Challenge the status quo. I was listening to Cory Booker speak on a podcast the other day and he said the most common way people give up power is believing they have none. I absolutely love this quote. Way too often people will accept things as is. They think that’s just the way things are, that's life. There is no need to accept anything you are unhappy with. Even if you do not actually change it, why not fight for change?
Becoming more weak with age is the number one thing that grinds my gears to hear people say. Though there may be some truth to what the numbers say, the honest truth is that a majority of people do not lift weights as they get older, nor do they do any resistance training of any sort. So the data will obviously show that as you get older, you get weaker. If you want to just accept that bit of info, then you can, no one will judge you. But if you are like many of the stronger, older people I know who are in there 50s, 60s, and 70s, and are setting personal records, then you know it is possible. You have the power to control whether you get stronger the older you get or weaker. The defeatist mentality of thinking you will just naturally become weak as you get older often leads to acceptance rather than taking it on as a challenge. The excuse of, “it'll happen anyway,” leads to people in their 20s and 30s to just sit around and wait to get “old” and “weak.” You can do something about it if you believe you can. The defeatist mentally never does anyone any good. At any age you can become stronger than you currently are. If you are in your 20s or 80s, you can become stronger if you work at it.
Another status quo that you should 100% challenge is, “You gain more fat the older you become.” This one does not grind my gears at all because there is some slight truth to this. In both men and women our bodies produce more or less of certain hormones that makes it easier to gain fat and harder to lose fat as well. However, the honest truth again is that most people do not move their bodies the older they get. They do not have the best eating habits and this just compounds with age. This also can be attributed to the slow-metabolism-as-you-age theory. It’s really just a lack of movement. I’d be willing to bet multi-multi millions of dollars, that I don’t have, that if a study was done on active people who eat well, and have done so their whole life, they would have gained minimal amounts of fat as they aged. I am not trying to throw shade at anyone or any behaviors that the majority of us have, but I do not want you to think that getting fat as you get older is just a fact of life. You most certainly can do something about it, especially if you are in your 20s. If you are in your 20s, now is the time to start building healthy habits that will benefit you down the road. If you are older, now is still the time to change your habits that may have put you in a situation you do not want to be in. You can check out my article on healthy eating by clicking here or my article about moving by clicking here if you have any questions about which healthy habits are beneficial to build.
The saying you can’t teach an old dog new tricks needs to stop being used in context with humans. I’ll be the first one to admit I don’t know jack shit about dogs but I am positive you can teach humans of any age something new. Obviously habits that have been reinforced for years will be hard to change, but “hard” and “can’t be done” or “impossible” are very different things. Most things in life that are worth it don’t come easy, right? Or else everyone would do it.
Isn’t that the old cliché? With the schedules that many adults have, it can definitely be harder to learn new things. Again, it depends how you want to see the world and mold it. If you want to believe that it’s impossible to learn as you get older, then you won’t learn anything. If you keep an open mind and realize that learning is a never-ending opportunity, then you will continue to learn until the day you decease. Morbid but true.
There are many other things that are accepted as status quo such as getting older means you will have injuries, or some of your parts won’t work the older you get, and so on. Challenge these things. DO NOT ACCEPT them as fact. These are fake news, fake facts, false opinions, whatever you want to call them. There are enough examples of people not meeting these “inevitable” truths to prove you can beat the odds too if you want to. Find the Power of Strength and let it help age you with grace.
“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work
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