Maintain EIGHT POINTS OF CONTACT

Maintain EIGHT POINTS OF CONTACT as You Climb Up into Aging

by Christine A. Smith, the #Aging Enthusiast!

The ONE thing that affects EVERYTHING as you age is HOW YOU FEEL.

Exploring, discovering, and charting how you hope to respond in the future to Aspects of Aging achieves emotional and relational goals. The THIRD Third of Your Life has dozens of characteristic categories that will impact your feelings about yourself and others. And you will react.

So, after you react, call upon your core strength—your highest-held core values—and RESPOND. Practice your “assault on the summit.” Stabilize your emotions and relationships intentionally. Create your plan for better outcomes before you experience these common issues.

Make a muscle-memory habit as you ascend the UPPERMOST region of your relational life with these EIGHT solid finger/foot holds. Shorten the time lapse between your deconstructing reflexive reactions and your constructively restorative responses. How do you make this habit? How do you recover after slipping and continue the climb on your own terms?

Before one (or another) of those common issues comes your way, get a good grip on one (or another) of these EIGHT POINTS OF CONTACT. Grasp how this concept improves your emotional and relational well-being, then reach out and hold fast to the next one (or another). Free climbing solo? “On belay” with rope and partner? Whichever way you are growing older, they both require careful preparation. Being prepared is the path to the peak. Let’s go!

1. Practice Dealing with Uncertainties

2. Alternate Your Methods of Motivation

3. Overlay Your Vision with a Time-Tested Template

4. Refocus Your Purpose from the Perspective of Better Outcomes

5. Invest in the Passions that Invest in You

6. Activate Resilience Strategies before Anticipated Adversities

7. Grow Your Relationship Variety

8. Construct Flexible Strength into Your Schedule

(I'll explain more about each point in just a few paragraphs.)

Your successful assault on the summit is made possible by preparation, while being unprepared guarantees being unsuccessful. No one ever says, “I regret being so well prepared.”

Did you notice that the list is predominantly about preparing for the inevitability of CHANGE? Just wait until you get to the page in my book where I submit that later in life, “Change is Perceived as Loss.” Rather than waiting until OLD happens to you, learn your future.

Your “assault” is a rigorous, energetic effort to accomplish a difficult ascent. Your ambition is to achieve?the highest level: the SUMMIT. But it’s not just about mountains. It’s also your highest level of communication—hence, a SUMMIT meeting of top-ranking individuals. As you advance into your advanced years, communicate your living preferences to the ones who mean the most to you NOW, and who will care the most about you and your living preferences THEN.

I have written the PreAct Your Age Prompted Journal for you and for myself. It is a guide to and through the 52 Aspects of Aging. I identified these during my years hired as an in-home caregiver with nearly 100 families in their private residences. ?These 52 topics are specific to post retirement relationships of every kind and affect you the most when they occur unexpectedly. Begin to get a grip on yourself—your future self. PreAct before you react.

1. Practice Dealing with Uncertainty. Define what you already know about a common aspect of aging you could, maybe, possibly experience someday. It begins with admitting that you are already living longer. You don’t have particular challenges yet, but you might. You can start to form and fortify your own support group as soon as you realize and express the reason WHY you will need and accept support.

2. Alternate Your Methods of Motivation. ?Do this in three parts. (One) showcase acceptable better-case-scenarios that would PROPEL your bravado for a positive ACTION, (Two) pinpoint repulsive worse-case-scenarios that PUSH your buttons for a negative REACTION, and (Three) reveal neutral-case-scenarios that PACIFY your being for a contented INACTION. You decide HOW you will achieve your better-case-scenarios, WHEN to avoid worse-case-scenarios, and?WHAT is a non-issue aging scenario, in your case.

