Changing our success narrative to fit our age!

I was asked in a session on burnout and resilience "How do we manage the changes we expereince at work - when we can't do as much as we used to because we're older?"

I was immediately taken to my own experience in a recent conference where I had decide to "perform" my keynote on 7 transitions in life as the "Dance of the Seven Veils". I had been joking to my friends - "I'll see if I can get up from the splits"...and in 'rehearsal' in my hotel room - I couldn't even get down. It was like I turned 50 and suddenly this move that I could still do some some sort of finesse even in my 40s - was no longer in my wheelhouse. For a moment I really felt my body had let me down... (Realistically it was the other way round - I'd let my body down by not practicing flexibility regularly, but with other committments and the like, that wasn't so much of a priority.).

I had to change my mindset. There was part of me that felt a bit of shame that I'd flippantly and performatively announced (only to friends thankfully) that "the splits" would be part of the main event, and now that was certianly not going to be the case, but I also had to accept it wasn't going to happen overnight and either change the move or work in the awkwardness!!

Ironically one of the lines in said key note was "So what if your high kick is more of a slow sultry walk..." - somehow in my head I'd thought - I'll be fine doing all those moves...but now I was going to practice what I was about to preach...the slow sultry walk rather than the high kick.

I made the change - doing instead a 1/2 box split to the floor into a pose - and concluded to applause (and only a tiny bit of shock as to that was how I'd chosen to interpret the brief) that age transitions are not about what we lose, but the power they reveal!

So my response to the question was: We might need to change our success criteria. So maybe we aren't all about the "doing it" anymore, and perhaps, if we're experienced in the job "doing it" is too easy. Perhaps we could be moving on to the skills of delegating and mentoring anyway - raising others to follow in our accomplished footsteps? Perhaps we need to plan for future growth and direction rather than holding tight to old habits? Perhaps also if we let go of what was, we clear some space for what is yet to be?

I wrote in "Be A Great Manager Now" that when we move into a mangement role, we need to harness our technical skills displayed when part of the team, and use them to underpin the new emotional skills we are developing as we step into a role that helps others flourish as we did. The same is true as we get older.

I'm not for "giving in" to the creaks and strains - we need to keep actively and consciously making healthy choices for our body and mind, but we might also need to reframe our achievement criteria...that doesn't mean lowering it, it just means respoitioning it!

In my case I could try to hold only my youth and end up doing something what will only have looked, well "cringe!" - BUT in focusing less on the, arguably immature, desire to impress using quite an old party trick and more on the importance of the message I was to convey and the fact I was there as a keynote speaker of many years of experience, not a Rockette, I found a new balance of theatrical flair and academic grounding..and the confidence that "I've still got it".

Maybe age is simply about us moving our goalposts...especially when we know how we score goals best!

Dr Audrey Tang is a chartered psychologist, TEDx Speaker, business author, leadership trainer and burlesque instructor.