I was playing at the park with my six year old son, and we were pretending the bark below us was hot lava. We were running along the play structure trying not to fall off. At one point the only way we could cross the treacherous hot lava was to swing across the monkey bars. No problem, “I thought to myself.” When I was a kid I was the king of the monkey bars. I was super skinny and fairly strong so I could hang from those monkey bars all day long.

Well I started swinging from one monkey bar to the next. Things were not going as gracefully as I remembered  when I was a kid. I was having to use every ounce of strength I had just to hold on. Then I felt some muscles make a weird stretching/snapping sound down my left side. But I was determined to make it and wasn’t going to let a little muscle pain stop me. Next I felt a pop in my neck and opposite elbow at almost the same time. I kept going though and made it across, but I was going to need a soak in the hot tub and probably a couple of hours of massage therapy.

In my minds eye I was still 10 years old and king of the monkey bars. But in reality my 37-year-old body couldn’t keep up with my memories. I realized at that moment that I hear these types of stories from my clients all the time.

They will be 70 years old and say, “I feel like I’m still 35 years old.”  The unfortunate lesson we all have to learn is that while our minds may feel young sometimes, but our body just isn’t up for the things it used to do. I often meet people who are 60 years old and retired but still investing like they were 25 years old and working. Let’s work together to try and avoid the awkward pain of doing things we should no longer be doing.