Is This the End of Your Story or the Beginning of a New Chapter?

By Carol Doyel –

There was a time that I thought 50 was old, but as I approached my 40’s and then 50’s and now at 50 plus, I have come to understand that old is not about a number or an age, but about how we live, our attitude towards life, and what we believe about aging. Do you see yourself as old? If you do, you probably are.

Old is when you stop trying, old is when you throw in the towel and decide you’re too old to do anything that you thought you could do when you were “young”. Old is when you become apathetic towards life, and begin to do the same thing every day, losing any hope for what lies ahead and giving into complacency!

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I’ve done it, I’ve become complacent from time to time, but thank God I recognized it and snapped out of it before it turned into oppression or worse, depression. Not that I’m suggesting that we can just snap ourselves out of depression, but I’ve learned there are things we can do to thrive and even in the midst of our struggles and challenges that life is sure to bring, we can still have hope!

In the photo above I’m with two lovely women, who are not 50 but who have crossed the threshold of a certain age, we’re at an event called- Developing Destiny that was created and led by the woman in the middle Danita Patterson. The other woman is a good friend, Dorothy-Inez Del Tufo who is working on her Masters degree and doing many wonderful things in a season of life that some people would be settling into a routine at minimum, or maybe feel like their dreams and hopes have passed them by.

I know what it looks like to lose hope. I’ve seen it in the eyes of a younger sister who lost hope and lost her life at age 42. I saw it in my mother’s expression as she slipped away at 49. And I know what it is to have hope. Hope is beyond life and death, it’s a state of being and living in the time we have here – Each day being a precious gift.

Hope gives a reason to get up each day and look forward to the day, to learn something new, to be willing to change, to grow, to improve ourselves, our lives, and more importantly, the lives of others – while we can.

Getting refocused on the right things can take work and for me it meant changing my routine, a bit of shock therapy, and a major step for me was deciding to get in to good physical shape. I discovered one of the most significant factors to motivation and happiness is an active lifestyle. For me that took the form of running again, which I haven’t done on a regular basis for many years…maybe twenty.

Active living doesn’t mean you have to run miles a day, but an occasional walk or leisurely stroll once a week is not going to give you the same level of wellbeing as a structured exercise routine that might include running, walking regularly, interval and weight training, flexibility exercises, fitness classes, or a cardio workout three or four times a week.

Not to say that moving more in general is not a good thing to do, as a matter-of-fact results of a recent study shared on Mayo Clinic stated that moving, even leisurely movement – can have a profound effect. The key is doing it often and regularly as I point out in my ebook titled, “Lose Weight, Get Fit & Change Your Life”.

I have always been fairly healthy and an avid walker, but I found myself 25 pounds over my ideal weight and it affected many areas of my life. I didn’t feel as good about my self-image, I avoided wearing sleeveless blouses and lost my interest in buying pretty clothes, and worse of all I stopped dreaming. Food is like a drug and if we’re sedated by unhealthy food and eat to the point that we become overweight we cause a chemical and hormonal imbalance that as I mentioned previously can affect many areas of our lives, and not in a positive way!

This may sound harsh and I don’t advocate thin or skinny, it’s important that we are at a healthy weight for our body type and bone structure. But I also know being overweight or obese is detrimental to our health and will ultimately lead to a shorter life span.

I’m not going to go into all of the scientific aspects of being overweight because the purpose of this article is to encourage you to achieve a healthy balance, physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually!

By applying small incremental changes that you can stick to you can help you not only lose weight and get fit, but change your life. You can choose to make healthy choices and live better after 50 and embrace this season of your life. I say, you can live as though this is the end of your story or the beginning of a new chapter!

 

Carol Doyel is Editor-in-Chief and Founder of LivingBetter50.com. She is a graduate of The Full Gospel Bible Institute and has a passion for women’s ministries, issues and lives. She and her husband of 26+ years have three grown kids and four grandchildren. They currently reside in southern CA. Her desire is to inspire women to live better physically, emotionally, financially, and spiritually.

 

5 thoughts on “Is This the End of Your Story or the Beginning of a New Chapter?”

    1. It’s done – should be on Amazon soon. I will send you link as soon as it’s available. Thank you for asking!

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Is This the End of Your Story or the Beginning of a New Chapter?
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