Having a Purpose is Vital in the Second Half of Life...

People have a desire to feel and know that their lives make a difference. In the second half of life, this desire becomes even more pronounced. At the first of each year, there is often a focus on having resolutions for the New Year. The majority of New Year’s resolutions quickly go by the wayside, often because they are not connected to something that has a deeper meaning, and that really connect to their purpose in life. Research has shown that having purpose helps you live longer, healthier, and happier, and even help brain functioning in the later years. Some people are aware from a young age what it is that they uniquely offer this world, and are able to pursue it throughout their lifetime. For others, this may begin to evolve in their thirties or forties, and may even become a deep longing in their career choices. In the second half of life we want to know we are effectively supportive to others in our lives. We have a deep desire to make sense of our lives. If this is something you want to gain clarity about, there are ways to explore this. The well-known developmental psychologist and Pulitzer Prize winner Erik Erikson described the eight stages of human development in his book Identity and the Life Cycle (1959). The last stages are ones that concern us in the second half of life. According to Erikson, in adulthood, if a person has adequately matured through the earlier stages, the seventh stage of development is that of either being ‘generative’ in one’s life or ‘stagnating’. Generative is the ability to be supportive of others. Often it can be of a younger family member and others of the younger generations. It...

Humor Yourself to Lead a Happier, Healthier Life...

“You don’t stop laughing because you grow old. You grow old because you stop laughing.” – Michael Pritchard A couple of days ago, I was spending some time with friends, and one of them made a joke that made us all laugh so hard that we could barely breathe. It was an infectious sort of laughter, and every time we’d calm down, one of us would start giggling again and within seconds we’d all be in stitches. After about 15 minutes of this, the laughter finally died down, but the mood in the room was joyous and elevated. Personally, I felt as though my mind had been wiped clean, leaving me calm and relaxed. There’s a reason they call laughter the best medicine.  As you enter the second half of your life, laughter can be paramount to enhancing your relationships and keeping you healthy, both physically and emotionally. Here are some ways laughter can invigorate your life: Laughter Helps You Connect Socially Laughter is a great way to bond with new friends and to strengthen old friendships. When you laugh with friends it unites you and keeps relationships fresh and healthy. Resentments and disagreements are effectively healed through humor and lightness. Incorporate more play and humor into your daily interactions with your loved ones, and watch how your relationships change for the better. Laughter Increases Your Life Span (and the Quality of Life You’re Living) A Norwegian study has shown that adults with a sense of humor outlive their more somber contemporaries. By having an optimistic outlook on life, and being able to laugh at difficult situations when they arise, you not only create happiness for yourself, but for the people around you as well. People are drawn to laughter,...

Four Ways You Can Enrich Your Life with Gratitude...

This is such powerful practice to increase your happiness, be healthier, and have peace of mind. As we move into this time of year, it is one that is enriched by a life lived with a sense of gratitude. It can seem so simple, yet it is very powerful in keeping us healthy and happy. It is only been in this century that scientists have started to delve into what impact being thankful has on us. This practice has been a common sense spiritual teaching over the millenniums. Now it has been taken into social science laboratories, and we can see that it works in wondrous ways. Often we are faced with difficult circumstances in the second half of life, such as caregiving of loved ones and declining health. It is especially important to develop a habit of gratitude to help with the stresses and potential discouragement. There are two psychologists, Dr. Robert A. Emmons of University of California, Davis, and Dr. Michael E McCullough of the University of Miami who have done research on gratitude, which was published in 2003. In their research, they assigned people to three groups. The first wrote about five things they were grateful for that happened during the week. The second group wrote about five things that irritated them during the week. The third group wrote about events that happened during the week, with no instructions to write about any specific type of events. They did this for ten weeks, and then the groups were compared. Those who wrote about the things they were grateful for were more optimistic and felt better about their lives. They even exercised more and had fewer visits to the doctor than the group who wrote about things...

The Happiness Doctor Is In...

A Mayo Clinic physician offers a joyful plan based in science Dr. Amit Sood, 48, reckons, based on average life span, that he has 10,000 days more to live. That sense of finite time helps him focus his attention, show compassion, be grateful and help others — all actions that lead to happiness. Sood chooses happiness. And he wishes for you to choose it, too. His recently released Mayo Clinic Handbook for Happiness pulls together easy things to incorporate into a busy life to boost joy and fulfillment. The Mayo Clinic researcher, educator and clinician grew up in India and was a young medical student during the massive 1984 chemical spill in Bhopal. He witnessed the resulting injuries and suffering of people whose homes and lives were destroyed by the accident. When he moved to the United States a decade later, he thought he would find, he says, “the Disneyland of the world.” And yet, he saw suffering, stress and pain in this country, too. Why, he wondered, is happiness so elusive? What is it about the human condition that pulls us to the negative? The problem, his research showed, is our brains. They are not designed for peace and happiness but to constantly scan the environment for what could harm us, looking always for what’s wrong or out of place. And our minds wander — most of us spend 50 to 80 percent of our time thinking wandering thoughts. We can’t seem to help it. When Mayo gave people 174 choices of activities that made them happy, “thinking” came in dead last. Yet, it gobbles up our finite days. So how to break free of the brain’s relentless churning, its pull to the negative? “If we can do that,”...

What It Takes to Turn Your Passion Into a Career...

