Today I Choose to be Improving – How to be Improving

There’s a temptation at this age to think improvement belongs to the young — that at 61, I should have everything figured out by now, that the time for major life changes has passed, that improvement at this stage is just tinkering around the edges of a mostly-formed human being. The cultural messages are clear: youth is for becoming, middle age is for maintaining, and anything beyond that is just trying not to decline too quickly.

But Curtis’s health crisis taught me more about improvement than any self-help book or productivity system ever had. Sitting in those sterile waiting rooms, watching him navigate uncertainty with grace and resilience I hadn’t known he possessed, I realized that real improvement isn’t about optimization or efficiency. It’s about becoming more human, more present, more capable of love in the face of whatever life presents. And apparently, there’s no age limit on that kind of transformation.

The improvements I’m pursuing now — learning patience when my natural inclination is to push, setting boundaries without guilt, resisting the pull of doom-scrolling when anxiety spikes — these aren’t the high-performance modifications of my younger years. They’re subtler, deeper changes that affect the quality of each day rather than the trajectory of my career. They’re improvements in being rather than doing, and they’ve proven more challenging and more rewarding than any professional development I ever undertook.

Redefining Improvement After 50

In my 30s and 40s, improvement meant adding skills, accumulating accomplishments, becoming more efficient at achieving external goals. I collected certifications, optimized my schedule, read books about leadership and productivity. I measured progress through metrics: increased salary, expanded team, reduced processing time. Improvement was quantifiable, visible to others, and always oriented toward doing more, faster, better.

The improvement I’m experiencing now is less measurable but more transformative. It’s not about adding capabilities but refining the ones I have. It’s not about doing more but doing with greater intention. It’s not about impressing others but about becoming more genuinely myself. This shift from external to internal metrics has been both liberating and disorienting — how do you measure progress when the changes are mostly invisible to others?

During Curtis’s illness, I discovered that improvement could mean learning to sit still without fidgeting, to listen to medical information without immediately researching alternatives, to be present in uncertainty without trying to solve it. These weren’t skills I could put on a resume, but they proved more valuable than any professional competency I’d ever developed.

The Patience Project

If I had to identify the most significant area of improvement in recent years, it would be patience — a quality that seemed fundamentally incompatible with my personality for most of my adult life. I was the woman who tapped her foot during elevator rides, who finished other people’s sentences, who had already moved on to the next agenda item before the current discussion concluded. Patience felt inefficient, unnecessary, almost self-indulgent.

Curtis’s recovery changed that perspective completely. Hospital schedules don’t accommodate impatience. Healing happens on its own timeline, indifferent to my preferences or deadlines. Test results come when they come. Pain medication works when it works. Recovery proceeds at its own pace, and no amount of foot-tapping or agenda-pushing makes any difference whatsoever.

Learning patience has been physical work. I’ve had to retrain my nervous system to tolerate waiting without generating stress hormones. I’ve practiced breathing exercises to manage the restlessness that arises when things don’t move at my preferred pace. I’ve learned to notice the tension that builds in my shoulders when I’m trying to rush something that can’t be rushed, and to consciously release it.

The improvement in patience has rippled into every area of my life. I’m a better painter because I can wait for layers to dry instead of rushing the process. I’m a better writer because I can sit with difficult passages until the right words emerge instead of settling for the first approximation. I’m a better friend because I can listen to full stories without jumping to solutions or judgments.

Boundary Setting Without Guilt

Another area of significant improvement has been learning to set boundaries — not just recognizing where they should be, but actually implementing them without the crushing guilt that used to accompany any assertion of my own needs. This improvement has been decades in the making, shaped by a lifetime of prioritizing others’ comfort over my own well-being.

The breakthrough came when I realized that saying no to good opportunities wasn’t selfish — it was necessary for saying yes to the right opportunities. When I started Enlightenzz, I had to decline invitations, delegate responsibilities, and protect my creative time like a precious resource. The guilt was almost unbearable at first. Every “no” felt like a small betrayal of the helpful person I’d always been.

