Are you absolutely terrified about turning 60? If so, it’s important that you consider just why you are filled with trepidation. It’s just a number after all.

Is leaving your 50’s such a big deal? Many women are able to take turning 60 in their stride and to relish the new decade. For others, turning 60 is depressing, daunting and instigates feelings of anxiety. No-one wants to grow old but the biggest challenge is to ensure that your health is as good as it can be and that your quality of life continues to improve.

How Did You Feel About Turning 40?

If you think back to how you felt when you were just about to turn 40, did you experience concerns then at entering middle age? When you reached your 50’s, did those moments of self-doubts and anxieties start to rise in a flourish then too?

If you had concerns 10 or 20 years ago, then it is likely that your fear is more associated with what lies ahead and it’s impossible to ignore any decreasing fitness, new aches and pains or the fear that as you age, your health will demise.

Worrying About Turning 60 Won’t Change a Thing

Worrying however will not change the fact that your 60^th birthday is looming and neither will it help to make the experience special. The years fly by and so each day, week, month and year has to be given 100% maximum effort so that your life is truly significant.

Irrespective of your health, your financial or relationship status, make your 60th year a time of exciting challenges and a time to embrace the thrilling times ahead.

It’s Time to Reject Fear and Get the Most from Life After 60

It’s easy to let the fear of the unknown hold you back. You may feel intimidated by the future, feel a sense of insecurity or a longing for the person you once were. It’s natural to have doubts sometimes.

But what if you could squash those anxieties and instead forge new boundaries for success instead?

If you are worried that your 60’s will bring rejection of sorts because of your age, prove to yourself that you are even better than when you were in your 50’s because you know what you want and you have a lifetime of experience to support your future goals.

Life After 60 is What You Make it

Self-limitations are a cruel part of life. No-one can get through life without experiencing them sadly. But years of experience speak for themselves; you are as good as you believe that you are. You can make your 60’s a sad time or one of vibrant, goal-setting success.

If there is one thing that I have learned by managing the Sixty and Me community it is that life after 60 is a choice. We can choose to sit in front of the TV all day. Or, we can get out and experience the world. We can lament our changing social circumstances. Or, we can engage in activities that allow us to make new friends. The choice is ours to make.

As Jamie Lee Curtis once said, “If I can challenge old ideas about aging, I will feel more and more invigorated. I want to represent this new way. I want to be a new version of the 70-year-old woman. Vital, strong, very physical, very agile. I think that the older I get, the more yoga I’m going to do.”

Are You Ready to Embrace Your Future?

Just remember how difficult life was at times in your teenage years. Every frustration, every set-back, every romantic rejection felt like the end of the world. Relationship issues, divorce or money worries may have plagued your middle years too but you got through them all.

Now as you approach your 60’s, you realize that these set-backs are beatable and they don’t forge the end of your world. As you become more mature, you realize that they are just obstacles to clamber over and with each obstacle surmounted, a new sense of achievement and self-worth will be experienced.

Forget about holding onto the past; embrace your future by writing down a to-do list that is as long as you want it to be. Set some easy challenges and some difficult ones. Have fun writing your list and look forward to setting out on a new adventure – determine to travel, to go to college, to start your own business, in fact, do whatever is going to make you happy.

Success in your 60’s is in your hands, feel the fear or embrace it.

Are you turning 60 this year? How do you feel about this milestone? Please join the conversation and “like” and share this article to keep the discussion going.

Learn more about realizing your dreams in your 60s in my interview with Prill Boyle.