Surprisingly Good Things About Turning 50

There are so many good things about turning 50 that can make it the best time of your life! You can be healthy, sexy, beautiful, and create a life you love after 50.

Your fiftieth birthday is a major milestone and it can be scary, depressing, and upsetting to finally hit that age that you used to think of as OLD.

April 2021 Update: As I will share, I’m almost 60 now. Life continues to get better! These mindsets really work to create a meaningful life of positive experiences that make this feel like the best time of life.

Yet the truth is that midlife also comes with the gifts of experience, strong relationships, and an appreciation for life.

When most of us think about turning 50 and beyond, the first thing we have to get used to is simply coming to terms with the number 50 in relation to our age.

Overnight, we become 50 and that age can feel so old. For me, it was hard to even say the word 50!

What I have discovered in the years since turning 50, is that my life has actually become better, richer, and more satisfying than I could ever have imagined.

I’ll turn 59 in less than a month! Then I’m on the way to 60. Yet, I have never felt happier or more self confident in my life.

50 really is just a number and has nothing to do with how good or bad life is. I promise you that this is true! You can love your life more than ever!

What Does it Mean to Turn 50?

Your age is simply the number of years you have lived.

It has nothing to do with how good your life is, how healthy you are, or what kind of relationships you can be in. It is a number.

When you stop focusing on this particular number as a measure of ANYTHING, then you finally have the freedom to start living your life on your terms.

This is an amazing thing. Hitting 50, is a wake-up call to start living your life, the way you want to, if you haven’t already.

In the past, many women have thought that their life was over and that it was too late to change at 50. Thanks to social media and an aging population, we now know that anything is possible at any age.

Turning 50 does not have to be the end of growing, learning, and changing; turning 50 can be the beginning of finally going after the life we crave!

Can You be Healthy after 50?

There are many assumptions about health after 50 and many women assume that they won’t be as healthy after they turn 50. This is absolutely not true!

You can be healthy at any age. Accept that much of your health is in your own hands. Many of the common health concerns of aging are simply do to our diets and lifestyles. You can make different choices.

Choosing to be healthy isn’t about having perfect health care or dieting. I believe that being healthy is also about reducing stress, having healthy social connections, and making positive choices about food and lifestyle.

I’ve read research that says, having positive social connections is the number one healthy thing you can do for yourself. The people you surround yourself with make a difference to your health.

Nutrition and the things you eat matter. Not just to your size but to your overall looks and health.

There is no one perfect way to eat for every person. However, there is clear research that some kinds of food are more inflammatory and that other foods promote health.

Moving our bodies and exercise is good for us, especially if we enjoy it. Long walks and yoga not only help us stay in shape, they reduce harmful stress hormones.

The bottom line is that your health can be great in your 50’s and beyond.

Can You be Beautiful after 50?

You can be beautiful after 50 and at any age. My mom at 87 gets compliments all the time on how beautiful she is.

It took me well into my fifties before I discovered my own beauty. Beauty is physical and it’s also an attitude.

The truth is that most of us have to put some effort into being beautiful.

When I think of the women that I think are beautiful after turning 50, I think most about their face. It’s not about the natural changes of aging, but about the attitude they have.

Women that smile and have a positive attitude are always more beautiful!

Yet the physical part is also important if you want to be beautiful. Keeping you weight in a good range is important. Too heavy or even too thin can affect how you look. The quality of your skin makes a difference.

I’ve written a lot on skin care because I believe it is one of the most important things we as women can take care of.

Our skin is a result of many things, chief among them, what you eat. The short answer to good skin is to eat real food: protein, vegetables, fruit, and healthy fats.

Can You be Fit after 50?

This is a definite yes and probably one of the easiest to achieve. Our bodies were meant to be functional until the end.

We were meant to be able to walk and lift things!

Yet, if you think that you can’t be fit, you probably won’t even try. Being fit doesn’t mean you have to run 10 miles or lift hundreds of pounds though.

What I like about being fit is that I can do the things that I want to do. I can lift my grandchildren up.

I can go for long walks or even long hikes in the mountains. I can jump on a bike and go for amazing bike rides. I can walk around in new cities or countries for hours.

Being fit means you can actually do the things you want to do in life.

To achieve this, you have to make some time daily to move your body. Walking, stretch, and strength training are all essential to maintaining a fit and functional body.

One of the things I love most are online exercise subscriptions. There are ones for any kind of exercise you like.

Most come with a free trial so you can experiment before you subscribe. I belong to three that I use on a regular basis plus I walk and bike on my own. I don’t enjoy going to the gym and working out at home has always been my go-to.

In the past, I bought DVDS. Now it’s so convenient to just open up my computer and pick a workout for the day.

Can You Change Your Life after 50?

This past weekend, my son and his fiancée took me out to dinner to celebrate my birthday and as a thank you.

They commented on how much my life had changed since I turned 50. I had just come back from a trip to Argentina and was preparing to take another trip next week.

