The 3 Self-Destructive Habits Men Over 40 Need to Leave Behind

It’s been all about YOU so far — single-mindedly chasing success, building a career, boosting your income, doing what your ego tells you is high priority.

And so you feel ‘successful’ now you’re in your 40s:

Good job with great benefits
Married with kids
Nice house, regular vacations

But look around you now.

How often do you see your guy friends?
Are you genuinely happily married?
Are you a good Dad?
What does your body shape look like?
How’s your health and mental wellbeing?

Maybe instead of just letting our relationships and health ‘happen’, we need to take back control, redefining what a ‘successful life’ is, before we end up with a complete sh*tshow on our hands in a few years?

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These 3 Habits Will Leave You Stressed, Fat and Ignored

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I coach clients in-person (as well as online) here in Ireland, and they’re primarily out of shape guys over 40, most of them with successful careers.

We talk about lots of things during sessions, as you do — there’s only so many times I can reiterate how to squat — so they tell me what’s on their minds.

One guy referred to me as his “cheaper, buffer therapist” 🙂

I have no skin in their game so they open up to me:

marriage problems
kids that never call
health problems
body image issues
loneliness as friendships withered and died.

I want to share the 3 main habits I see week in week out that successful guys over 40 (me included!) can fall into, that make them feel (and look) very far from being a success in life.

#1 Letting Your Health & Body Shape just ‘Happen’

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For many guys our mid-20s to around 40 is a blur of:

starting a family
working long hours
boozy evenings in front of tv
eating whatever is easy
rarely exercising as we’ve no time or energy.

The resultant health and body shape outcomes may sound familiar to you:

Stressed, overweight, sleep deprived, low Testosterone, and feeling stuck with a body you’re not proud of, YET feeling powerless to find the consistency needed to turn things around.

This happens to so many guys our age, and if left to fester, these habits lead to:

obesity
libido issues
zero body confidence
problems with heart/liver/joints/mobility (you name it)

This is NOT how you want to be as you age — like me you probably want to be a Tough As Old Boots older guy, in great shape for his age, still attractive to the Mrs, fit and strong.

So how can we take back control of our health, and ditch this Dad-Bod when life feels so hectic?

Simple steps repeated week-in week-out:

Cut right back on sugar and alcohol and snacking to give your body a chance to burn body fat;
Prioritize your Sleep to regulate your metabolism, Testosterone and mood;
Work out 2–3 times per week, challenge your muscles, heart and lungs to gradually get fitter, stronger and more mobile.

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#2 You are There for Your Family but not ‘Present’

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It’s not just our body shape and health that we just let ‘happen’, it’s relationships too.

Our time at home is spent staring at screens, worrying about work or running the 101 errands we need to do on a weekly basis.

The result is that our relationships with spouse, kids, parents and friends suffer from a lack of effort on our part, because we’ve “too much going on”.

It becomes a vicious circle — we rarely spend quality time with people, so when we try it feels awkward, which makes it uncomfortable so we gradually avoid trying to engage.

But relationships are like plants — they will wither and die without a little TLC every now and again. And it’s worth the effort, however much you have ‘going on’, to avoid feeling lonely and ignored as you get older.

One of my clients is a divorce lawyer, and he tells me around 50 years old is crunch time for many couples. Why? Kids have moved out. What’s left? What does the couple still have in common? What do they still do together once the job of bringing up kids is done?

Many find they feel more like housemates than a couple, and call it quits — they hadn’t been tending to their relationship for decades.

Same with kids — I’ve 3 teenagers right now, and getting some chat out of them is like getting blood from a stone some days. But I still keep plonking myself on the sofa beside them and trying.

Why? Because they’ll have moved out in 5–10 years, and I hope my efforts now will mean we have a good relationship when they’re older, maybe they’ll want to come hang out with their old Dad sometimes 🙂

And with friendships, lets face it, guys we suck at making the effort even with friends we’ve known for decades.

My wife has Whatsapp groups, social things, lots of daily interactions with friends.

Me? I was the same as my lonely clients until I gave myself a kick up the ass. I would wait for friends to reach out to me about meeting up for a drink or coffee. I didn’t make the effort and many friendships just ran out of steam — we hadn’t fallen out, it just dried up y’know?

What can we do to improve these relationships though?

Basically — Put in the work.

Don’t laugh, but I have a to-do list and schedule (which nobody in my family knows about) to remind me to talk to a certain child about a certain thing, to do something with my wife, to visit my Dad (Mum passed away in 2003), and to send a dumb text to an old friend.

Make the effort, and I promise you it pays off a hundred-fold. Don’t let relationships die from lack of effort in your part.

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#3 Your Work Defines Your Self-Worth

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At some point we go from working to get money to go out and party, to devoting ourselves to careers out of a sense of fear that we’ll be unable to afford all the stuff we’ve committed to:

house
car
vacations
investments

Deep down you know your employer can replace you in a flash (regardless of your experience and rung on the ladder). You need them more than they need you.

You consistently go the extra mile without any appreciation, and spend hours outside of work stressing, fretting about work projects, analysing work relationships.

Your sense of self-worth is tightly connected to your work performance and earnings.

Why? Because you devote yourself to your job and therefore have too little else going on in your life giving you the validation you need to know you’re a Good Guy and Doing Well.

Ask yourself this:

Are you a better Dad, Husband, Son, Brother or Friend if you’re doing well at work?

Your gut reaction may be something about being able to provide for your family blah blah blah.

But as I mentioned in #2, your relationships improve through time and effort, not earnings.

What’s the point in an expensive vacation if your wife and kids have nothing to say to you?
What’s the point in being able to afford expensive sports’ tickets if you’ve no friends to invite?

I’m not advocating doing your job half-assed, or stop chasing that next promotion if you want it — keep the work ethic that’s got you where you are during work hours.

But the oft-mentioned Work Life Balance is critical to get right in your 40s and beyond. You’ve already given some of your best years to your employer(s), you don’t have to give them the whole heap.

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Can You Take Back Control?

Listen, you can absolutely correct the path you’re on, by:

Cutting back on sugar and booze, starting to work out, prioritizing sleep, to boost your health, energy and improve your body shape.
Setting aside time and energy for everyone: your parents and kids won’t be around forever, your partner will grow more distant unless you up your effort level, your friendships will wither and die if you let them.
Working hard in your job, but then clocking out mentally when you get home. Your work success doesn’t define you as a human being. If you get hit by a bus tomorrow, your employer would have you replaced in a week.

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YOU decide your path for the next few decades.

Don’t let your body and relationships happen.

Take control and reap the benefits of a truly ‘successful’ life.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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