Enthusiasm isn’t enough. Follow these tips from the author of ‘What Is Your What?’ (The following is an adaptation from What Is Your WHAT?, the new New York Times bestseller by Steve Olsher. You can now get a free copy of the book at the What Is Your WHAT? website.) We’re often told that if we pursue our passion and do what we love as a career, we will — to quote Confucius — never have to work a day in our life. And let’s not forget Oprah who popularized the phrase: “Do what you love and the money will follow.” In theory, pursuing your passion as a career should be easy, effortless and create a monetary nirvana where income flows and happiness prevails. Reality, however, demonstrates that few who follow such advice will ever reach their desired destination. When Passion-Following Turns Sour It seems like a dirty trick. We’re encouraged to chase the carrot and before we know it, we’re miles down the rabbit hole with nothing to show for our efforts but mountains of debt that may take decades to repay. Consider the countless examples of those who quit their day jobs to pursue passion-related opportunities (cupcakes anyone?) only to end up emotionally, spiritually, and financially drained. When you throw in the harsh realities of capitalism, the happy-go-lucky “if you build it, they will come” rhetoric is a blatant disservice to those who lack clarity on the elements truly needed to bring their anticipated utopia to fruition. Now, before the hate mail starts rolling in, I’m not saying passion isn’t important. I am saying that you need to focus on cultivating a sustainable career… not merely engaging in a hobby. Creating a flourishing existence that provides a...

Why Even Adults Need Heroes...

Superman and young athletes don’t do it for us anymore It was easy to have a hero when I was young. Heroes could be anyone older, wiser and more accomplished, and when you’re a kid, that could be pretty much anyone. Growing up in the 1960s, if you asked me to name those I most admired, I probably would have answered NFL quarterback Bart Starr or baseball great Mickey Mantle. If you asked me to name a hero who wasn’t a professional athlete, I probably would have come up with Charles Lindbergh. Now, however, it’s harder for me to say who my heroes are. A Different Perspective I’ve heard too much about Mickey Mantle’s off-field drinking and skirt-chasing to consider him a role model today. Something similar happened once I read about Lindbergh’s views about racial superiority and staying out of World War II. Now that I’m older and wiser, or perhaps more cynical and more attuned to feet of clay, whom can I admire today? To paraphrase Tina Turner, do I need another hero? It’s more complicated, but still possible and valuable to find a hero, even as we get older, according to Scott Allison and George Goethals. They’re a couple of University of Richmond psychologists who have written extensively about heroism in books like Heroes: What They Do and Why We Need Them. Allison said we seek out heroes because they have the potential to energize and inspire us. We also seek wisdom from our heroes, hoping they will reveal meaning, truth and purpose, according to Allison. “They help us grow and improve and heal wounds. They give us hope and they elevate us emotionally,” Allison said. Recognizing the Flaws But hero worship becomes more nuanced and...

The 3 Questions to Help You Find Your Purpose...

Answer them and you’ll love your life more, says ‘The Payoff Principle’ author In junior high school, I decided that I would go into the ministry. The problem was, I wasn’t sure it was my dream . . . or ever had been. I went on to get my master’s and doctoral degrees, taught several undergraduate classes and something strange happened. I discovered I loved teaching and I was good at it — very good. But I also felt guilty for tossing aside my “supposed” purpose or calling to the ministry. Fortunately, I attended a workshop on “intensive journaling” about how to relax, think, reflect, visualize and keep a journal, so the deeper things inside me might be revealed. I then wrote in my journal: “I can serve God and others as a teacher, speaker and author.” Almost instantly, my guilt disappeared, and a sense of peace, direction, and well-being settled over me. I knew I was living my life and working my career on purpose. For years, I had confused a job with a purpose. Now, decades later, I am loving the work I do and feeling thankful that I’ve been able to touch the lives of thousands of people because my life and work have lined up with my purpose [https://designingbrightertomorrows.org/growth/5-tips-to-find-meaning-and-purpose-in-later-life/]. The payoffs start to roll in when you know that your life and your work are lined up with your purpose — at least some of the time. So that raises a critical question: How can you discover your purpose? It all comes down to the three critical, but deceptively simple, questions: What are you good at? What excites you? What difference do you want to make? Here’s how to answer them to find your purpose:...

Why You Should Give Yourself a Hug...

Self-compassion improves health The lives of millions of boomers in their 50s and 60s have been characterized by ambition, achievement and competitiveness. Then the recession and lingering economic woes took their toll. For many, drive has given way to disappointment. Self-esteem has been eclipsed by worries about money, retirement and aging. Many of us think we should be doing better. But here’s advice worth heeding: Stop berating yourself. A growing body of research from some of the nation’s top universities is documenting the benefits of self-compassion — being as kind and accepting of your own failures as you would a friend’s. Giving yourself a break and accepting your imperfections improves overall health and well-being, boosts creativity and success and can even help people cope better with aging, studies have found. Moreover, those who score high on tests of self-compassion have less depression and anxiety. We Are All Imperfect “Treating oneself kindly leads people to understand and experience the reality that their troubles are part of the human condition,” says University of Texas at Austin educational psychology associate professor Kristin Neff , who has published a book on her research on self-compassion, Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself. Self-compassion, Neff says, is recognizing that we are all imperfect and should support ourselves, as well as others. This is especially relevant for boomers who, at this stage, tend to tally their life achievements and come up short. Even bags under the eyes and a painful joint or two can lead to a barrage of self-criticism. In fact, says Neff, people with low self-compassion mistakenly believe that being self-critical will motivate them. “But being kind to yourself does not lower standards,” she says. “With self compassion you aim and reach...