60s to be? Click on Comments below, scroll down, and write away.
Do you realize the critical importance of taking care of yourself?
If so, your next question might be “What do I do to take care of myself?” (If not, please read Healthy Selfishness.)
There is a long list of “shoulds” for self-care –- exercise, eat healthy, meditate, and so on.
While all of these can be good for you, I recommend a different approach to self-care.
To get the most impact and the best refueling from your self-care time, do something that “lights you up.” Choose an activity that energizes, delights, soothes, or nurtures you.
My clients’ “lights on” activities have included getting a massage, singing karaoke, reading trash magazines, having dinner with friends, practicing yoga, taking a ten minute walk in nature, and planning a vacation to a favorite place.
The possibilities are endless and each person’s “lights on” list is different.
What energizes, enlivens delights, soothes, or nurtures you?
Take a moment to identify some things you love to do. Perhaps those things you never make time to enjoy. Get these ideas out of your head and onto paper.
Better yet, add some of these to the top – yes, the top – of your to-do list — and then do some of them!
Notice how your energy increases when you take a little bit of time to do something just for yourself, something that lights you up.
So go ahead and be “selfish” now and then.
Put yourself at the top of your to do list.
Healthy selfishness just may be the best thing you can do for yourself, the people around you, and the world.
Enjoy!
How are you doing with healthy selfishness? Click on Comments, scroll down to the form, and write away.
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