There are two big challenges in mid-life.

1. Your body gets soft around the middle.
2. Your mind and attitude gets soft to match.

I know, I can hear some screaming from the trenches. That’s not me! I still have abs! I still have hair where I want it! I still have my ambition and drive! I have Big Goals!

Maybe you do, I don’t know you so I’m not in a position to judge. I wouldn’t judge you even if I did. But this I know for sure. Mid-life is a bona fide thing. Your body changes. Botox and fillers can’t turn the clock back. Nor can any amount of money you throw at your physical self. And your mind is tempted to join the party (or go home from it early). Because the reality is this: You are getting older.

So how are you going to play it?

7 Wise Words That Recharged My Life

It’s quite a few years since I first felt the burn of middle age. The vertical facial wrinkles, the soft spill over the waistband of my jeans, the clothes that began to pinch in the wrong places. I’ll spare you the details. But I knew what was going on and I felt compelled to up the exercise quota.

“I’ve gotten lazy. I need to get out walking more,” I told my friend. Bad choice of friend if I wanted empathy, by the way. She was a professional sports coach: The body was her temple. Her mouth dropped open.

“Why walk when you can still run?” she said. If it was supposed be a question, it wasn’t delivered like one.

I can’t remember my reply but those seven words — no matter how much I tried to escape them — clung to me. She was right: I could run. Very (very) slowly AND I hated it, but I could still run.

So I began. With gasps. With pain. With niggles I didn’t know I had. With a hefty dose of resentment. With an embarrassing amount of resting at lamp-posts. I won’t bore you with the rest of my running journey. The point is, my friend had called me out: I’d hunkered down in preparation for the confines of middle age. I’d accepted my new physical norm, and I’d set my goals to match.

Big mistake.

I’m all for accepting yourself — and the life stage you’re at — but I believe the secret of youth is in the stretch, physically and mentally. Spiritually too, if you like. In growing and learning, and in making life slightly hard for yourself.

You can’t arrest time and you (often) can’t control circumstance, but you can leave your comfort zone. You can set hard(ish) goals and do different things. You can keep trying. You can, at the very least, not close down your shop too soon.

My friend gave my life a shot of energy with those words, although I didn’t realise it at the time. Why walk when you can still run? Which more broadly translates into: Why take the easy road when you can still take the tougher and (potentially) more rewarding one? Why do LESS than you can?

It woke me up. It got me moving. It made me stretch, not just physically — but psychologically too.

I still think of it, and try to apply it, to all my endeavours. Because it’s so, so easy — and tempting — to keep taking the road I know. To make life soft for myself. To crawl under a blanket and relax — endlessly.

So now I ask: What am I accepting that I don’t need to? What can I STILL do? What am I STILL capable of?

It’s important that strive to we do ALL we are capable of — not necessarily all at once — but that we continue to do what we can do, until we can’t. Because that day will come, too.

So what are you making too easy for yourself?

What could you make harder while you still have time?

PS. I still run. I ran a marathon last year and immediately swore off ever doing another :) But I’ll run until I can’t run any more. Then I’ll walk — and keep walking.

Because: Why sit when you can still walk?