Latest / The Checkpoint Podcast: Questions / Episode 2 | Why Change Feels Harder After 50?
Transcript
- The DECAF Network: Hey, it's Dexter from the Checkpoint and Reboot Player One. And ⁓ if you're watching these videos that I've been recording, thanks. It ⁓ it means a lot. And I do look at the view count and yeah, look, admittedly, some of those views are mine. ⁓ but I'm having fun and I'm realizing that some of the videos that I record at the time that I think I'm recording them, I think I'm me. And when I watch it back, I I think that I'm a little bit, I don't know, a little bit stiff, a little bit apprehensive, a little bit, you know, still not I wouldn't say I'm not authentically me. I think I'm absolutely am authentically me, but I you know, just when there's a camera in front of you and ⁓ you're not talking to anyone, you've got to somehow build your own enthusiasm, you've got to bounce off yourself, I guess. ⁓ it's a bit difficult, so I'm gonna keep pushing on because I'm enjoying it and I want to improve myself in the way of communicating like this. And ⁓ and it actually helps me a lot talking about this stuff. So if you're watching, thanks. And I promise to do better, promise to be better, and I promise to be more authentically me in front of this camera that I am looking at. Okay, so today's question is. Why does change feel harder now than it used to be? Why does change feel harder now than it used to be? I think that's kind of an easy, easy question to answer. ⁓ I I I think change actually, no, I lie. I think that answer is a bit difficult. Let me preface it by this. I think change in any part of your life is always going to feel difficult. If you're almost turning 30, if you're if you've just finished high school and deciding on what you want to do, if you've graduated. university and looking for a job if you're actually employed and looking for another job. There's always going to be change and there's always going to be a feeling of difficulty around it. And normally I think that what we tend to do is we we tend to classify changes in terms of their size and in terms of how we feel about them. Right. So Let's just say, for example, that I've been eating oats every day for a week for breakfast. And ⁓ I have the the creamy honey flavor, which is at this point in time my favorite. Now let's just say that next week I decide to buy a packet of ⁓ apple cinnamon. That's a change, but is it a big change? No. Is it something that I would want to tell other people about? Not necessarily, if it comes up in conversation, sure, but it's not like I'm going to, you know, put up a social post about it or anything like that. But still it's a change nonetheless. Having said that, if the change was from eating oats everyday, ⁓ creamy honey to not eating breakfast at all and skipping it entirely because I want to I want my first meal to come around lunchtime or even just dinner, like I'm I'm basically fasting, that's a big change. That's a hard change. And that's a change that, yeah, look, sure, I might actually want to tell people about it. So I think that change has always been difficult. I think it's always been hard. ⁓ if if it's not particularly difficult, then it might not represent ⁓ a bigger change as what you might think it is. But any big change in your life, I feel is always going to be difficult. Starting a new business ⁓ at my age ⁓ versus starting a new business when when you're twenty. It's still gonna be difficult because you're you're getting out of your comfort zone of what it is that you're doing, you know, whether you're an employee or whatever it is, to then go into a different thing. It's always gonna be it's gonna be hard. So I don't necessarily think that change itself is getting harder. I just think that change overall is difficult. Now, I think what the question is leading to are are things like, you know, in in my age, getting into my fifties, there are other things that are in play other than the change. So we've got dependence. You know, let's just say for example, we're doing the the change of becoming sorry, from being an employee to running your own business. You know, if you have no kids, no dependents, it's quite an easy change, like the the change itself is going to be hard, but in terms of a decision, it's pretty easy. But then if you've got two or three kids that ⁓ that you're looking after, if there's a particular amount of money that you need to be taking home each week or each month, then again, the decision becomes a bit more difficult. So the change w does it does it make the change any harder? I don't think so. The change is going to be hard regardless. So I think the question kind of leads to that. Because a lot of these questions that I'm asking myself are questions that people my age are going through. And they're going through to that next stage of life. There there's a lot of people, there are a lot of people that are thinking about, you know, starting their own business from being an employee for twenty plus years of their life. Now, is that a difficult decision? Yeah. Will it be more difficult having kids and a mortgage and all that sort of stuff? Yeah. But it's still going to be difficult regardless. But let me let me just elaborate a little bit on some of the potential ⁓ differences ⁓ in making changes for a person my age and or going into the next stage of my life. So there are kids. ⁓ most ⁓ most people will still have kids of some dependence, and strangely speaking. It it doesn't matter how old your kid is, whether they're less than a year, or whether they're eighteen or twenty one, or I'm guessing even, you know, closer to fifty, there's always going to be a certain level of support you give them. Obviously, if you're ⁓ a good parent, ⁓ or you're if or if you're a parent that cares for your kids, you're going to be there in their lives for as long as you can. And so there's still going to be some decisions made that are based off them. So there's that. There are parents, if they're still around, you have to make certain ⁓ sacrifices, you have to make certain changes, you have to make certain allowances. If your parents are still here, ⁓ whatever change that you are wanting to do, they're kept in mind as well. Obviously, your financial situation in terms of what you have and what you need, that's