Age is often the excuse for having less physical or athletic potential. But as we are witnessing in the Olympics, mindset overrides physical performance. And for the aging, emotional intelligence is your greatest asset to manage mindset.

How often do you hear, from yourself or friends, “I used to be able to do that!”

This is a statement that could be said with personal pride and joy, or with self judgment and defeat.

We all have the choice to appreciate what we’ve HAD, or reject what we HAVE.

A critical difference between young and old bodies is how they respond to injury. Young-body injuries are typically acute breaks that heal quickly. Old-body injuries are often wear and tear chronic conditions that heal slowly.

Of course, this is a very general comparison. But under the surface of most injuries is this basic truth. And, it’s often experienced as going up or down the ladder of life.

When we climb the ladder of life there’s a lot of Creating Forward and Determined Power energy eagerly motivating our mindset.
• Creating Forward sparks the heart’s potential to FLY.
• Determined Power drives the body’s fight to FLY.
When we descend the ladder of life there’s a lot of Suspending Judgment and Coming Home energy delicately comforting our mindset.
• Suspending Judgment GROUNDS you in the moment.
• Coming Home GROUNDS you in yourself.
We’re either preparing to fly or grounded!

But what if we change the visual?

What if a hierarchy of life replaced the modern-day ladder. A sacred system that deepened our connection to living and allowed potential to shape shift, rather than a mere rise and fall from grace.

Take walking, for example. Our first steps are celebrated when we traverse from one pair of outstretched arms to another. No one teaches us how to walk. We simply power ourselves through. And everyone values us for it.

And so it goes in life. We power ourselves through until we get injured or are taught another, more effective, way.

Experience—age, time, wisdom—teaches us to value what it takes to fly, what it means to ground, and what is empowered by standing still. This holistic capacity offers choice, so a right-for-you life can be crafted. Maturing out of powering through, to right-for-you, is emotional maturity.

For some Olympic athletes, this meant not attending the opening ceremony. Right-for-you adjustments are made at every age. It is a sign of maturity. Thinking that it’s only when you’re old, that limits infringe on your choices, is not only false, it’s misleading.

Considering your limits doesn’t take you out of your potential—doesn’t make you less than your younger self—unless you decide it so. It simply shifts your connection with it. Emotional intelligence is having appreciation for the journey and having the courage to make right-for-you choices along the way.

Learning to walk effectively through life takes a lifetime. First you connect to your own weight, then you connect to the weight of the world, then you connect to a universal weightlessness.
• Universal Connection deliberately stands STILL.
Stand in your potential. Know when to fly. Know how to ground. And be still, so you can hear the deep guiding voice within you that lives for your potential.

All bullet point references are reflected in my upcoming program: The Art of Posture. I look forward to walking “deliberately”with you soon!