TAIU
Back to conversations

Tool 62 · Develop yourself

What is actually changing as you get older? What are you simply assuming will?

A guided 18 to 22 minutes conversation, here in TAIU. Getting older without turning age itself into the problem.

A man in his late forties retying a bootlace on a bench in a sports hall changing room, younger players leaving

Is age the problem, or is age simply the explanation you've given the problem?

It is the one explanation that never has to be tested.

Some things genuinely do change. That is not the same claim.

What you'll look at

  1. 01What prompted this
  2. 02What has changed
  3. 03The attribution
  4. 04What still stands

A note from Mark

Mark Eve, founder of TAIU

I'm 47, so I'm increasingly conscious of time in a way I probably wasn't at 27.

I think differently about health. My parents are getting older. My son is growing up. I think more about what I want the next part of my life to contain.

But I don't want to treat getting older as a polite way of saying becoming less capable, relevant or ambitious.

Some things change. Some improve. Some become harder. Some things we blame on age have very little to do with age at all.

I want to separate those properly.

What you'll get

This will not sort you into a personality type.It will give you answers about your own life that you can test.

  1. 01

    Actual change

  2. 02

    The attribution

  3. 03

    What is intact

  4. 04

    What you still want

  5. +

    Your TAIU handover: a summary of what the conversation found, written so you can take it with you.

See everything included ↓
  • 01What prompted this
  • 02What has actually changed
  • 03What you are attributing to age
  • 04What else explains the same thing
  • 05What has improved
  • 06What remains intact
  • 07What you still want
  • 08What deserves protecting
  • 09What you are happy to let change
  • 10What remains unresolved
  • 11Where this goes next

When you finish

Bring it back to your tree.

Your tree is where TAIU keeps a picture of your whole life, in parts like work, money and health.

This session works on the whole of you, not one part of your life. Nothing is scored. At the end, you are asked once which part of your life this touched most. You can answer none.

The conversation writes this summary for you. Keep the sheet, print it or paste it into My Tree. Nothing from the conversation is stored by TAIU.

  • Session
  • Date
  • The part of life this belongs to
  • What we found
  • The alternative we tested
  • What deserves protecting
  • What should change, if anything
  • Next actions
  • What to notice or find out
  • What remains unresolved
Open My Tree

What now?

  1. 01 · Save it

    What ageing is genuinely changing.

  2. 02 · Test it

    Write down the change you have noticed and when you first noticed it.

See more ↓

What I would do

  1. 01

    Separate observed change from anticipated change.

  2. 02

    Test every attribution to age against a competing explanation.

  3. 03

    Be honest about what has genuinely improved.

  4. 04

    Name what you still want, before deciding whether it is available.

  5. 05

    Adapt one thing rather than resisting everything.

Test it

  1. 01

    Is age the problem, or the explanation you have given the problem?

  2. 02

    What else would explain the same thing?

  3. 03

    What has genuinely improved?

The alternative

Age is a convenient explanation because it explains everything and requires nothing. Before accepting it, test whether the real subject is career comparison, health, a relationship, relevance, attractiveness, regret, finite time or a family transition. The opposite error matters too. Some things do change with age, and denying that in order to sound positive is no more honest than blaming everything on it.

Think about this

  • What made you think about this now.
  • What has actually changed, rather than what you fear will.
  • What you are attributing to age.
  • What else would explain the same thing.
  • What you still want but may have quietly ruled out.

Take this to Ask Mark

You have done the exercise. Now look again at what it found.

This looks at what you found and helps you understand it. It is not another exercise to repeat.

Take this to Ask Mark →

Want to go further?

READ · GUIDE

Information and advice

Age UK

Useful when the practical questions are the ones actually keeping you awake.

Read more ↗
Was this useful?

LEARN · FREE TOOL

Midlife MOT

MoneyHelper

Free and government-backed. A structured look at health, work and money, the areas that matter most for what comes next.

Find out more ↗
Was this useful?

READ · RESEARCH

Mind Matters: Cognitive and Physical Effects of Ageing Self-Stereotypes

Becca Levy

Evidence that beliefs about ageing affect how people actually function. The point here is caution about assumption, not a claim that attitude overrides biology.

Read more ↗
Was this useful?
See all resources →

Recommended by the TAIU community

What helped you?

If you've read, watched, listened to or tried something that helped you think about this differently, we'd like to hear about it.

We review recommendations before sharing them with the community.

Finished the exercise?

What did this uncover?

Tell us whether it helped and what you discovered. It takes less than a minute.

A man in his early forties in a back doorway with a mug, looking at a childs bike on the grass

Next tool

What changes when time is finite

If the real subject is time rather than age

Continue →What stage am I in? →

Further thinking

  • Mind Matters: Cognitive and Physical Effects of Ageing Self-Stereotypes

    Becca Levy

  • Successful Aging

    John Rowe and Robert Kahn

  • Socioemotional Selectivity Theory

    Laura Carstensen

See the thinking ↓

Article

Mind Matters: Cognitive and Physical Effects of Ageing Self-Stereotypes

Becca Levy

Evidence that beliefs about ageing affect how people actually function. The point here is caution about assumption, not a claim that attitude overrides biology.

Article

Successful Aging

John Rowe and Robert Kahn

Separates ordinary ageing from disease and from disuse. The competing criticism, that it sets an unfair standard for people with illness or disability, is worth carrying with it.

Article

Socioemotional Selectivity Theory

Laura Carstensen

Why the relationships and goals we prioritise change as our sense of time changes. The finding worth having is that this tracks how much time a person believes is left rather than how old they are, which is why a shortened horizon at thirty produces the same narrowing as one at seventy.

Book

Being Mortal

Atul Gawande

Gawande on what people actually want at the end of life, which is usually not what their families are organising for them. Difficult and clarifying.