People over 50. You need a mindset shift.

“A human being would certainly not grow to seventy or eighty years old if this longevity had no meaning for the species. The afternoon of human life must also have a significance of its own and cannot be merely a pitiful appendage to life’s morning.” – Carl Jung.

How did we get to this point in our lives?

It’s time to stop reacting to life like you’ve done for the past thirty-odd years. Remember when you were twenty and felt like you were invincible. You had places to be and a life to carve out for yourself. Your status needed to be elavated, and could take on anything that got in your way. You had a natural focus on what you wanted from life as you went about building your new place in the world. Over the next thirty years, you’ve somehow lost that swagger and become comfortable with your lot in life. During this period, you were in the prime of your life, and you could react to anything with all the experience you’d gained from the old, hard-knock life. You put your head down and just got on with it.  And that was your downfall because you failed to recognise the signs of decline. We all did.

You told yourself it was just that time of life. Another cliché that you started to believe was that feeling invisible was just part of growing old. You told yourself not to speak up because you don’t matter in this young person’s world. I know that because I slipped into that thinking a while back. We believe the premise that middle-aged and older people don’t matter that much in this modern world. Well, you prove them right when you accept that future for yourself.

“Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you are probably right” – Henry Ford

Don’t accept or believe how the world sees you.

I, for one, no longer accept how the world or others see me. I certainly won’t model my life on the fact that I don’t matter anymore. But that is not always the case for so many over forty or fifty.

A few years back, when I crossed the half-century milestone, I felt myself taking stock of my world and my place in it. I was in a good place in my career – an IT contractor that covered the cost of my photography trips around the world. Nonetheless, I looked back on my life and felt a sense of grief for all those abandoned or unfulfilled dreams. Life and society had conditioned me to look back at my youthful self and project where I should have been by now. It guided my thinking to use this gaping divide of failure to beat myself up as punishment.

If you’re in midlife, you’re probably here too. So, what can you change to look forward with excitement?

Stop looking back

It’s easy to focus on that gap to where you should have been by now, but it’s a pointless exercise. Your life didn’t follow those perceived goals and dreams because living got in the way. Sure, you could learn the lessons from that path and analyse the successes, then leave them there, but you can’t change a thing. Shift your mindset to make the most of the time you’ve left. Stop dwelling on the time you think you’ve wasted in your life.

Don’t listen to those morons who make you feel like you don’t matter anymore, and that includes yourself. Stop asking yourself what the point of it all is because you think you messed up your life.

Focus on the path ahead. And if that’s a little hazy, clouded or hard to see through, then that’s a perfect starting point. The next part is supposed to be hard. It is supposed to help you revive that hunger to steel yourself for the uncertainty ahead. What you want from your twenty-year-old self is that same inner self-belief and confidence. There is a significant difference between your young self and your current self – you now possess all the expertise in the world that you didn’t have then.

Shift from past focus to future belief.

Now, I can see you sitting there, wondering how to shift your mindset to help bring about change. How much can you really offer your family, friends and close community, especially after a few decades of navel-gazing, self-diagnosed depression, and low-energy activity?

We all hate change because it’s about letting go of something comfortable and known. You have to let go of one thing to be able to grab onto the next thing. It’s going to take a short journey of understanding, followed by a longer journey to effect the change you want. And it’s not going to be easy because if it were, you’d have done it by now.

Three key factors need to be rectified to create a better future for yourself:

1. The state of your mindset.
2. Changing ingrained patterns and beliefs
3. And, a strategy (or plan and goals) to achieve it all

We’ll focus on the first one today.

Mindset change

The first step is to determine whether you have a fixed or growth mindset. Then, you need to examine what you truly want in life, which is typically a vision or purpose that guides you forward—something on the horizon that keeps you going in the right direction.

So, what are the two main types of mindsets?

Fixed Mindset:

People with a fixed mindset believe their abilities and intelligence are fixed and unchangeable, and if they try anything new, they will show their stupidity. They avoid challenges for fear of failure because it reflects on their perceived limitations. They tend to believe that effort is unnecessary for the talented and are often threatened by the success of others.

Here are some classic narratives of those over fifty who have a fixed mindset. Do you find yourself saying these things in conversation or thinking them on a regular basis?

• I’m too old to do it
• I’m just not very good at this
• Some people are just naturally talented, and I’m not
• This is just how I am. I can’t change
• It’s too late for me to learn this
• If I try and fail, it will prove I’m not good enough
• It’s better to stick with what I know I can do
• It should come easily to me if I’m meant to do it
• What’s the point? I’ll never be as good as [insert name]
• Other’s success just shows how much further ahead everyone else is
• They were just lucky/had an advantage

If these resonate with you, you need to shift your mindset before you can create a meaningful purpose or vision for your future. You need to change gears here to a life of growth.

Growth Mindset:

Individuals with a growth mindset believe their abilities and intelligence can be developed through dedication and hard work. They embrace challenges and see failure as an opportunity to learn and grow. They value effort as a path to mastery and are inspired by the success of others.

Here is some classic self-talk you may find in people over fifty who have a growth mindset. If you’re feeling stuck, you should try to reframe or switch to these ones.

• I’m not good at this yet, so what can I do to improve
• I can learn this. How can I improve?
• I can develop this skill. Practice will help
• I can still learn and change by taking small steps forward.
• It’s never too late. My experience helps me.
• Failure helps me learn, so I will continue to improve
• Growth happens outside my comfort zone. I’ll give it a try
• Mistakes help me learn, and it’s okay to ask
• I’m open to new ideas and suggestions because others might see things I’ve missed

I undertook this exercise a few years ago and discovered that I’d become closed off and fixed in my thinking, constantly feeling stuck. Something had switched. There I was, living in the present, comparing it to my past with all its failed aspirations. I had totally forgotten about my future.

Changes need to be made and decided I need to switch my mindset again.

I achieved this by determining where I wanted to be in ten years across various aspects of my life, including career, relationships, health, finances, growth and learning, and recreation. A new bucket list of places I wanted to travel to was drawn up with things I wanted to do, and interests I wanted to improve at.

I also got my wife involved in working on where she wanted to be in ten years. It was a great exercise to sit together and make our forward plans.  We’ve been together for nearly twenty years, so many things were still closely aligned, but there were differences. It was obvious that she was way more growth-focused, which helped motivate me. We decided to redesign our future life to help keep our collective focus pointing forward. It was also an awesome exercise to give our relationship a little nudge after all this time. 

You aren’t that young person in a youth-focused world anymore. To matter, you have to stop trying to be him (along with his perceived future) and start being you in this phase, with your very own future ahead of you. You are starting afresh from this exact point. Decide what the hell you want for your compelling future, then set about getting it.

“We don’t experience life; we experience what we focus on. Whatever you focus on, you can feel with real emotion.”  Tony Robbins

If you are struggling or know of anyone who is, why not have a 30min FREE coaching tasters sesson to see how I can help you. It may be simple short session or tips and tricks to get you back on track.