Ageism.

So many of us are continually giving ourselves a negative message about old age and making comments that we would never utter about other sectors of society.

And worse, we do it to ourselves all the time, reinforcing a negative message about something that should be a cause for celebration. In the UK our longevity is increasing. Compared to our forebears we are living longer and more healthily than ever before.

Power of self talk

We all know how powerful the internal messages that we give ourselves are. If we continually tell ourselves we are old so we can’t do things, then we can’t. You know the old truism, if you say you can, you can. If you say you can’t, you can’t. Both statements hold true!

So next time you hear yourself making a derogatory joke about being older, pause a while.

Stop all the derogatory or comical references to ageing for a day, especially in relation to yourself. It’ll probably be harder than you think. You’ll be surprised just how many you make. “It’s my age” are banned words for one day as are ‘look at that stupid OLD duffer hogging the middle lane (lots of stupid young duffers hug the middle lane, nothing to do with age!),

Hopefully we’ll all grow old, so let’s show a bit of respect and banish ageism!

Take a look at Age & Women for more on this topic.

PS I run a course on valuing experience and making the most of experienced workers. If you’re interested in finding out what it can do for your organisation, do call 01761438749 for more details

The book is about having the life that you want at any age! It’s divided into two halves: part one is titled ‘Nature and Instinct: Your First Life ‘ and part two ‘Reclaiming Your Original Self:Your Second Life.

In part one Barbara guides you through some exercises to help you review your life so far and examine some of your cherished ideas and assumptions. And in part two she takes you on a mission to ‘find your gifts and bring them into your day to day life’

Extract

Here is an extract called ‘Road Fever Pop Quiz’. Try answering her questions yourself.

1) What did “freedom” mean to you when you were younger? What does it mean to you now? Do you ever long for it?

2)Have you ever dreamed of running away to sea or taking to the open highway? What did you hope that would give you?

3) What would you want to take with you? What would you want to leave behind?

4) What do you imagine would change about you if you went to a new place?

5) When was the last time you felt as wide-awake to your environment as a small child does?

6) What would it take for your life to become an adventure?

Thought provoking stuff!

Over the same period, the percentage of the population aged 16 and under decreased from 21 per cent to 19 per cent. This trend is projected to continue. By 2033, 23 per cent of the population will be aged 65 and over compared to 18 per cent aged 16 or younger. (Office for National Statistics),

So why are major employers (with a few notable exceptions) still discriminating against older people?  And are you ageist in your attitudes? Do you make jokes about older people that you’d never make about other groups in society because they would sound so bad, yet we don’t notice with older people? Do you put yourself down for being older?

Over 40, Over the Hill?

A good friend of mine has just started a fashion web site for women over 40, called Fashionable Maven. It launched this week but Vicki Day, site owner, has been researching and working on it for months. She plans to feature fashions for women over 40 and as such approached several big clothes manufacturers.

And some said “I don’t want my clothes associated with women over 40″.

Can you believe it? Apart from it being blatant femageism, it shows a sad lack of understanding of the power and increasing number of this age group of women. I’m not going to name and shame but Vicki might on her site at some point!

Fight Back!

Time to take a stand I think. Whether you are over 40 or not, try this exercise for one week:

For the next seven days eliminate all ageist vocabulary and comments from your life. Notice how often you are having ageist thoughts (e.g muttering, ‘stupid old fool, shouldn’t be driving’ when actually you may have experienced several ‘fools’ on the road of all ages!) Just try and eliminate the ageist bit, you can still be ‘drivist’!

When you look at someone older than you, don’t see wrinkles and decreasing ability, see wisdom and beauty. Don’t be taken in by the advertising that worships eternal youth! After all, with luck, we’ll all be old one day!

Interview

Vicki interviewed me for her site, which was a novel experience! I’m normally doing the interviewing. You can read the interview in full by clicking here.

PS Interestingly, it was not easy to find a positive picture of an older woman to illustrate this post! So I used my lovely Mum, taken on her 80th birthday!