MANAGING AGING

In Neuro-Semantic NLP we say that every experience has a structure. Given that, the experience of aging must also have a structure. The question is not, “Will you age?” We know you will. The question is, “How will you age?” And to make that question more relevant, “How will you think, emote, speak, and act as you get older?”

First let’s talk about the options. You could accept without question all of the cultural idea about aging. You could accept that aging means deterioration, it means being “over the hill,” that you are becoming irrelevant and obsolete, your memory is going, etc. That’s one option. Another option has a much more healthy orientation. It could mean deciding to age with energy and aliveness. It could mean keeping your creativity and curiosity alive as you study and explore new things. Then there’s the most personal question, “How will you engage in the process of aging?”

Aging needs to be managed because if you don’t manage it, you will default to whatever cultural programs that you have inherited. And that’s not good. Given that we all were born and lived our first 20 years outside—in and that many people continued to live that way, the outside—in world of cultural conformity will continue to reign unless you turn that around. So how do you start to manage yourself as you move through time? How do you begin to manage your subjective experience of aging?

First, in healthy aging, you keep focusing on “What’s next?” not on “What has been?” Instead of spending time looking backwards, if you want to age healthily, look forward. This means that you keep setting goals for your living. Set learning goals, set creative goals, set productivity goals, and set relational goals. When you do this, you keep your intentionality alive and active. Then, in turn, your intentionality keeps you alive.

Second, as you set all kinds of goals, it does something else—it keeps you challenged. And regardless of age, you need challenge! We all do. Challenge keeps life interesting and gives you a purposeful reason to get out of bed each morning. Challenge also keeps you out of the drone zone and into the flow zone. Without challenge, without meaningful goals and purposes, you are essentially retiring from life, from being alive. And that’s a way to guarantee that you will take less interest in things. If challenge is what enables anyone and everyone to experience flow, then make sure that you are challenging yourself to be more present, more ready to push beyond your comfort zone at least a little bit.

Third, if you have already turned things around from living outside—in and you have been living inside—out, continue to do that. If you have not done that, there’s no better time than now for making that shift. Living inside—out means identifying and committing yourself to your thoughts, values, beliefs, identity, etc. It means deciding what kind of person you are going to

be, what kind of values that you will live, what kind of relationships you will create—and then making that happen. [See the book, Inside—Out on the Shop at Neuro-Semantics.]

Fourth, aim for wisdom. Wisdom does not belong to the young. They haven’t had enough experience. Intelligence could possibly belong to the young—if they study, learn how to learn, and develop a learning lifestyle. Intelligence and even brilliance can be the purview of the young, but not wisdom, at least not regularly although it may occur occasionally. Wisdom does require both intelligence as in understanding and also experience. And yet experience by itself, like aging, does not necessarily result in wisdom.

Aging, as in getting older, does not per se create wisdom. Yet from years of accumulated experience along with basic intelligence wisdom can emerge. The years of experience generates broader perspectives, more systems thinking, and leads to the ability to connect the right information at the right time for the right context for the right person. Wisdom is a very special kind of state and involves a very unique kind of thinking. {See Executive Wisdom.]

Now, as a manager of this subjective experience that we call aging, how are you doing? As an Age Manager, have you stepped up to this challenge? Is it time that you did?