There are conversations that you have with someone that mark you in good and bad ways. 

One of those (in a good way) was when I was 35. I was talking to my Spiritual Director, who told me, “Josh, what worked in your 20s and 30s won’t work in your 40s and 50s. And what works in your 40s and 50s won’t work in your 60s and 70s.”

Instinctively, we know this to be true. Yet, you only have to look at the people in their mid-40s burning out, trying to work, and acting like they are still in their early 30s. The men who buy sports cars in their 50s to recapture their youth. Or the people who trade in a spouse for another younger one. 

This statement got me thinking: What worked in my 20’s and 30’s? 

I would encourage you to write those things down. That doesn’t mean they will stop working, but if this statement is true (and I’ve seen it to be true in my life and the lives of others), it is essential to know what worked for us. 

Your list will look different from mine, but this exercise showed me some of my strengths in friendships, leadership, marriage, and parenting. 

Now, if you are brave, I would encourage you to send this list to your spouse or a close friend and ask, “Is there anything on this list that isn’t working anymore?” Those closest to us can often see things we are unaware of in our lives. 

Let’s take a simple one: energy. 

In your 20s and 30s, you have boundless energy. Yes, you lose some of it when you have kids and navigate the late-night feedings and early mornings. But your body recovers, and you keep pushing. You are building your career, family, and finances. You may have started a business or are working up the ladder. You are filled with ideas. 

You may even look around the table at your company and imagine the day you are running it. You have so many ideas and wonder when the old guys will get out of the way so you can get started. 

But then something happens. Your energy starts to slow down. It is more challenging for you to get going in the morning. That drive you used to have isn’t there anymore. The innovative ideas you used to have aren’t as quick, and as you look in the mirror, you realize you aren’t young anymore. 

Many in this moment try to double down on what worked. They go to another conference, hire a coach, listen to more podcasts, work longer hours, and sign up for a CrossFit gym. Trying to recapture what was. They might even get a new hairstyle and change their clothes. After all, they don’t want to turn into the frumpy old guys around the table.

And for a little while, this might work. You feel some new energy and some new ideas that work. 

But this is short-lived. 

Something else is happening that we are often entirely unaware of: We are grieving and don’t know it. 

One reason we get stuck in life is that we don’t grieve what we lost when these turns in life happen. When our bodies slow down and the ideas aren’t as quick, we need to grieve. When our kids grow up and leave the stages of life, while this is exciting, losses are involved. 

Arthur Brooks, in his fantastic book From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life, discusses how we can come up with incredible ideas in the first half of our lives, but in the second half, we can explain how things work or explain ideas and see how things go together much quicker than we can earlier in life. We see patterns in ideas more than we see ideas. 

This isn’t a bad thing, but it is a difficult situation to navigate if you are always the person who comes up with the ideas. 

Once I started to understand what worked for me in my 20s and 30s (and some of those things still work great for me), I was able to understand what might be changing in me that I needed to be aware of and pay attention to. 

While turning seasons and chapters in life can be difficult and lead to apathy, pain, or ambivalence, it doesn’t have to. The new seasons can and do bring new life, but we have to let go of the seasons that are ending, which includes what is happening in us emotionally, mentally and physically.