July 2025 - Fran's Fitness Over 50

Positivity is overrated

Don’t develop a positive mindset, develop a belief mindset

Positivity is overrated. It’s really not a good thing to be a Pollyanna. It’s not enough to be positive. Pollyanna was just a book (also the main character. Pollyanna is a novel by Eleanor H. Porter, published in 1913). These days, a “Pollyanna” is someone who finds the positive in everything and finds something in every situation to be glad about. The last few weeks I’ve been talking about mindset, and how you can change your own to help you become more resilient and even achieve your goals. So you might think that all you need is a positive mindset and you’re on your way to rainbows and unicorns.

No unicorns yet

But getting to the finish line takes more. Yes, you need a positive mindset, but you also need a deep-seated belief in yourself and in what you’re attempting to achieve. Your mindset is more than stating that you’re being positive. Or even that you believe in what you’re doing. It’s your taking action every day toward your goal, in keeping with that mindset.

If you have a goal to be active every day, then saying to yourself, “I know I can move every day!” doesn’t really accomplish a whole lot. But, if every morning you wake up and walk for 20 minutes, that’s not a huge investment in time, but it lays a solid foundation for success in achieving your goal. It also goes a long way toward your healthy aging – putting your health first – and toward improving your resilience. You’re demonstrating that you do what’s needed every day to achieve your goal.

Positivity had no place when Tango was young.

My dog Tango started out as a reactive, biting, snarling, shark of a puppy. He was 11 months old and hostile to everyone and everything except me. Tango let me do anything to him. When I first met Tango at his breeder’s home, I had no idea of his real personality. It was a controlled environment and so I didn’t realize until I brought him home what a challenge he would be. I had plans for Tango – we would train and compete in Agility and he would be fantastic.

So I brought Tango home, full of positivity and dreams. And then reality hit. No Agility training for Tango – at least not until he was able to go out in public without trying to lunge at and bite everything in sight. I had to shift my beliefs. Tone down that positivity.

Deep-seated belief leads to work

I still believed that I could turn Tango around. So we trained. And trained. For months. I went out with him, getting him used to the world, or my corner of it. I shifted my mindset from blind optimism and positivity to belief that it was in my little dog to be a great partner. I paired that belief with a realistic plan of individual training and then group classes. That plan was ever-changing, depending on what Tango and I needed for the next few weeks.

And with that shift came new challenges. I was able to try new things and introduce new places to Tango. The group classes were always challenging since I had to be ever-watchful. But I believed that we could still be successful and so we persisted.

Reality now.

Positivity is overrated, but belief and working at it every day brought the goals to fruition.

Flash forward to today. Tango competed in both Agility and Rally (a slightly slower dog sport) through the Master Classes. The photo is of Tango competing in Agility. He got more ribbons than I want to count, and more titles than any other dog I’ve owned. He’s sixteen now, and spends most of his days snoozing in a comfy bed.

But if I hadn’t had the deep-down belief that we could actually do it, Tango might not have made it past his first year.

Positivity is overrated on its own. But pair positivity and belief, and a willingness to work at the goal every day, and there’s no telling what you can achieve. It worked for Tango’s reactivity and it will work for your fitness goals.

Worry is a waste of time

Worry is a waste of time. And yet we can’t help ourselves. I’ll include myself in this group. I’m a worrier. Most of the worry is nebulous and not about anything specific. Some worry is about whether or not a certain event will occur. Sometimes I even worry about the weather. None of this worry is productive. The worry is omnipresent. And it’s not good for us.

I worry about storms

Worry causes our anxiety to spike. And we know that anxiety is not healthy. An article in Harvard Health Publishing states that when we’re under stress, we’re prone to headaches, nausea, muscle pain, and other ailments. There is nothing actually physically wrong with us, but we’re manifesting these symptoms. And stress over the long term can cause your blood pressure to rise and loss of sleep.

My favorite method to relieve stress

I’ve written about various methods that can calm stress and address anxiety. My favorite is still my fitness routine. When I’m exercising, I have a half hour or forty minutes that I have to pay attention and focus. I can’t let my mind wander.

Let them … what?

A new trend on addressing stress comes from best-selling author Mel Robbins. Her “Let Them” theory, which is not new, helps us believe that we have no power over others. They’re going to do whatever it is they’re going to do and we can’t influence their actions. We only have power over our own actions. How we react to others is the only thing we can influence.

The more we let others do their own thing, the healthier it is for us. Worrying about what the other guy is going to do is not going to persuade them in any way, and the only result of that is to make us sick. Worry is a waste of time. This is a powerful mindset. Accepting that you can’t do anything about what others do can help you make room for a more positive mindset.

