Motivation and Aging

As I get older (50+) [but it’s been happening for quite some time before that], I’ve noticed that my brain still has plenty of ideas but I can’t seem to motivate myself to get out of the starting gate, and to actually implement them. I know there are plenty of articles and blogs and podcasts around this topic, many of which are valuable.

In thinking about this topic, (I am reminded of the Henri Matisse quote: “You cannot plough a field by turning it over in your mind”), I realized that we are misled by our memories. When I think that I want to lose 20 pounds and I just need to do it, I recall how in the past when I was younger, I would just be able to execute on those plans. Or if I wanted to run a marathon and do the many training runs that are necessary, or take a course in something I wanted to learn, or anything that required sustained behavior to reach a goal over a long duration. Hell, even trying to get laid. Going out to clubs/bars, late night conversations, booty calls, keeping fit and your hair coiffed, etc.

I believe that a lot of that earlier success was driven by hormones. Hormones surging through the system, enabling you to overcome obstacles, override mental objections, etc. It made the seemingly impossible possible. Now in our 40s, 50s and beyond, hormones don’t drive us as much anymore. BUT our memories do. The brain is still active, doing what it does. It recalls these memories of yore, of those times that we battled the odds and won. It makes it seem like it was sheer willpower that we were able to conquer whatever it was we had our sights set on. However what it does not take into account: hormones, those invisible chemicals surging us to go above and beyond. The mind likes to take credit for everything: I did it, yes, it was me! It is selfish and has no consideration for others, not even other parts of our own bodies!

So no wonder, our minds chide us when we can’t seem to lose that spare tire:

• “You did it 20 years ago!! What’s wrong with you??”
• “You were way more social back then. What happened to you?”
• “You had way more sex back then; you’ve become lame now.”

We are at war with ourselves. If we believe our mind’s chatter about how we used to be and why we are not that way now, we are going to be spinning in circles, going nowhere.

The first thing to do is to stop believing your thoughts! They are misleading. Not all thoughts of course but refrain from believing some (or even most of them), especially if they paint you in a bad light. Putting yourself down is not helpful. Nothing novel about this. CBT therapy, affirmations, positive self-talk, blah, blah all have hit on this same topic.

So then what next? I believe the next thing we need to look at is, strategies to replace the lack of hormones (and I’m going to skip over hormone replacement therapy here, which I have yet to try myself, so can’t comment on). This includes figuring out what’s truly important (this becomes a little more crisp when you realize you have fewer years remaining to live than more or realizing you’re probably going to age out of the workforce sooner because of AI, etc.), and focusing on those things. And I’m going to borrow MBA-speak here: Figuring out your own unique value-proposition. What do I have that’s unique about me that I can bring to the world?

And then how to achieve those things when before it was easy-peasy and that hormones don’t enable us to bypass those inhibitions any longer? Well, I’m still figuring this out for myself, but I’ve come to rely on a few things so far:

Reminders and To-Do Lists

I’ve always been a to-do freak but something inside me realized that if I don’t write it down, it doesn’t get done. I’ll come across something years later that I wrote down that I forgot about that was just done and I had forgotten that I had written it down! There’s something like magic there. Plus there’s always that satisfactory feeling of crossing it out when finished.

The other thing is: I take my lists much more seriously now. If I have free time, I look at the list to see what I can knock out, rather than watch TV. Maybe it goes hand-in-hand with realizing I have only limited time left. And that I need to act now if whatever I claim I want in this life is to actually become real.

Pomodoros

This is another tried-and-true technique to take action. Without our hormones surging us forward to take action, we become embodiments of that Matisse quote by mind-ploughing and not actually doing anything.

I’ve found it amazing what setting a timer can do. It concentrates the mind. Suddenly there are NO competing thoughts. It’s just “get to work!”; It’s almost as if it gives you a vacation to not care about other competing thoughts, priorities, matters of the day, etc. and just give yourself to the task at hand. Oftentimes, I cannot believe how fast the time goes and I hit the button to do another round.

Getting Busy

This is that adage: How do you get something done? Give it to a busy person!

Another thing that I discovered newly for myself is how much I’m able to take on and accomplish. Along with my day job, which got very busy this year, I volunteered in several mentoring programs both at work and outside, took on a leadership role at a non-profit and did many 60-hour months in that role, especially during the spring and summer. In addition, I’ve been taking AI courses online, working on pet-projects using AI, and generally trying (somewhat unsuccessfully) to drink from the AI-firehose of information, articles, breakthroughs so I can stay informed. Add to that, reading books and articles on various topics as well as the doomscrolling of the ongoing assault on democracy and I’ve been a busy bee.

So the lesson here is tackle those things you want to do. Again, realizing that I have finite time left, and asking myself If not now, when? has spurred me to take action.

The realization that I’ve spent a lot of time turning over in my mind what I want to do rather than actually doing it, combined with the fact that if I don’t start on it, that it’s not going to get done has put me in the driver’s seat of my life.

I’ve had to replace hormones with practices.