How to Stay Young and Slow the Aging Process

byDBCrist

451 followers

3 years ago

The Four Secrets of Successful Aging are.

• Appreciate your reality
• Challenge your body
• Stimulate your intellect
• Nurture your spirit

While all are important, for the purpose of this blog, I'd like to focus on stimulating the intellect.

Qualities Needed to Stimulate the Intellect

• Overall health
• Clarity of intention
• Level of attention

Attention to Our Intention

Maintaining our health both spiritually and physically is obvious, what's not obvious is the clarity of intention, of our conscious will, and the level of attention, to the maintenance of our mental focus. Our brains are well-equipped and actually need to be challenged, no matter our age.

The Why Beneath the Why

Our intentions determine our experience. It's the why beneath the why. There is a big difference between an intention to get rich and make a lot of money or to help people live a better life. Our intention affects the basic laws of Cause and Effect and Attraction. Even when, our intention is unknown to us, it will always have the same consequence. If our intention is to make money, then we are only interested in ourselves, if our intention is to help someone live a better life then we are interested in others, One is based in fear and one is based in love.

Force vs Power

Force is in pursuit of external power (money), it raises and crushes hopes, it exhilarates and disappoints, it succeeds or fails. Power is the pursuit of authentic power (a better life), it fulfills and uplifts, validates, and empowers. If your intention is the pursuit of external power you will attract people who are only interested in making money, they only see the world as either win or lose. They are impatient, with expectations, needing instant gratification, and when success isn't immediate they quit. If your intention is the pursuit of authentic power you'll attract people who are empowered and fulfilled by uplifting others. There is no false agenda, therefore they can delay gratification. They are patient and get fulfillment through the incremental improvement of themselves and others.

Learning Easier Than Ever

Attention to your intention will improve the experience when learning new skills or a body of knowledge. There are many ways to gain knowledge. In my blog, "The Future of Learning", I wrote "Technology is making it possible now for those that can, to also teach.
The future of Learning in the 21st Century is where successful entrepreneurs will use a Mastermind approach, utilizing internet communities, workshops, and groups to teach their targeted market the skills they currently use. They will either promote themselves, virtually or in person, as the expert, reporter, or broker of the skills desired."

It Takes a Community

Web sites like Wealthy Affiliates.com are examples of an internet community, created by entrepreneurs, to teach others the skills they have. To be a member of such a community and to learn a new skill set, it's important to manage our emotions. Emotions and intellect are tightly interwoven. By becoming aware of our emotions we realize that we can control them only by being mindful of them. It's through mindfulness that we begin to subordinate our reflexive emotional reactions.

Emotions

Doing something meaningful and having a sense of purpose, strongly influences our emotional state. The satisfaction you gain by doing something meaningful gives you self-definition, builds self-esteem, and keeps you young. Without a sense of purpose, negative emotions like worry, anxiety, depression, and loneliness can go unchecked. Having these emotions ages you.

Challenge Yourself

By challenging ourselves to learn new skills and knowledge, we better appreciate the world and our place in it. Too many allow themselves to come to a virtual intellectual standstill, by the absence of a meaningful challenge. This absence of a challenge kills the desire to know and leads to depression and an overall depreciation in mental dexterity, and we age. Learning new skills brings freedom and a challenging state of mind, that improves our ability to solve problems. When learning stops, time closes around us, and we age.

The Mind of God

In the book by Maxwell Maltz called "Psycho-Cybernetics". He talked about identifying erroneous and restrictive programming embedded in the self-image and that we could systematically alter it to better suit our purposes. I was reminded of the mind being of two parts, psychology and skills. 20% is skill-based, gathering info, and 80% is psychology-based, controlling behavior and emotions. He talked about the mind being an automatic success mechanism and how it was important to get the conscious mind in line with the unconscious mind. We do this by using our imagination to set the goal (picture) then let the automatic mechanism work on it.

The Map is Not the Territory

In relating a story about a successful salesman, he explained that the salesman didn't see failure as a blow to the ego but as a learning tool. He also said that we have a mental image of ourselves and the world and people around us and that we behave as though these images are true. See the supposition "the map is not the territory" in my blog on Neuro-Linguistic Programming. He goes into recognizing how negative self-talk imprints into our subconscious mind (that doesn't know it's not real). I wrote a blog on how this can be the hardest habit a person can ever break. Maltz went on to talk about how failure is only an opinion and not a fact and only calls for adjustments and re-calibration. You can do this through visualization.

Picture in your Mind

The mind thinks in pictures, not words. As we vividly picture in our minds what we desire, it will become a reality. Create an exciting picture of the future. Most people don’t have a clear picture of what they want. At best, it’s fuzzy. Write down the most important reasons for accomplishing your goal, and the biggest benefit you will receive upon completion. Big reasons keep you young and are the driving force that keeps you going when the going gets tough. We are able to stay young and slow the aging process by creating goals and having big reasons in achieving them. Successfully accomplishing your goals takes energy, effort, and concentrated thinking. That’s why it’s important to be connected to what you’re working towards and it shouldn't be only about money!

Your Goals Should Be,

1. Yours
2. Meaningful.
3. Specific and measurable.
4. Flexible.
5. Challenging and exciting.
6. In alignment with your core values.
7. Well balanced.
8. Contributing to society.
9. Realistic.
10. Supported

Cause and Effect

It is a wonderful experience and a great adventure to make conscious use of knowledge. To have a goal that we can plant in our mind and see it gradually take form, is truly amazing. Taking something from our imagination and turning it into a reality, is what gives pleasure. Age is a state of mind using our imagination and creative powers to keep us young. We imagine a goal and use our intelligence to create it. It's the Law of Cause and Effect.

As always, thanks for visiting. Dave