If there’s something to do, do it. Otherwise be like Elsa.

When we start thinking about the world situation, or the weather, or what your crazy neighbor will do (we’ve been lucky enough to not have too many crazy neighbors), just ask yourself what you can actually do about it. If it’s nothing, then ask yourself how you can prepare for whatever outcome you’re most anxious about. And do that. Or, be like Elsa in Frozen and let it go. Your blood pressure will thank you. You might sleep better. And you’re doing more for your healthy aging and your resilience than sitting and worrying about what might never come to pass.

Discipline is mindset

People say I have tremendous discipline. Not to toot my own horn, but I moderate my portions – even spaghetti. Exercise 4 or 5 times a week. Wrote and published 3 books in my spare time. And I usually don’t get sucked in by the usual clickbait. How? Discipline. Discipline is mindset. It’s hard – kind of like putting on jeans fresh out of the dryer. Sitting is awkward, and you may not be able to do the button. But if it’s important enough, and the steps toward that ultimate goal are small enough, it happens without you even realizing it.

The benefits that come with discipline

Discipline comes with its own set of benefits, not least of which is achieving goals. But you’ll also be improving your resilience – knowing that life takes potshots at us, trying to throw us off our game. But with discipline, we get right back to the task at hand. And with the discipline of creating good habits, we’re influencing our healthy aging. When you’re disciplined, you’re happier too. You know that you’re doing what it takes to get to where you want to be.

We’re wired to be couch potatoes, though

So, how do you make discipline easy? First, recognize that our brains are wired for us to be couch potatoes. There’s nothing we all like more than bingeing our current Netflix series. Our tendency is to conserve energy. But we know that the science is just the opposite. Expending energy produces more energy.

Second, we expect that our motivation will kick in at some point and magically lift us off the couch. It doesn’t work that way, unfortunately. If we want the results of exercise, we have to do it ourselves. Getting strong takes work. And no one is going to do it for us.

It’s hard and the writing was trash…

Third, you probably have the belief that if you’re disciplined, it will feel like everything in your brain will click into place. Again, not how it works. When I was working on my second novel, it was a struggle to get up early and write the hundreds of words I set as my goal. Some days it didn’t happen because the words were trash. But when you have something really important at the back of your brain that you want to achieve, you do the work. Toward the end of that book, the writing did get easier and I was able to finish – and some say this book was even better than the first novel.

Everything all at once is a recipe for disaster

And fourth, when you’re trying to be more disciplined, you’re probably trying to do everything all at once. Again, that’s just setting yourself up for failure. Discipline is mindset, but it only works when you take small steps. Train your brain to take those small steps every day. Because they lead up to the big ones.

Change the narrative

My new watchword is to do something every day that makes you happy. I don’t like to feel sorry for myself. But my birthday’s on a Tuesday this year – the busiest day of the week for me, when I don’t get home until about 9:30 in the evening after teaching a dog class and then training my own dog. I enjoy relaxing in the evening, so Tuesday is not my favorite day of the week. But instead of telling myself that it’s a bummer that my birthday is on a Tuesday, I’ll change the narrative and tell myself that every moment is an opportunity to look back and enjoy my life.

Where’s my happy place?

Now, I have it pretty good in life. Yes, there are some concerns, but (knock on wood) I’m amazingly healthy overall, we have food on the table and a roof over our heads. My dogs are thriving (also knock on wood because 2 are elderly) and I enjoy training them. But for this birthday I’m feeling low, and reminding myself of how grateful I am for everything I have is not helping. So I have to go back and remind myself of an article I wrote a while ago. You only need one thing to enter your happy place: a mindset shift.

Mindset influences actions

I’ve noticed that my mindset influences my actions. If I’m feeling low, my sister starts asking me if everything is okay, which annoys me and worsens my mood. So, when she starts asking, I know it’s time for me to take a look inside. Dr. Jacob Towery, adjunct clinical instructor in the department of psychiatry at Stanford University, says that our mind influences our actions. And that mindset is malleable and can be changed.

Dr. Towery assures, “the good news is mindsets are highly changeable, and if you are willing to learn the technology of changing your mindset and defeating your distorted thoughts, you can have significantly more happiness.”

Change your mindset, change your life

The key to changing your mindset is to question your thoughts that are self-defeating and work on creating new narratives that are more self-serving. That positive mindset goes a long way toward building your resilience.

So, on my birthday I’ll change the narrative and view every moment of that Tuesday as an opportunity to smile and say, “Thank you” when someone wishes me a Happy Birthday. And I’ll work on enjoying that.