gonna make things a little bit more difficult. ⁓ there's obviously the the perception. of of you internally. And I and I think this is probably ⁓ one of the answers to this question, which I think is a little bit more difficult to try and overcome. Because it's not just as simple as, you know, I need X amount of money per week to survive. Or I can help my parents out by making sure I go there once a week. Or, you know, something along those lines. There's usually answers for those sorts of potential perceived problems or issues that can come up from when you're trying to make a big change. However, the internal stuff, that's a bit more difficult. And I think this is where the ⁓ this line of questioning comes from. So an internal change is difficult. ⁓ I'm I'm certain I've recorded this before, but ⁓ this identity shift is something that's really difficult to describe. It's difficult to know how to do it. It's difficult to keep executing it in terms of, you know, that that age-old barbecue question, what do you do? ⁓ you know, I still say I'm an IT guy because I I still am as to what that will be in the next four or five years, and I'm not doing IT or I might be doing IT in in a diminished capacity. I don't know. So, you know, that that sort of change there is something that's going to be ongoing and it'll be dynamic. It could change from day to day realistically. ⁓ There's also the the thought process as well, that that's going to be a big change. There are, you know, from from being a person that that follows instruction. If you're an employee, you know, people tell you what to do. You've got, you know, people that you answer to, and then you've you're you know, hopefully hopefully leading some people as well. So from going from that environment to something where you're you're calling all of the shots, for example. You know, or on the flip side, it could be the other way around. It could be a manager, you could have people answering to you, you could have many people answering to you. Then you decide to do a career shift, do something different where you're now the person that is doing the work and you're answering to other people. You know, you're all the emplo you know how how should I say it? You know, you have managers above you. There's a there's a change there. So those are the things that will make change difficult. change harder. You are a little bit more used to yourself. You know, you when when you're younger, maybe say, I don't know, late teens, twenties, maybe early thirties, you have ⁓ less dependencies, you're there's that saying, you know, foot loose and fancy free. You can make decisions. You know, you can wake up one one Saturday morning and decide to drive into state for the weekend. You know, you don't have kids, you've just got friends. And and and so that sort of change there is easy to do because you don't have baggage, so to speak. And ⁓ on top of that as well, you're still trying to find your identity. You know, you're trying to find your people. You know, sure you may have friends in high school and as you get older, you know, some of those friends will still be around, and then you might get in a new bunch of friends, and they might be entirely different from you, from a different school, different state, different country, different ethnicity, different religion, whatever it is. So you're still trying to figure out who you are. So, you know, by the time you get through your 30s and your 40s, you've kind of established who it is that you are. You know, you may have changed here on there. You may have gone through this massive weight loss shift and slightly changed an identity there. But internally you're still you're still kind of the same. And ⁓ and so when it comes time for a shift that is coming, it's coming for everyone, and you're asked to to do it, whether you want to or not, it becomes a bit difficult. You know, it's it's a it's a shift where ⁓ you're having to take in all of these things that you've never had to think about before. And not only that, during that change, there are things will come up that you'll have no never planned for. Things will come up, there are just so many things ⁓ added where as if you were to make a change when you're quite young. They're not around. But ultimately, I feel that ⁓ change is harder. Change is hard. That's pretty much the bottom line for me. I don't think it's harder. I think it's I think change is hard. Whether you're young, whether you're you know, whether you're in your twenties or thirties, change is hard. Fourties and fifties, I'm assuming it's going to be harder again. And You know, into my sixties and seventies, I will imagine the change is still going to be hard. So on the flip side, what I do like to say is that the older you get, and I'm hoping this is the same for for most people, I know this is for me, is that ⁓ there's that Simpson, you know, ⁓ Abe Simpson, Sim ⁓ Homer Simpson's dad, like, you yelling at the cloud, shakes fist at the cloud. ⁓ there's that meme that c that goes around. And I like that because it kind of represents what a lot of people go through, where the older they get, the less they tend to care about what other people think. You know, when you're young, you're impressionable, you you you kinda again, you're still trying to find your identity. So you're trying different things out, you're dressing differently, you're cutting your hair differently, you're trying to hang out with different groups of people to see what fits and what feels right. And a lot of the times the identity you're trying to create for yourself is based off what other people say. ⁓ I don't like the way your hair is like that or your shoes look funny on you or, you know, why did you dye your hair blonde? All that sort of stuff. But the older you get, the less you care about those sorts of things. And so sometimes, yeah, look, the older you get, change could be considered harder. But at the same time there are other aspects that will make things a little bit easier. So I think that's it. ⁓ if you want if you have questions like this and want to talk about it with a nice group of people, we have events like this every week on Wednesdays. You can find out more out you can find out more by going to tc.rubyplay one dot com. I'm Dexter and I will chat to you then. Bye.