But I started noticing that the people who truly cared about me respected my boundaries, while those who pushed against them were usually trying to serve their own needs rather than mine. This distinction helped me see boundary-setting as information rather than rejection — a way of clarifying relationships and expectations rather than being mean or unavailable.

The physical improvement that came with better boundaries was immediate and remarkable. The chronic tension in my neck and shoulders began to ease. I slept better. My digestion improved. Apparently, my body had been carrying the stress of all those yes-es I didn’t really want to give, all those commitments that overextended my capacity, all those situations where I prioritized harmony over honesty.

Breaking the Doom-Scrolling Habit

One improvement that would have been impossible to anticipate in my younger years is learning to resist the addictive pull of negative news consumption. The constant stream of catastrophic information that’s available at all hours wasn’t a feature of earlier decades, but it’s become one of the most insidious threats to mental well-being in the digital age.

I noticed this pattern escalating during stressful periods — when Curtis was ill, when work pressures mounted, when the world seemed particularly chaotic. The anxiety would build, and instead of addressing it directly, I’d reach for my phone and dive into news feeds, social media arguments, and crisis-of-the-day updates. It created an illusion of staying informed while actually increasing my anxiety and decreasing my capacity to respond helpfully to real-world situations.

Improving this pattern required treating it like any other addiction — acknowledging the compulsive aspect, identifying triggers, and developing alternative responses. When I feel the urge to scroll through disaster updates, I’ve learned to pause and ask: Will consuming this information help me respond more effectively to anything in my actual life? Usually, the answer is no.

Instead, I’ve developed what I call “constructive input habits” — reading books that expand my understanding, listening to podcasts that teach me something useful, or having real conversations with people in my life. The improvement in my mental state has been dramatic. Less ambient anxiety, more capacity for presence, greater confidence in my ability to handle whatever challenges actually arise in my daily experience.

Improving Relationship with Uncertainty

Perhaps the most profound improvement has been developing a healthier relationship with uncertainty. For most of my adult life, uncertainty felt like a problem to be solved, a gap to be filled with plans, research, and contingency strategies. The unknown was anxiety-producing, something to be minimized through careful preparation and extensive scenario planning.

Life at 61 has taught me that uncertainty is not a bug in the system — it’s a feature. Curtis’s health challenges, my creative emergence, the evolution of our family dynamics as adult children navigate their own lives — none of these areas lend themselves to the kind of predictable management I once believed was possible. Accepting uncertainty as a permanent condition rather than a temporary problem has been incredibly liberating.

This improvement shows up in my body as increased tolerance for that floating sensation that comes with not knowing what’s next. Instead of immediately reaching for distraction or control strategies when uncertainty arises, I’ve learned to breathe into it, to treat it as information about the present moment rather than a threat to my security.

The practical benefits are significant. I make decisions more easily because I’m not trying to predict all possible outcomes. I enjoy experiences more fully because I’m not constantly scanning for what might go wrong. I’m more creative because I’m not limiting possibilities to what I can manage or control.

Physical Improvements Through Acceptance

One surprising area of improvement has been my physical well-being, but not through the typical exercise-and-diet optimization approach of earlier decades. Instead, the improvement has come through accepting my body’s current reality and working with it rather than against it.

This acceptance-based approach started during perimenopause, when my body began changing in ways that didn’t respond to my usual management strategies. Hot flashes, sleep disruptions, energy fluctuations — none of these yielded to willpower or scheduling adjustments. Fighting them only increased my stress and made the symptoms worse.

Learning to work with my body’s natural rhythms instead of imposing external expectations has improved my quality of life dramatically. I schedule challenging tasks for times when my energy is naturally higher. I build rest into my routine instead of treating it as a reward for productivity. I eat foods that make me feel good rather than foods that fit some theoretical optimal diet.

