Tag: transforming your life after 50

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Transforming Your Years After 50: Keep Learning!

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One of the important keys to transforming your years after 50 to a time of joy and fulfillment is to continue learning new things. Since I am building my online business, I am learning new tech things all of the time.

Infographics are a great tool to summarize or provide an overview of information, and especially appeal to people who are more visually oriented.

Today I put together my first infographic – the 10 Questions to Ask Yourself That Can Transform Your Retirement by opening up many possibilities.

Each of these has a blog post: click on that category in the category listing in the right sidebar.

Here’s to new tools and skills!!

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Transforming Your Years After 50: The Cost of Inertia

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Perhaps the idea of “transforming your years after 50” – or any other major change in life –  sounds like a lot of work. Perhaps it will cost money you are trying to conserve.  Perhaps you are thinking, I can look at this closely later; reading it is interesting but doing the exercises and thinking deeply about this can wait.

My advice, my plea, is that you reconsider those thoughts.  Beware of inertia setting in.  Be alert to the tendency to slip into and stay in comfort zones which easily become ruts. Balance your desires to relax and enjoy the extra time and space you have with your desire to make this stage of your life joyful and fulfilling in new ways. They are not incompatible impulses.

Mirriam Webster Dictionary defines inertia as:

+ lack of movement or activity especially when movement or activity is wanted or needed;

+ a feeling of not having the energy or desire that is needed to move, change, etc.

Yes, relax. Yes, enjoy. YES, look at what you really want for your future.  You can do it all.  Start a step at a time. Do the exercises in the previous blog posts under the “What You Bring With You to Your Third Act” and “10 Questions to Ask Yourself to Open Possibilities” categories.

You can also consider the “Unlocking Your Ideal Self” program. Learn more about it here:

Unlocking Your Ideal Self

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“What’s the biggest expense we should expect with transforming your retirement?”

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Transforming Your Years After 50: Introducing Mind Mapping, a Multi-Purpose Tool

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Mind Mapping is a great multi-purpose tool that can help with various aspects of transforming your years after 50. I first became familiar with it when Tony Buzan, the creator of modern mind mapping, published Use Both Sides of Your Brain in 1976. I have used it sporadically ever since then.

Perhaps you are not familiar with mind mapping. Tony Buzan describes it as a two-dimensional technique that uses imagery, drawings and color to gather information and associations around a specific topic. The image in this post is an example. Mind mapping allows us to visualize tasks or ideas that relate to one another and to organize them. The technique taps into both the left and right sides of our brains, which makes it very powerful.

Mind mapping can be used for endless purposes, by people of all ages – including children. For example, mind mapping is very effective for taking notes, brainstorming, goal setting, planning, problem solving, organizing, setting agendas for meetings, and more.

Here are a couple of examples. If you have a project that needs immediate attention, you can simply write down your goals using lines, short words, drawings, and graphics. In no time at all, you can already see the solution to achieve your project. Also, a mind map agenda is a great way to set out the topics of a meeting without putting them in a rigid order. The meeting can flow more organically from one topic to another.

The power of combining words and images is immeasurable and taps into the potential of the human brain like few other tools. Perhaps you are somewhat skeptical of the claims of effectiveness. Numerous studies have confirmed the how effective the tool is for various tasks, which are easily located online.

This is an invaluable tool for your toolbox as you are in the process of transforming your years after 50. Other posts will go into more detail about how to use mind mapping.

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Transforming Your Years After 50: Activating Your Vision Board

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Now that you have created at least one vision board as you are transforming your years after 50, what’s next? There are alternate ways to “activate” the power of vision boards. Most proponents advocate placing them where you can see them daily, preferably multiple times daily. This repeated exposure develops strong neural pathways in your brain to what you have included.

Some practitioners talk of specific placement, i.e., being at your eye level in fairly specific places in your home or work. There are also stories of vision boards that were created and packed away for a few years before being re-discovered–and significant parts of the vision board were now reality.

Brandi Russell in her blog post about vision boards suggests posting your board in the bathroom where you can look at it while you brush your teeth in the morning and at night. That’s pretty practical. She also makes the important point that we still have to take action. We have to take advantage of the resources and opportunities that present themselves as we are focusing on what we want our life to be. If you are focused and are open to the “nudges”, the ideas that pop into your mind, you will have things to do. As you take the action, believe that the answer is “yes” and that what you desire is already on its way.

Katy on her Midlife Rambler blog identified 5 reasons that vision boards may not have the results you desire. These may be helpful as you look back at what you have created and are ready to try this strategy:

First, you may be focusing on goals rather than feelings. You always want images that elicit the feelings you seek. Second, is not being clear about what will make you happy. Also, rushing the process too much, keeping a vision board that doesn’t resonate any more, and forgetting to look at the board.

For a specific tool, check this out:

Vision Board Kit

Vision boards can be very helpful wherever you are in life. Give it a try and let me know how it goes!

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Creating Vision Boards

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Vision boards can be a powerful tool whenever we want to regroup, refocus and gain a vision to guide us. This can be at the beginning of a year, or any other time that will help us focus.

