Memory Minders

Stimulating Enrichment Services
to Enhance Memory & Wellness
  • Home
  • About
  • Services
    • Groups
    • Speaking
    • Individual
    • MemoryMinders Academy
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy

August 6, 2017

Letting Go

None of us are perfect. We are all human making multiple mistakes daily. Yet we chide ourselves when not perfect. Why?

Is it because we don’t look like, can’t remember or do something like we used to? Working with older adults and watching loved ones age, I remind them it’s okay to let go of some of these youthful or perfect expectations. But do I? Often times, no.

This month I’m focusing on letting go on my other blog and also here. This week, let’s discuss letting go of perfect and/or unrealistic expectations.

A good analogy is playing golf. Jack Nicklaus recently described how he now plays from a more forward tee box when playing golf. Even one of the greatest golfers knows he cannot hit it as far as he once did. Yet many of us know other golfers still trying to play from where they did twenty years ago! I wonder how frustrated they become when they can’t golf the same as twenty years earlier?

Time and age change us and we aren’t perfect. So why do we get down on ourselves when we cannot perform as we once did or when our bodies and minds change over time? Please understand, I advocate for doing everything we can to live healthy by utilizing wellness and memory habits to assist us. That is the heart of MemoryMinders. But if we sometimes can’t remember a name or do something as well or as fast as we did twenty years ago, it can be okay.

Letting go of perfect leads to being healthier in body & mind. #wellness
Powered By the Tweet This Plugin
Tweet This

I’m learning this too as I age. My 50-year body is not the same as my 20-year-old body. Yet sometimes, I expect it to look or function the same. That’s just plain unrealistic. But it’s how I feel. I’ve chided clients and loved ones for not using physical or mental assistive devices to help. They don’t want to use the walker, hearing aids or memory techniques. In their mind, they want to still function as they did years earlier. I understand as I do too, but I also try to help them be realistic.

Being realistic means understanding things are not the same as they once were and that can be okay. Yes, our bodies and minds may not function like they once did, but there are things, people, and programs to help.

Here are a few ways to shift our perspective off of perfect and unrealistic to healthy and accepting:

  • Don’t think of what you can’t do, but what you can do to help with what you can’t. (Use assistive devices, utilize mental and physical programs, make lifestyle changes etc.)
  • Use your strengths to help your weaknesses. (i.e.-if forgetful, learn techniques within your strengths to help  and/or if physical issues arise, think about how can you  either improve function or utilize assistance to help.)
  • Shift your focus. Instead of lamenting our plight when things don’t go our way, learn from what’s occurred to avoid, prevent, or at least try to improve for the future.
  • Be proactive. This is the most important point and the cornerstone of our mission here at MemoryMinders. We all know many of the things we should be doing for our mind and body wellness but often don’t execute on them for whatever reason. Stop that cycle now. Choose to do one thing, then another to help. Be realistic and keep steadily putting one foot in front of the other.

Last week on the blog, we discussed where we are on life’s climb. Whether it’s eating healthy, exercising mind and body or other lifestyle habits we can choose, it’s about offense instead of defense. It’s easier to consistently eat well and not gain 20 extra pounds than it is to try and lose them. It’s easier to keep our minds sharp now than try to regrow brain cells and relearn previously known things.

Let’s be honest and realistic. We aren’t perfect and we’re still climbing either uphill or downhill in life. Move forward in a proactive way by letting go of unrealistic and perfect and choosing to enjoy life in a healthy and accepting manner. This positive approach can literally change us, physically and mentally.

But only if we let go and choose well.Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

signature

1 Comment • Filed Under: Brain fitness, Habits, Memory, Wellness Tagged With: Attitude, exercise, Habits, Identity, Memory, Mental fitness, Mindful Monday, Strategies, wellness

Sign up for weekly resources on mind & memory wellness and receive a beautiful Coloring Page as my gift to you!

Comments

  1. Dick & Karen Merklein says

    August 7, 2017 at 9:53 am

    Hello Jill,
    Karen and I thank you for your “Tips to Let Go of Perfect”. Both of us are well into our eighties
    and finally faced the fact of our hearing loss and obtained hearing aids which we should have done several years ago. It was a new learning experience with some initial discomfort, but they have made a positive difference in our marriage and in our social life here at Luther Manor. Although hearing aids cannot restore perfect hearing, they do provide improved hearing, which reminds us of an old axiom that “The perfect is the enemy of the good”, and which is why your “Tips To Let Go of Perfect” is spot on.

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.


Welcome to The MemoryMinders Blog!
This will be updated frequently 
with new and interesting info on memory wellness and MemoryMinders news. Posts
will include new research breakthroughs impacting memory wellness, tips and strategies for everyday memory wellness, how
to implement lifestyle changes
that assist memory and more! 
Sign up below to get these updates delivered right to your email box

Sign up for weekly resources on mind & memory wellness and receive a beautiful Coloring Page as my gift to you!

Tags

Attention Attitude Brain Caregivers exercise Food Habits Identity Learning Styles Memory Memory Makeover Mental fitness Mindful Monday Mindful Winter Warm Up Research Senses Sleep social Spring into Wellness Challenge Strategies stress Summer to Remember wellness

Search My Site

Latest Facebook Post

Unable to display Facebook posts.
Show error

Error: (#4) Application request limit reached
Type: OAuthException
Code: 4
Please refer to our Error Message Reference.
"Our memory is who we are,
were and hope to be. Our memories are our identity. MemoryMinders mission is to enhance and sustain that identity through memory wellness.”
– Jill Hoven

Connect With Us


PH. 262.707.9387

Copyright © 2019 MemoryMinders LLC · Site Design by The Design Diva