Last Updated on April 13, 2025 by Michelle
This post is the last and probably the most important step to holistic well aging – Emotional Well Aging.
We are emotional because we are not animals. We are what we think and what we feel. In the prior blog, I shared about intellectual well aging which covers your mind and our thoughts.
We are what we feel and arguably, we want to be happy. How do we make ourselves happy? We are likely the happiest when we have good relationships with the few people we really care about.
1. Be around people that inspire and make you happy…and laugh
Jim Rohn says “we are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with. You will be influenced by and influence those closest to you. This is why psychiatrists say family upbringing as a child forms the bulk of anyone’s perception in life.
As a child, you would have spent most of your time around your family.
As an adult, who do you spend most time with? Be critical of your closest company as they will likely reflect who you are.
If those around you are positive, you will likely be positive. Find people that you are inspired by and makes you happy. This is step one to emotionally age well.
2. Keep asking yourself
Be curious with yourself. Have continuous conversations with yourself about what you want, what you love, what drives you and what inspires you.
Why not?
Do not waste time thinking about what others think of you as it really does not matter. What matters most is what you think of yourself.
If you are inspired by yourself, you will very likely inspire others. Also, you are likely going to be the role model to others. Because, who is not inspired by someone that self-inspires?
3. Prioritize what makes you happy in your waking hours
What are your priorities in life? Good health? Many people above the age of 35 would say it’s good health.
If so, how many of you above 35 actually actually invest time daily on making your health good?
Take an average day of your life, scan through how many minutes you actually are focused on exercising or having a healthy balanced meal for your good health. 1 hour a day spent on exercising is 4% of your time spent on what your top priority is…does that sound like you are prioritizing well?
- Plan – specifically plan the time block in your day or week to your priorities. For e.g., if your priority is good health, plan specific and realistic walking hours (e.g. Monday and Friday 8-9pm), muscle training (Tues,Thurs,Sunday 8-9pm), Pilates (Saturday 10am)
- Do – Do exactly as per your specific and realistic plan. Even if you could not follow your plan exactly for 1 day, it is ok as long as you continue to do the next time you’re supposed to do the action. This plan is a marathon, it is about sustaining the plan.
- Reflect – Take time to reflect on your performance in accordance with your plan. See if you need to change any, be happy with yourself for keeping up the parts you did. Do you have new priorities that came up? Slot that new priority into your plan.
- Repeat
4. Be happy with yourself
Become good in what you want to be good at through continous learning. Become the person you want to be by understanding what your ikigai is.
If you do 1, 2 and 3, you will be happy with yourself.
Small sustained steps make you who you are as what you do everyday on a sustained basis compounds over time. Someone used the analogy of a golf ball, the slight angle difference that hits the golf ball initially is so small but the further the ball goes, it could make miles a difference in where the ball lands. That is setting the initial direction (intention and plan), if you keep going in that direction, you would become a very different person over years! Hopefully your own role model!
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