The secret to making the third chapter of your life as exciting as the first

Telegraph

11-05-2025

When you're a teenager, life looks like a never-ending series of milestones. The first school, university, relationship, job. But by 50, often with a degree, a marriage, children and homeownership behind you, it can be hard to know where to go next.
There's a good reason for the old adage that life really starts when you hit 50, however. Freed from the path dictated by social norms, this decade is the perfect time to start living life in the way you've always wanted to. Midlife is often the time when we realise who we really are: senior at work, well-respected by your friends and family, you can be yourself without the fear of judgement that might have earlier been crippling.
To make the most of this third chapter of your life, take the advice of Professor Emily Falk, neuroscientist, author and a leading expert in the science of how we make decisions. It's not the big moments but the everyday choices that so often lead to happiness or success, she says, but when it comes to eating better, exercising, spending more time with family and succeeding professionally, it can sometimes feel like we're battling our own brains. The force of habit can be enormous, having spent many years doing the same things day in, day out, with less energy to devote to positive transformation.
It needn't be that way, according to Prof Falk's new book, What We Value: The Neuroscience of Choice and Change. Its purpose is to help people understand why they do what they do, and to get back in the driver's seat and have the life they want. 'We keep the capacity to learn, change and grow throughout our whole lives,' Prof Falk says. It's entirely possible to be successful and get the things you want out of life after 50, whatever they happen to be.
Here is her advice to work with your brain and make happier, healthier choices.
1. Be more adventurous about trying healthier foods
We all know it's important to eat healthily but as we get older and become set in our ways it often hard to change our diet. Research suggests that it can take as long as 66 days, or 10 weeks, to fully incorporate a new habit into our daily lives. But by becoming more adventurous, even with what we choose to eat, we can shortcut our way to better health. Our brains keep track of the payoff of different decisions that we make, Prof Falk adds, generating what neuroscientists call a 'positive prediction error' – when the actual outcome of a new behaviour is better than we'd expected. Having a whirl with kale or asparagus and finding you love it is the best way to encourage yourself to eat more healthily in the future.
It may sound obvious, but eating healthily involves trading what we want in the moment (crisps, chocolate, cheese) for the foods that we know will keep us slim and healthy in the decades to come. This is precisely why it's so hard.
'Your brain's value system isn't objective – it doesn't just take into account what will fill you up or fuel your body well,' Prof Falk says. This is not how we are wired. 'In the moment that you're making a decision about what to eat, we often focus on immediate rewards like how the food tastes, rather than how it makes you feel or what it'll do to your body if you eat regularly.'
For this reason, 'we have to work with our brain's natural tendencies, instead of against them,' Prof Falk explains. That could mean trying lots of different healthy foods to see what you genuinely enjoy, perhaps pairing them with safer foods to make the process less jarring (a new kind of vegetable you might normally avoid with your favourite pasta sauce, for example).
2. Tailor your exercise to your age
Don't force yourself to do exercise you don't enjoy. If the last time you exercised was running half marathons in your 30s remember you're a very different person now. Working with your brain means finding something that you actually enjoy, rather than forcing yourself into something that feels totally intimidating, like marathon training,' Prof Falk says. 'Start with something that's within your comfort zone.' That said, there are ways to expand it. 'Your brain tends to value things that are consistent with your identity,' says Prof Falk. 'I never thought of myself as particularly athletic, but my brother helped me see how my identity as a hard-working academic could be compatible with reaching my running goals.'
Once you find a form of exercise you like – again, a case of experimentation – then Prof Falk advises that you 'stack' your exercise with other things you like to do. 'If you are a social person, try going for a walk with a friend or calling your kids while you do it,' she says. 'If it's jogging, try keeping one of your favourite podcasts to listen to exclusively while you run, so that you have something to look forward to.'All of this makes it more likely that you'll exercise regularly, an important consideration given that adults are encouraged to carry out at least 150 minutes of exercise over the course of each week.
'It's all about finding what's enjoyable for the 'me' that's here right now,' she says, 'rather than toughing something out for a future impact that might be harder to envision.' This will make it far easier to stick to the new habit you want to build.
