Three Surefire Tricks to Remember that Age is Just a Number (Ep. 19)

0:00 Age is just a number. Have you said that to yourself? Have you heard someone say that to you? I think it's hilarious that when I'm out with a lot of my friends, sometimes somebody's birthday is coming up. Now, if it's friends that I, we all graduated college at the same time or something like that, we know how old we are. But I don't necessarily remember off the top of my head in a conversation how old I am at this point. Is that you? I'm curious, actually. I have to subtract. And my birthday is in February, so it's early in the year, so that's a little bit easier with the subtraction. But maybe if you're another time of the year, then you have to think, okay, is it the beginning of the year or the end of the year when I subtract?

0:44 You know, carry the one, whatever. I think that not remembering exactly your age at this midlife stage is probably a healthy thing? So let's talk about it. Welcome to Mind Your Midlife, your go-to resource for confidence and success, one thought at a time. Unlike most advice out there, we believe that simply telling you to believe in yourself or change your habits isn't enough to wake up excited about life or feel truly confident in your body. Each week, you'll gain actionable strategies, and oh my goodness, powerful insights to stop feeling stuck and start loving your midlife.

1:25 This is the Mind Your Midlife Podcast. I shared in my Instagram stories the other day, getting ready for this episode, a video that the Holderness family did about the the wife being one year off on her age and always wanting to celebrate one year less and the husband having to tell her. So if we're not already connected on Instagram, Cheryl P. Fisher, come find me. The funny part of that was that she didn't know how old she was. And obviously that's a joke, but there's a lot of cases where maybe we don't remember exactly how old we are. and that's because the exact number isn't what matters.

2:10 I found a TikTok. What do you call it? I'm not a TikTok aficionado, really. I found a filter. I guess that's what you call it, where you could ask TikTok to tell you what is your age. And so you sit there looking at it and it comes up with an age. And when I did it, and this was months ago, I think it said either, I think it said around 40. Now, I'm 54. So I was really excited about it saying that. That's a big difference. It was in the 40s somewhere, what it said. And then, not too far away from that same time, I had completely the opposite experience. I was at a hotel in Las Vegas, and there were magnifying mirrors in the bathroom.

2:58 And it just so happened in this instance that the magnifying mirror was kind of swung out over the sink and, And I walked into the bathroom and I almost walked into it. And so imagine this, I'm facing it. I'm almost walking into it. What am I looking at? A huge magnification of my face. And I have been diligent with healthy living and with skincare and with taking care of my wacky sensitive skin for many, many years. And I'm happy with my skin. But let me tell you what, when I walked into that magnifying mirror, that closely, it was huge. It must have been a lot of magnification.

3:42 I suddenly really wasn't happy. And I saw every little wrinkle and hair. Oh my goodness, I felt like a monster. Maybe you've had this experience or something similar. So how do both of those things happen in a short period of time? I'll grant you that a TikTok filter probably isn't the ultimate authority on what age I look like. But looking for every wrinkle and every, I'm going to call it every problem, even though they're not problems, every little negative thing you can find is not the ultimate authority either.

4:24 So we're here in midlife. We always used to hear about a midlife crisis, and we always used to hear the phrase over the hill. Now, midlife crisis, this is probably part of what this whole podcast, every episode is about. It's a lot. There's a lot going on in this period of life. We're not going to call it a crisis, so we're going to leave that term, but just keep listening to Mind Your Midlife. Now, over the hill is something I heard someone talking on social media the other day saying we should really drop this over-the-hill phrase completely. And I thought that was such a great point because I remember it from when my parents were in their 40s and 50s, and it used to refer to turning 40.

5:13 And so what over-the-hill means, if we're taking it literally, is you've gone up the hill the first half of your life, you've hit the peak at age 40, and now you're coming down the other side. I don't think that's the case at all, whether we're talking about 40 or 50 or 55 or 48 or whatever it is. I don't think that image helps us at all. So let's drop over the hill, but let's figure out what's going on with this age thing and see if we can just do a mindset check. Are there any little, sneaky, problematic thoughts sitting inside your brain that are causing you to maybe limit yourself, hold yourself back from what you really could be doing during this freaking awesome period that we call midlife.

6:06 So let's start with what does age actually mean? Age literally means the number of years that you have been alive, and a particular number is going to look very different depending on things that have happened in your life, depending on habits, depending on healthy or non-healthy behaviors, what you eat, what you do, genetics. It's not all about what you do. Some things are just happening because of your genetics, because of your environment, your surroundings, your experiences.