They commented that they just couldn’t believe how much I had changed my life! Where I had been a homebody who didn’t really do anything, I had become this cool person who was living a life that they admired.

My life changes are not about just about becoming a traveler. I had become a hiker, a cyclist (of sorts), I have made new friends, I am a blogger, and I have had a new career.

I have become a certified life and weight loss coach and I get to help amazing women create lives they love too!

I’ve made new friends around the world and have connected with many of you who read my blog.

Since turning 50, I had been trying lots of new things and discovering that I could do more than I had ever realized I could.

At the same time, my relationships with my grown children have grown and I now have grandchildren that I adore. Being a cool grandmother is super fun!

Trust me on this, one of the surprising benefits of turning 50 has been that I could change my life in a good way.

Can You Get Unstuck After 50?

I felt stuck at 50 though I didn’t realize it at the time. I wish the person I am now, could have talked to myself at 49.

When I was 52 my husband asked me for a divorce. This was the most painful experience of my life. During and after the divorce, I became the most stuck ever!

Moving through my life was like trying to move through mud.

Something saved me though. It was this blog. I began writing it during the most painful part of my life. However, I didn’t write about the pain.

I wrote about other things that I was experimenting with: forgiveness, gratitude, nutrition, and lots of personal growth topics.

I called this blog, My Think Big Life because I wanted a different life. I learned how to get unstuck and gradually I began to have a bigger and better life.

Thinking of the divorce is still painful, that’s the nature of divorce. Sometimes it is what has to happen.

But getting unstuck does not mean getting a divorce! It means recognizing that you feel stuck and finding gentle gradual ways to release those feelings.

Can You be Sexy after 50?

To be honest, I don’t always feel sexy but who does? But you can definitely be sexy after turning 50.

When I found myself divorced after 50, I also found myself not ready to be done with men. I had been married for 30 years to one man and I couldn’t imagine every having to be intimate with another.

I hadn’t felt sexy for years and I didn’t even believe it was possible. But it happened. Not overnight for sure. I did some things like lose weight and grow my hair. I started dressing sexier and I also started dating.

At the same time, I was also going through menopause. I cannot even tell you how crazy it feels to be out on a date with a new person and having a hot flash that suddenly drenches you.

I can laugh about it now and I often laughed about it then (after the date of course).

But being out in the dating world forced me to look at myself from a man’s point of view.

At one point, my ex-husband asked me to date him! We did go out a few times but it just wasn’t the same and we couldn’t recapture what we had before.

For the record, it wasn’t my looks that caused my divorce. However, it was definitely my after-divorce looks and new passion for life that caught my ex-husbands attention later.

I had become a sexy woman and that didn’t happen until after I turned 50.

The Benefits of Turning 50 for Women

When you reach a certain age, such as 50, you might not at first realize that there are benefits. But there are so many surprising benefits of turning 50.

While you might not always realize it, you have learned a lot about life. You have years of experiences, some good and some not so good. Even the painful experiences are great teachers!

You also begin to take your life seriously. While turning 50 isn’t the end of life, it is a significant milestone and you realize that you don’t have endless years to make important changes.

This realization of the passing of time is a benefit in that it forces you to take stock and decide if you are finally going to live the life you were meant to live.

At 50, you have probably lost people. You’ve lost people through death or through the end of relationships. I truly began to treasure relationships in a way after 50 that I hadn’t before.

The most surprising benefit of turning 50 for me has been that I finally accepted that I had to control my own thoughts and feelings so that I could have a good life. I could no longer blame nor depend on others for my life.

This is not a negative. It is the most empowering thing that can ever happen to you!

Friends, family, and my partner have all enhanced my life. However, this has only happened because I accept that it is my own thoughts and feelings that create these relationships. I have let everyone off the hook for making me happy.

When I am able to do that—everyone experiences their relationship with me in a more positive way.

Good Things About Turning 50

First of all, accept all of you how you are right now. 50 can be a wonderful time. I heard Maya Angelou say when she was in her 80s that, that was her most wonderful decade. I had a hard time believing it.

Yet, because of my experience in my 50s, I do believe it. Coming to terms with my age has allowed me not just to accept it but to embrace it and truly love it. I wouldn’t change who I am now, with myself at any age before.

As a woman in your fifties, you can still choose to live a life that is active and filled with meaningful relationships and activities. I have friends that have started new hobbies and careers that create daily joy in their lives.

I’ve seen friends who have been married for decades deepen their relationships and I’ve seen divorced friends find new and lasting love. I’ve seen single friends have amazing adventures on their own.

The thing is, that everyone I know over 50 who has a life that is mostly good, does it with having experienced loss, sometimes of people or health. They can do it whether they are single or married or somewhere in between.

This time of your life is up to you and I encourage you to make the best of it. None of us are going back in time. We aren’t every going to have the bodies or faces we had at 20.

Yet, you can be beautiful, sexy, healthy, and fit. You can have an amazing life after turning 50 and for many years beyond