3. Don't feel guilty about not doing things – think of ways that will make you enjoy them more
Prof Falk opens her book with an anecdote about her grandmother, Beverly. In her 30s, she always wanted to spend more time with her grandmother, but found it hard to make the time, as a busy mother and academic. 'Bev is one of the most important people in my life,' Prof Falk says. As an expert in what motivates our behaviour, 'shouldn't I know how to make a choice to prioritise time with her?'
It's a dilemma familiar to most of us: there never seems to be time in the day for what really matters. The first step is to make it all easier for yourself by identifying what's holding you back, and replacing it with something that benefits you instantly, 'as your brain tends to prioritise this,' Prof Falk explains. She decided to cycle to her grandmother's house every day, cutting out the stress and boredom of a drive. Her initial hesitation, feeling worn out after a long day at work, was replaced with excitement, to spend more time in nearby green space and have a window of time for herself.
4. Learn how to be a better listener and to take criticism well
Many of us want to reduce the friction we experience with other people. It's easier to do than you might think, according to Prof Falk, and the best place to start is to make sure that you're on the same page as the people you're interacting with.
'The assumptions we have coming into a conversation really dictate whether our brains get into sync with other people's,' she says. 'If you know you need to have a conversation with your child about their grades, and they think that their teacher is out to get them, while you think that their teacher is trying to push them to be their best, then that misalignment might mean you are actually focusing on different things, or interpreting things differently.'
Being primed for one sort of discussion gives our brains access to different memories and relevant information about an issue. Before a difficult conversation, make sure that everyone involved is aware of what it's about. More than that, instead of making assumptions about how other people see things, 'be curious and explore more about what's going on for the other person. Even if you disagree, by understanding their perspective, you can make a plan for how to move forward together.'
This is especially true when it comes to taking criticism. Our brains are 'so good at generating predictions about what other people think and therefore what they're going to do, for better or worse,' says Prof Falk. Instead of jumping to conclusions about what a piece of feedback from a friend, family member or colleague means, 'try to stay curious and open about what's actually behind their frustration', Prof Falk advises. 'The fact that they are sharing it in the first place could mean that they want to improve their relationship with you.'
5. Recognise you're changing as much as you did when you were 16
Your 50s are a time of immense change. Clinging to a concrete sense of who we are (or who we've been) is a trigger factor for a classic midlife crisis. To avoid this, we have to let it go.
You might roll your eyes at this, but one way to do that is by meditating. 'What happens when people meditate regularly is that the function of the brain's self relevance system changes, which we see represented in brain scans,' says Prof Falk. In plain English, meditating helps people to be more flexible in the way that they see themselves and feel more connected to the world around them. It doesn't have to be an hour every day: '10 minutes a day is a good start,' says Prof Falk.
It's also important to remember that 'just because your brain tells you something about who you are, it's not necessarily true,' Prof Falk says. Question negative thoughts that come up about the past and try to focus on what you're doing in the present.
Trying new things at this time of life can be helpful too, even if it feels alien. When you go somewhere new on holiday, or try a new restaurant, and it doesn't quite live up to expectation, then reappraisal is a useful tool, says Prof Falk. 'If you go on a holiday and it rains the whole time, instead of focusing on what a bummer it is not to be able to do all of the fantastic things you planned to do outside, you might focus on chances to connect with the people you're with, explore indoor activities you wouldn't have otherwise considered, or do the same activities you planned outside and end up with a story to tell later. Focusing on the opportunity to try new things, rather than the disappointment, can change the way you feel about the trip.'
All of which can help anyone face old age more bravely – but nothing more so than actually picturing your older, retired self. 'There was a study where people were shown older versions of themselves, using a virtual reality headset. Afterwards, when asked to say how much they would hypothetically allocate to a retirement fund, the participants saved twice as much.' To make better decisions for the future, bring the future to you by picturing it as vividly as you can.