3. Overlay Your Vision with a Time-Tested Template: Talk about it. Tell a confidant about your possible relational and emotional reactions to any Aspect of Aging.?For a few, excruciating moments, share your vulnerabilities with a loved one, a friend, or professional acquaintance to fortify your future together. Paint an authentic self-portrait; not a pretty picture and not ‘picture perfect’. Put a realistic frame on your likely future. Being realistic with yourself about yourself is a wellness habit at any age.

4. Refocus Your Purpose from the Perspective of Better Outcomes: Describe your selected, better-intended responses to the people who need to know you wish to age well. Stop me when I’m wrong: We could all go on aging for multiple decades. That is a long time. Avoiding the subject of aging doesn’t make it go away. Ignoring the effects that reactions are having on those around us could make THEM want to go away.

Am I wrong yet? Always and only loathing old age is a lousy way to spend your decades. Always and only embracing decades of aging makes your arms tired.

When you PreAct Your Age, you write your own script. You determine your favorite emotionally intelligent responses. You aim for how you hope to keep your reputation of reasonableness. You say out loud that your own emotional health, your self perception, and these relationships are worth more. ?They are worth the trouble of intentionally aging.

5. Invest in the Passions that Invest in You: Practice the preferred solution that you wish to repeat when it counts. Go through the motions of dealing well with an Aspect of Aging. Rehearse handling a later-life challenge. Physically perform an action you may need to be 'good at' later on. Make that small effort this week. Show yourself, in this present moment, that your future is worth it.?Do the ‘due diligence’ in advance. Do the due for the ‘future you’.

6. Activate Resilience Strategies before Anticipated Adversities: Participate in personally motivating bounce-back rewards for yourself. Enjoy them whenever you deal the way you intended with an Aspect of Aging (even if it's after you reacted.) You can label this self-care or me-time or soul-fillers or trophies or endorphin-rushes or bucket lists or whatever you want. Emotional memories endure. Reinforce those great habits now . . . while your mind is clear, your emotions are calm, and your relationships are growing deeper.

7. Grow Your Relationship Variety: Grow the number. Grow lush, well-rooted, and robust relationships. Cultivate his/her strengths and be grateful for them. Grow closer by investing in who they are aging to be, too. Listen to what individuals say to you about personal longevity. Grow the diversity of your friends. Choose colleagues and club members from different demographics, temperaments, view points, areas of expertise, life experiences, and levels of influence.

You have an excuse to converse about Aspects of Aging. Blame me. Blame the journal. Just tell them you gotta finish this DIY, self-improvement, retirement-planning workbook so you can get ON with your life.

8. Construct Flexible Strength into Your Schedule: Re-visit your prompted journal entries to update your thoughts, plans, choices, and people. You can review one, some, or several at a time. You can commit to selections sooner knowing that later you’ve literally got a date return, rethink, and upgrade.

Did I tell you that every prompt comes with suggested answers?! I’m telling you now that EVERY PROMPT COMES WITH SUGGESTED ANSWERS. You don’t have to imagine hypothetically. You get to make informed decisions. Choose one (or another.) ?Write one of your own (or another) person’s healthful life hacks. Mix and match. Improve your muscle tone by flexing your flexibility muscles before one (or another) of those knee-jerk reflexes kicks in.

Aging is emotional and relational. Maintain these EIGHT POINTS OF CONTACT for stability. Prepare for success. The suggested answers in the “PreAct Your Age Prompted Journal” provide WHAT you can do to pre-plan. ?Aging Better Network website (agingbetternetwork.com/home) provides more ideas, resources, support and reasons for WHY and HOW to pre-plan for the ONE thing that affects EVERYTHING as you age: HOW YOU FEEL.

Christine A. Smith is a classroom educator turned hired in-home caregiver turned first-time author/video podcaster/resource website host/conference presenter at age 62. Meet her in welcoming videos all over agingbetternetwork.com/home and see Volume One of her Amazon Kindle publication series: THE ACT OF AGING. The paperback prompted journal, "PreAct Your Age" will be reviewed in July by a number of experts and then be available in August on Amazon.