6:46 It's all combined together. And I always remember this ad that I feel like it could have been Dove, maybe, who knows who it was, but there was an ad where they took all these different women, and either they were all weighing the same or they were all wearing the same clothing size. My example's getting general as I go. But they looked so completely different from each other. That is the point. And I think you could do the same thing. You could pick age 50, let's say, and you could take all these different women who are age 50. they will all look completely different from each other. Some of them will still have their natural hair color. Some of them will be gray. Some of them will have struggled with weight gain. Some of them won't.

7:30 Some of them will have smoother skin. Some of them won't. Everybody looks different. So the number doesn't really tell us anything. And there has been so much study about age and all the different pieces of that. I was reading an article from Psychology Today, and they talked about a study funded by the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on an Aging Society. And this study showed that for really a major segment of the population. As we go into our later years, our chronological age, meaning the number, is kind of shockingly not a predictor of our health.

8:15 And if I were to put that into even more simple wording, age doesn't matter. And they said our real age, and I'm putting that in quotes, meaning how old we feel is what becomes relevant. And I thought this was amazing because in my head, I'm about 38. I used to be 35, so I've given myself a little bit more. Now I'm about 38. And this study is saying that what we feel, what we believe, how we define ourselves, the image we have of ourselves is what matters, especially as we age.

8:56 And I thought that was so positive. Now, they also mentioned that part of this was a shift of things we do in our life and the timing of those things. So the timing of marriage has shifted a bit later over the years. The timing of having kids has shifted a bit later over the years. The length of time spent becoming educated has more variation. And so that has changed when we imagine that adolescence ends and adulthood begins. Maybe it's a little later in some cases than it used to be. We're delaying those life events a little bit.

9:37 And the average age of retirement is still, as reported by the New York Times, 61, and has been for a little bit of time, but actually is higher than what it used to be only a decade ago, according to the data that they found. So there's a lot of time past that. And this whole rite of passage where you retire and now you become an old person and you have to just sit on your porch or, you know, play shuffleboard is just gone. It's gone. So let's talk about how that affects us. What to wear, number one. There are always going to be stories, posts on social media, talking heads, saying, when you're in your 50s, here's what you can't wear.

10:29 When you're in your 40s, here's what you can't wear. Now, in my Facebook podcast group, which I've mentioned before on the podcast, I asked them, do you listen to to the experts out there who are saying, now that you're 45, here's what you shouldn't wear. And almost entirely, they said, we don't care what they say and we don't listen. And I was so impressed with that answer, let me just tell you, because it wasn't exactly what I was expecting. I think some of those messages really do get in our heads. So most of the time, what those messages will say is cover yourself more when you're getting older.

11:11 And I'm a pretty conservative dresser. If you've seen pictures of me or if we've met, you know this already. I'm not walking around in miniskirts. I'm not usually walking around in something that doesn't cover plenty of skin. I'm pretty classic, I would call it, dresser. But that's my choice. It's not because of what anyone told me to wear. And I'm actually in better shape now, thank you, Pure Bar, than I was 15 or so years ago. So I probably could wear some of the things that I just choose not to. And there are no rules. There are no rules. I encourage you to let it go if there's a voice in your head saying you can't wear that because of your age.

12:02 There are no rules. And my goodness, especially nowadays, there's really no rules about anything. My husband's office still dresses almost formally, but most offices. I mean, people wear anything. People wear anything to a restaurant. There's just no rules. Wear what you want. Wear, even more importantly, wear what you feel good in. Where what your brain says to you looks amazing because that is where the feeling of confidence or self-respect or excitement goes. Comes from. Okay, what about respect in your professional capacity?

12:45 Age is a funny thing when it comes to this, isn't it? So if you are in your 50s, let's say, but you're not in a management role, are you telling yourself, well, by this age, I really should be in a management role. I'm not where I wanted to be. That one statement, even if we're not talking about a job, even if we're talking about a business. In the previous business that I had, my business partners would say this regularly, and I'm sure I said it sometimes too, I'm so frustrated. I'm not where I thought I'd be. I thought I'd be with a bigger income at this point. I thought I would have this at this point, this many years into my business.

13:25 So, so damaging because it creates this feeling of shame when we're saying those things to ourselves. Or maybe it's the opposite. Maybe you are on the young end in your office or in your business, and you are in a management role. And I suppose this is a midlife podcast. We're talking about the young end of midlife, let's say. Maybe that's challenging because some of the people who report to you are older. And so you need to figure out that relationship. My message in talking about age when it comes to professional respect or management or where should I be now is that, again, it's not about age.