Tools and Materials
Creating a vision board can be as simple as cutting photos out of a magazine and tacking them up on your office bulletin board, or it can be as complex as a hand-made frame with personal photos and trinkets. There are at least 3 basic ways you can proceed:

• Digital: Created with software designed for the task, or with Photoshop or some other image-editing tool. Ease of use is the obvious benefit with this kind of vision board, because you can quickly add and edit your board.
• Physical: Paper, bulletin boards, whiteboards, or even a wall in your home with hanging pictures. Your creative options are endless here, but your vision board will obviously be less portable.
• Mobile: Created on an app made for tablets and phones. The advantage here is that you’ll have your vision board with you everywhere you go.

Regardless of which type you choose, remember this before you begin to work on your vision board:

“So, what’s the big secret to creating a vision board that works? It’s simple: Your vision board should focus on how you want to feel, not just on things that you want. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great to include the material stuff, too. However, the more your board focuses on how you want to feel, the more it will come to life.” – Elizabeth Rider, “The Reason Vision Boards Work and How to Make Them”, TheHuffington Post Blog, 01/12/2015

Another thing Elizabeth Rider says in the above post is that “There is only one major rule to creating a vision board that works, and it’s that there aren’t any rules. You aren’t going to mess it up, you can create your vision board on your own terms.”

Creating Physical Vision Boards
Remember when you were a kid in art class? Your vision board materials can be just as much fun—especially if you’re creating a physical board to hang on your wall.

Start by gathering up a selection of materials to work with:
• Swatches of fabric and ribbon
• A stack of old magazines (hit up your local library for their outdated copies)
• Colored pencils and markers
• Construction paper
• Poster board
• Crayons
• Glue and tape
• Scissors
• Stamps & ink pads

Flip through the magazines. Resist the urge to get sucked into the articles, and instead, concentrate on how you feel as you see the photos. Do they make you happy? Do you smile at a particular shot? Does it bring to mind a particular goal or dream? Cut out the images that speak to you in some way.

Don’t worry about organizing them or categorizing them at this point. For now, just make a stack of images that have meaning for you.

Next, take your board—and it can be a single piece of paper, a full-size poster board, or even the bulletin board in your office—and begin arranging your images, quotes and other materials.

You can have a single board with areas devoted to each aspect of your life, or a different board for each. Your board can be a hodgepodge of random images, or a carefully laid out plan that progresses naturally from one to the next. It can be color coordinated or not. Ultimately, it has to please no one but you, so let your creativity flow.

Don’t be afraid to use your pencils and markers to decorate your board, draw attention to certain images, or divide it into distinct quadrants. You can add dates and dollar figures if you like, or the names of people you want to think of as you work with it. Most importantly, just have fun.

Creating Digital Boards
Digital boards have the advantage of being portable, so you can enjoy and be inspired by them anywhere. Plus, they’re easy to recreate and re-imagine as your goals, dreams and values change.

There are several web-based apps that will help you create your boards that you can consider. This article describes 12 Vision Board online apps and websites:  https://www.developgoodhabits.com/online-vision-board/

Use vision boards to bring your dreams and goals to life. Try a couple of approaches and see what works best for you.  If you’d like a tool with more information, check this out: Vision Board Resource

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Sticky: Welcome!

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TransformationI love gathering and curating ideas and resources that enhance and enrich life. With the ever-expanding amount of information we have access to, finding what may be applicable to us can be overwhelming.  It can be very helpful to have someone do the research, gather information and share what they found on a topic.  Most of the topics being explored here can be of interest and useful to people of all ages.

Click on “Start Here: Categories of Posts” above to view post topics and click to see a list of posts related to that topic.

Some things are more specifically targeted to people aged 50 and older.  “Transforming Your Life After 50” is a process to which I am personally committed. My purpose here is to provide ideas, inspiration and tools so others can also engage in a life-affirming process that enriches and energizes their lives in our years after 50.  That process is based on our dedication to delighting in the gift of life, using that gift the best way we can, and being grateful.                                                     

“Transform” is to change in form, appearance or structure, or change in condition, nature or character; to turn around. 

People considered Baby Boomers, born between 1946 and 1964, are now in their mid-fifties to about seventy years old. This stage of life is different in many ways from our parents’ and grandparents’ experiences: life expectancy, health, resources, technology, and the wide array of options have changed. With the pace of our lives, many of us do not take the time or energy to take responsibility for making these years the best they can be – except perhaps in terms of finances.

For many of us, these years are ones of transition from very intense career development, child rearing, and community involvement to ones where there is some time and space available. This can be a time of new experiences and of reinventing our lives for a “third act” that includes “retirement” as we chose to define it.  It can be a time of transformation.

I invite you into an exploration of what you bring into this new phase of life and of tools that help you anticipate and design a “third age” that is satisfying, joyful and contributes to the well-being of others.  I look forward to sharing and to communicating with you as we travel this path of exploration and discovery.