Healthspan
How is your health? What does a healthy lifestyle mean to you? To me, “healthy” includes both mental and physical health. I’m a firm believer in treating the cause of poor health and not just treating the symptoms. The term health and wellness is all encompassing including social connection, relationships, stress, anxiety, aggression, anger and your personal habits such as smoking and drinking.
When I worked a 9-5ish job and my children were young I got up at 5:30am to exercise, shower, dress, make my lunch and drive to work. As I got older and had more flexibility in my schedule that certainly stopped!! I don’t mean the “me” time and exercising, but it just didn’t happen so early. I have always made it a priority, but I know from friends and family that it is very hard to fit a workout into a busy schedule. Did your priorities allow you to get or stay in shape while building your career? Do you want to make it a priority in the future?
I had a manager that left the company we worked for. He had a few months off while he searched for another job. He decided to get in shape. The transformation he made was unbelievable! He lost a lot of weight and became physically fit when he finally had the time! I have lost track of him, but he made an impression on how someone can change their life.
Lifespan
Many factors come into play, and except for the pandemic years, lifespan for men and women has been increasing. Again this gives us the great privilege of potentially experiencing a richer and more meaningful life. The norm used to be that when you retire your life is nearly over and your mindset matched that notion. How we think about aging can affect our lifespan. In his 50’s my dad used to say “I’m not a spring chicken anymore” and even though I was young, and thought I was infallible, I knew that wasn’t the healthiest and most positive thing he could be telling himself and me. Our attitude and the feeling of being useful goes a long way in keeping us youthful. Now your future can bigger than your past.
Happinesspan
What is happinesspan? For the majority of people, our basic needs are met and we have the privilege to dote on our happiness. Happiness seems to be the northern light or prize people seek. Trying to verbalize your happiness is not always a sufficient tool for describing our state of being. It can be hard to put into words what happiness is, how happy we feel, etc.
How do you know you’re happy? Be the person you want to be. Life is a work in progress. Happiness can be defined as a combination of enjoyment, satisfaction, gratitude and purpose. Only you know how you feel. While you were younger and building your life and career there were many competing priorities that could have prevented you from having the very things we all need to be happy. Like getting good sleep, having meaningful social connections, pursuing meaning. It makes sense that the trajectory of happiness across one’s lifespan is a U-shaped curve: people in their 20s tend to be happiest until responsibilities pick up in their 30s, 40s, and 50s; happiness picks up again in their 60s and 70s when demands reduce. This could change in the future due to the tendency of people to get married later, frequent career changes and having fewer or no children.
It is never too late to change the trajectory of your happiness. What ideas do you have?