14:08 It's about what your career experience has been, what you have decided that you are worthy of in terms of success, what you have gone for in terms of taking action and what you have believed you could do and what you wanted for heaven's sakes. If you didn't want to manage people, then why are you telling yourself you should be managing people at this age? You don't have to do that. It's not about age. Some of us find the job that we absolutely love, and we find it early, and we, over the years of our career, shoot to the top of the company doing exactly what we love.

14:48 Others of us do something for a while, make a complete career switch and do something for a while, make a complete career switch and do something for a while, and that is the perfect path as well. It has nothing to do with age. Now, the next item that we need to talk about in my top three here, I'm going to call it attractiveness. And maybe it's attractiveness and self-image about that, because this is very self-defined. You will hear people talking about the fact, writing articles and books about the fact that when we hit midlife, people start to ignore us.

15:29 I have read this over and over and over and over that once we become a midlife woman, I'm holding air quotes up, then people start to ignore us. And people, I suppose, are maybe men that we might be interested in dating at this stage of life or people that we need to network with or just in general, we're going to go through a crowd, we're going to be totally missed. To me, that is just as damaging to say as to say when you're 50, you can't wear a skirt X length. It's not okay, or you can't wear a bikini. Just as damaging to say you're going to be ignored when you hit midlife.

16:11 Because the way we show up in the world is entirely based on what we think about ourselves and our value. And as I go out and about in the world, even if I am feeling amazing and confident and powerful in that moment, are some people still not going to pay attention to me, I'm sure that's true. And it will be true for you. But that is not the piece that it makes any sense to focus on. Because can we put ourselves together on a particular day in our 50s and feel and look attractive? Absolutely. And if you are in a relationship, I would bet you that your partner in that relationship absolutely believes that you are attractive.

16:58 Do you believe that you are attractive and that people who matter will notice you is the real question. It's all inside. So if I am fixing my hair, I'm fixing my makeup, I've got on a dress that makes me feel great or pants or whatever, heels, no heels, doesn't matter. Again, no rules. But if I feel on top of my game, if I know that I'm like looking good going to this event, then people will see that because it's about the energy that I am vibrating with.

17:41 And don't think to yourself, well, actually, don't let me tell you what to think. You can think whatever you want. But this is not woo-woo. This is science. Because the thoughts in our heads are, create our emotions, and those emotions have a physical vibration. And that is how we read people. And you've heard me say this on the podcast before, that if you've ever met someone who just gave you a bad feeling or just a little bit creeped you out, it's the same thing on the negative side. You can get a feeling from people because we all have a vibration that has to do with our emotion at that time, which comes from what we're telling ourselves.

18:27 So, one, two, three. Wear what you want. It's not about age. Respect in your professional life, job, business, volunteer work. It's not about age. And attractiveness, how you feel about your, or I can't think of a word besides attractiveness. It's not about age. It's about listening to me. Maybe again, if you need to rewind, listen again, and realizing that we get to decide how we feel, what we think about the situation, what we choose. And if I could say anything that maybe puts all of this together, When I was recording the podcast episode with Corrine last week about sleep, and there's another episode coming with a health and fitness expert.

19:22 There's another episode coming about hydration. The theme that has come up over and over again when we're talking about these various aspects of midlife and how to live well is that at this point in our lives, we need to take care of ourselves maybe just a little bit better than we used to. And I can't speak for you in your 20s or 30s, but I did not always take care of myself well. And I still don't do it perfectly. But our bodies need a little bit more care and thoughtfulness now. And that is because of our age. But I would argue that it's not because of our chronological age.

20:05 If we go back to that Psychology Today article, I would argue it's because of our real age. Meaning the age that takes into account the number, but also the healthy choices we've made, our genetics, our experiences, our environment. All of those things together, including how we feel, what we tell ourselves about that age. So age is just a number, and I just want you to remember that there are no rules about that number that you have to follow. It's always your decision, and the decision should be about feeling the best that you can in that situation. And that is not selfish.

20:52 It is putting your best foot forward. It is putting your oxygen mask on before helping your neighbor. Certainly help your neighbor. Put your mask on first. Make decisions that feel good for you, whatever the number is. And I hope that this episode is making a difference in that in some way. Now, we talked about it here, go and grab the free StoryCycle resource. It's at CherylPFisher.com slash StoryCycle. I'll put the link in the show notes. You want to be able to figure out what is the emotion I'm feeling right now and where is it coming from? And that will start you on your way to being able to do that.

21:33 And you've heard me say this, it's powerful. Now, make sure that you have hit the follow button on Mind Your Midlife because coming up on the next episode, we are talking about hydration and you're going to learn a few things about being hydrated that I bet you did not know. And in the meantime, oh my goodness, let's keep creating content. Music.