Key Things I’ve Learned in 50 Years on This Earth

Recently, I celebrated a milestone birthday. I turned 50.

The day came and went without much fanfare, really. And that’s just fine with me.

SASH MOTS

I remember rounding on patients in the thoracic ICU as an intern. Sometimes, days would go by and not much would happen with patients. Honestly, if you’re on the slow mend in the ICU, that’s much preferable to dramatic life-and-death swings. Anyway, not knowing what to write for the note on these patients, I asked the attending for guidance.

“SASH MOTS,” he said glibly. “Still Alive, Still Here. More Of The Same.”

Despite the dark humor behind this sentiment, it holds exquisite truth.

Most of the time, We’re just going along with our lives, doing the same things each day. Changes are made slowly. Yes, sometimes drama happens. But it’s not a regular occurrence. Could you imagine if it was?

Living life, making progress as an adult… Navigating this world while filling your all your roles, balancing your orchestra, and hoping to improve yourself in the process, is truly about being consistent with the same stuff. And then adding in some tweaks every now and again.

Boring is good.

Let’s talk about three main areas of life to demonstrate this: health, wealth, and happiness.

Health

Health and fitness have been a big part of my life since I went off to college. When I was in my 20’s, I noticed pretty quick changes to my fitness when I would mix up my routine – eat a slightly different diet, add in a 10 minute jog each day, or go on a climbing trip – and all of a sudden I’d be fitter.

However, I’ve noticed as I get older, it takes a lot more time to notice changes. This is true as you become advanced at any skill, whether it be sports, knowledge, or a work-related skill. When you progress to higher and higher levels, that measurable progress might look like a little tiny change: 2.5 more pounds on the bar in the gym, one higher move on the rock climb, a slightly faster procedure time at work.

Recognizing and accepting this as the definition of progress is key to sustainable enjoyment in what you’re doing.

Within the past year, I decided I wanted to get serious about getting leaner, gaining muscle mass, and getting stronger. As we age, muscle is easily lost, and I knew I didn’t have much to begin with. I am naturally very tall and thin, but I tend to have a low weight with a relatively higher body fat. And I’m not exactly known for my feats of strength. Yes, I spent lots of years rock climbing at a high level, but in the type of climbing I mostly did, you can have success with good technique over brute strength.

So I designed a 3-workout strength routine that would have me doing compound lifts – using multiple muscles at the same time for each exercise. Think squats, deadlifts, bench press, chin-ups, pushups, etc. Even though I just got my yoga teacher certification in 2022, I put yoga on the back burner so I could focus my free time on lifting. It’s really fun because I’m able to do most of my workouts in our home gym, and my daughter comes with me. Sometimes she’ll do exercises, sometimes she just plays, but it’s great to spend the time together and I know I’m setting a good example of doing hard things.

The other thing I did was start consistently tracking what I eat, making sure to get an adequate amount of calories – not too little and not too much – and at least 140 g protein per day. This is another tactic in what they call body recomposition for people like me who don’t have substantial weight to lose and maybe even want to gain a little weight. You challenge yourself with your exercises, but you make sure to eat adequate protein so you don’t lose any muscle mass in the process.

I’ve now been doing this for several months, and I’ve just started noticing significant changes! My body’s muscle definition has improved, and more importantly, I can do chin-ups and pushups and lift more weight than I ever have. But seriously, it took almost 6 months to see any difference. In the beginning I was thinking, “Am I on the right path? Am I eating too much, too little, exercising too much, too little, etc?”

We are conditioned to expect immediate results. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve tried experiments like this in the years since my health scare and brain surgery, but just gave up after a month when I noticed no changes to my body shape, how I felt, or to the amount of weight I could lift.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for 30-day challenges – I’ve written articles about them on the blog, I talk about them in the “Doing Hard Things” section of my book Lean Out – and while they’re great for experimenting with habits and gaining confidence that you can do something challenging, they’re not necessarily going to produce some sort of dramatic physical transformation.

All this to say, if you want to REALLY make a big change in your health, you need to stick with something for a while. Be consistent. Show up and do the boring work. Because eventually, you’ll see the rewards. But the older you get, the longer it takes.

One more note on health, and I have said this about leaning out and work-life balance too: don’t compare your journey to other people’s. We all have our own strengths and weaknesses. It’s great to look to others for inspiration, but the key is accepting yourself while trying to improve yourself. Comparing yourself to your former self is much more relevant.

Wealth

There’s so much talk in the professional world these days about “side hustles.”

Leverage and growth!

Go big or go home!

I’d like to make the case for being simple and boring here again. Consistency is key.

I’m fortunate to say we’ve done well financially, and it’s not through some sort of real estate venture or windfall. It’s a combination of luck and good choices.

For most people, there is no silver bullet.

My husband and I knew early on the things we valued, and we spent money on them. We did not get lured into lifestyle inflation in areas of spending that didn’t matter much to us. We saved money and maximized its growth by putting it into retirement vehicles with low-fee funds and appreciating assets. If you don’t know this style of personal finance, I refer you to this book for the whole story.

We try to balance YOLO with frugality. And truly, you never know what will happen to the markets. We’ve got lots of years left before we must start withdrawing retirement funds or social security, so we keep doing the boring things.

One thing that helps with that uncertainty is knowing we’re able to spend flexibly if there’s a bad year or something happens and you have a big expense. We’ve lived in an RV before and we know we can be happy. It comes down to knowing yourself, knowing what you value, and knowing how to define enough.

Also, remember that wealth is not all about money. Like success, there are so many ways to define wealth. Figure out what living wealthy means to you: is it your health, is it freedom, is it travel, is it being surrounded by great friends and family, etc.

Happiness

Newsflash: there’s no silver bullet for happiness, either. We all fall prey to wanting quick transformation. You read an article that says something like, “Meditate for 10 minutes a day and you will be happier!” When I was in the depths of illness and burnout during my residency training, I wanted to just magically feel better. And now, I see it with coaching clients, I see it online, and in talking with other professionals.

Happiness is decidedly different than pleasure. Doing something that “makes you happy”, like exercising or learning something new, might not feel good the whole time you’re doing it. I don’t think I fully understood this distinction until I was older.

Happiness is a confluence of living in alignment with values and living with purpose. When I wanted a “happiness quick fix”, I had no idea what my values were. I didn’t know what I wanted my life to even look like. I was on the treadmill of achievement, and that’s where I derived my purpose. Contrast that with now… it’s like night and day.

So how do you get there? While I’m oversimplifying things a bit, the two traits to cultivate are confidence and clarity. In all my reading, writing, and living, everything connected to sustainable happiness falls in these categories. This is why I’m currently working on courses for you on these very subjects! Hopefully to be released in 2024 😊.

Confidence is not an innate trait; it’s something you can build by learning about yourself and figuring out what you want. And clarity is gained through regular attempts at mindfulness and reflection. Both these practices take time and effort. They are not sexy. They are not dramatic.

See a theme here?

TL:DR

Simple, boring, consistent practices have been my keys to success in health, wealth, and happiness.

I hope these examples have been helpful and inspiring to you. Let me know what you think by leaving a comment below!

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