8 habits that guarantee your 60s will be your best decade yet

Last week, I watched my neighbor Frank struggle to carry groceries from his car. He’s 63, but moves like he’s 80.

Then I think about my martial arts instructor, who’s 67 and still throws people half his age around the mat like they’re children.

The difference isn’t genetics or luck. It’s choices made decades earlier.

Your 60s don’t have to be about decline, doctor visits, and wondering where your energy went. They can be your most focused, liberated, and powerful years—if you build the right foundation now.

Most people sleepwalk into their later decades. They assume aging means automatic deterioration, so they act accordingly. But the research tells a different story.

Yale psychologist Becca Levy found that those with a more positive outlook on aging went on to live, on average, 7.5 years longer.

Your beliefs about aging literally shape how you age.

1. Move like your life depends on it

I started doing pushups in my kitchen three years ago. Not because I wanted to be a bodybuilder, but because I noticed I was getting winded walking up stairs.

Now it’s non-negotiable. Twenty pushups while my coffee brews. A walk with Rook every evening. Some stretching before bed.

The data backs this up. People who are not very active could gain as much as 11 years of life by walking more.

Movement isn’t about looking good in photos. It’s about maintaining your independence, your energy, and your mental sharpness.

Your body in your 60s is the result of what you do in your 40s and 50s. Start now.

2. Feed your brain, not your ego

I pick up books that have nothing to do with my work. Last month it was a history of Byzantine architecture. This month it’s quantum physics for beginners.

My wife Claire thinks I’m going through some midlife learning crisis. Maybe I am.

But here’s what I’ve noticed: the more diverse my mental diet, the sharper my thinking becomes. Successful people understand this—they’re constantly learning, constantly growing their minds.

This isn’t about collecting degrees or impressing people at dinner parties. It’s about keeping your mind flexible and engaged.

Neuroplasticity—your brain’s ability to form new neural connections—doesn’t stop at 25. It continues throughout your life, but only if you challenge it.

Learn a language. Study philosophy. Take up chess. Read outside your comfort zone.

Mental muscles atrophy just like physical ones.

3. Guard your attention like treasure

According to a University of California Irvine study, it takes an average of 23 minutes and 15 seconds to get back to the task after an interruption.

Think about that. One notification, one distraction, and you lose nearly half an hour of focused work.

I started putting my phone in another room when I write. I check email twice a day, not twenty times. I say no to meetings that could be emails.

Your attention is finite. The older you get, the more valuable it becomes.

Most people spend their later years complaining they can’t focus like they used to. But focus is a skill, not a birthright. Practice it now or lose it later.

4. Build real relationships, not networks

The Harvard Study of Adult Development found that strong relationships are the single biggest predictor of long-term health and wellbeing.

I’m not talking about LinkedIn connections or Christmas card lists. I mean people who know your flaws and still answer when you call.

Family is given. Friends are chosen.

I make time for the people who matter. Real conversations, not surface pleasantries. I show up when they need help, and they do the same for me.

Loneliness in your 60s isn’t about living alone. It’s about having spent your younger years building a career instead of relationships.

5. Learn to disappoint people

This one took me years to figure out.

I used to say yes to everything. Every invitation, every request, every opportunity to help. I thought it made me a good person.

All it made me was exhausted and resentful.

Recently, I read Rudá Iandê’s book “Laughing in the Face of Chaos” and one line stopped me cold:

“Being human means inevitably disappointing and hurting others, and the sooner you accept this reality, the easier it becomes to navigate life’s challenges.”

You can’t please everyone. Trying to do so guarantees you’ll end up pleasing no one, including yourself.

I started saying no to social obligations that drained me. No to projects that didn’t align with my values. No to people who only called when they needed something.

The result? More energy for what actually matters.

Boundaries aren’t walls. They’re filters.

6. Feel your feelings instead of numbing them

For years, I treated emotions like inconveniences. Stress? Power through. Sadness? Stay busy. Anger? Bottle it up.

This approach works until it doesn’t. Usually around your 40s, when decades of suppressed feelings start showing up as anxiety, depression, or mysterious physical ailments.

Emotional regulation—the ability to acknowledge, process, and respond to emotions appropriately—is crucial for aging well.

Last month, I felt that familiar knot of frustration when my son Ezra had another meltdown at bedtime. Instead of losing it or stuffing it down, I paused. The frustration was telling me I was tired and needed better boundaries around evening routines.

I’ve learned to pause when strong emotions hit. What is this telling me? What does it need? What would happen if I actually listened instead of immediately trying to make it go away?

This isn’t touchy-feely nonsense. It’s practical intelligence. When you can read your emotional signals accurately, you make better decisions about relationships, work, and how you spend your energy.

Emotions aren’t problems to solve. They’re information to process.

7. Create meaning, don’t wait for it

Retirement without purpose is just expensive unemployment.

I see guys who worked for forty years, saved diligently, then spent their first year of retirement watching TV and wondering what the point of anything is.

Purpose doesn’t come with your pension. You have to build it.

I started writing not because I had to, but because I felt pulled to. It gives me something to wake up for beyond just existing.

Find what pulls you. Maybe it’s teaching, mentoring, building something with your hands, or growing a garden. Maybe it’s volunteering for a cause that matters to you.

The key is starting before you “need” it. Purpose is like a muscle—develop it gradually or struggle to find it when everything else falls away.

8. Rewrite your story about getting older

Most people age according to the script they’ve inherited. Slow down at 50. Become irrelevant at 60. Wait for death at 70.

That’s not aging. That’s surrender.

Your beliefs about aging become your reality. If you expect decline, you’ll get it. If you expect growth, challenge, and continued relevance, you might be surprised by what’s possible.

This isn’t about denying that bodies change. It’s about refusing to accept that change means decline.

Final thoughts

Your 60s aren’t happening to you. They’re being created by you, right now, through the choices you make today.

Move your body. Challenge your mind. Choose your relationships carefully. Set boundaries. Process your emotions. Create meaning. Guard your attention. Rewrite your aging story.

Most people stumble into their later decades unprepared, then wonder why they feel lost and irrelevant.

Don’t be most people.

The person you’ll be at 65 is the result of what you do at 45. That future self is counting on present you to make the right choices.

Start today.