The result is better energy, improved mood, and a sense of partnership with my body rather than constant battle against it. This isn’t about lowering standards or giving up on health; it’s about defining health as harmony rather than control, wellness as sustainability rather than perfection.

Improving Through Subtraction

Some of the most significant improvements at this stage have come through subtraction rather than addition — releasing patterns, beliefs, and commitments that no longer serve the person I’m becoming. This subtractive improvement feels counterintuitive in a culture that equates growth with accumulation, but it’s proven incredibly powerful.

I’ve subtracted the need to have an opinion about everything, which has improved my ability to listen and learn. I’ve subtracted the compulsion to solve other people’s problems, which has improved my relationships and reduced my stress. I’ve subtracted the habit of saying yes to things I don’t actually want to do, which has improved my energy and authenticity.

Each subtraction creates space for something more genuine to emerge. Less rushing allows for more presence. Fewer commitments enable deeper engagement with the ones that matter. Less performing creates room for more authentic self-expression.

The Improvement of Self-Compassion

Perhaps the most transformative improvement has been developing genuine self-compassion — not just intellectual understanding of the concept, but embodied experience of treating myself with the kindness I’d offer a good friend. This improvement has been particularly challenging because it requires releasing the harsh internal critic that I’d mistaken for motivation for most of my adult life.

The shift began when I noticed how I talked to myself about creative failures. When a painting didn’t turn out as envisioned or a blog post felt clunky, my internal voice was brutal — critical in ways I would never speak to another person. Recognizing this pattern was the first step toward changing it.

Developing self-compassion has required conscious practice, like learning any new skill. When I notice self-criticism arising, I pause and ask: What would I say to a friend in this situation? Then I try to offer myself the same gentle guidance, understanding, and encouragement. This isn’t about lowering standards but about creating internal conditions that support growth rather than inhibiting it.

The improvement in my creative output, risk-taking capacity, and general well-being has been remarkable. Self-compassion, it turns out, is more motivating than self-criticism, more conducive to learning, and infinitely more pleasant to live with on a daily basis.

Improving Presence and Attention

Another area of significant improvement has been developing better attention — not just the ability to focus on tasks, but the capacity to be present in conversations, experiences, and ordinary moments. This improvement has been necessary as I’ve noticed how easily my mind can scatter among past regrets and future concerns, missing the richness available right now.

The practice started with small exercises: really tasting my morning coffee instead of drinking it while checking email, listening to conversations without planning my response, walking outside and noticing details I’d previously overlooked. These micro-practices of presence have gradually expanded into a greater capacity for engagement across all areas of life.

Improved presence has enhanced everything from creative work (more available to subtle inspiration) to relationships (more responsive to what others actually need) to simple daily pleasures (more aware of small moments of beauty or humor). It’s an improvement that compounds on itself — the more present I am, the more reasons I find to want to be present.

The Ongoing Nature of Improvement

Today I choose to be improving not because I believe I can perfect myself, but because improvement at this stage feels like the most interesting game available. It’s improvement informed by experience but not limited by it. Improvement that prioritizes wisdom over achievement, depth over breadth, being over doing.

The improvements I’m pursuing now don’t have finish lines. There’s no point when I’ll have enough patience, perfect boundaries, or complete self-compassion. Instead, these are ongoing practices, daily opportunities to respond more skillfully, more kindly, more authentically to whatever arises.

Some days improvement looks like catching myself before I fall into old patterns. Other days it means trying new responses to familiar triggers. Sometimes it’s as simple as taking three deep breaths before speaking, or as complex as restructuring long-held beliefs about what it means to be valuable.

All of it matters. All of it contributes to the quality of daily experience, the depth of relationships, the richness of creative expression, the overall sense of living with intention rather than just reacting to circumstances. The improvement possible at this stage isn’t about becoming someone different; it’s about becoming more fully, more consciously, more compassionately myself.