Have difficult life circumstances ever influenced you to doubt your resolve to make positive changes to your lifestyle?
This has happened to me more than once. The most recent was a few short years ago, following my husband Joe’s death.
I was deeply saddened and overcome with grief, which is expected. What troubled me, however, was the extent of my negative thoughts that went beyond mourning.
These thoughts left me questioning my worthiness to love myself, coupled with intense doubt that I didn’t have what it took to reshape my life in Joe’s absence.
How did I overcome such crippling levels of sadness, despair, and doubt?
In this article and accompanying video, I’m going to share with you how journaling and an acting technique called script analysis helped me emerge from that harrowing experience to create the most vibrant and creative time in my life in my 70s.
This is our eighth article and video in a new, 12-part exclusive series for Sixty and Me readers titled “Visualize a Vibrant New Lifestyle After 60.”
What Is Script Analysis?
Script analysis is where actors analyze scenes their character is in. This is about understanding themes and nuances of the character’s thoughts, lifestyle choices, and motivations.
Even if a story changes, script analysis remains the blueprint for how actors access the emotional core of a role by getting clear on their character’s wants, needs, and desires.
As a character actor for over 30 years, I always used script analysis to prepare for a role. But it was not something I had considered applying to my life until several months after the death of my husband.
The good thing is, you don’t have to be an actor to use script analysis to rewrite the narrative of your lifestyle.
You’re the Writer, Director and Star of Your Lifestyle
Our lifestyle choices are most often based on scripts written by societal expectations, family pressures, or past experiences. As we age, these lifestyle scripts become less inspiring and increasingly more demoralizing.
When you take time to analyze which of society’s scripts are influencing your thoughts, and thus, controlling your lifestyle choices, you can begin to rewrite them.
This is where and how you take back control over your thoughts, emotions, and life.
The first step is to acknowledge and boldly accept you’re the writer, star, and director of your lifestyle. This is vital for overwriting societal scripts that often relegate you to a background character in your own life.
Rewrite Your Lifestyle Script
There are some universal applications of script analysis and journaling that can be applied to anyone’s thoughts and desired lifestyle after 60.
In my case, I created a version of script analysis that guided me through careful observations of my thoughts. I backed this up with a disciplined approach to journaling each experience.
The combination of these practices was essential in retracing the history of my thoughts, from my earliest childhood memories to pivotal moments in my adulthood. I wasn’t rehashing stories from my past, but I was reframing their influence in my present life.
Here are 10 steps I guided myself through that can help you create your desired lifestyle.
1. Create a safe and quiet space to journal.
2. Write, “I am the writer, director, and star of my lifestyle story.”
- Does this make you feel selfish and anxious or inspired and empowered?
3. Journal your thoughts on the lifestyle you desire. Be as descriptive as possible.
4. Write out a minimum of five reasons why your desired lifestyle will materialize and five reasons why you feel it is not going to happen.
- What thoughts, stories, and beliefs are associated with these reasons?
5. Determine where and how society’s limiting scripts about age-appropriate lifestyles for people over 60 are influencing you (negatively or positively)?
6. This step of script analysis is where you allow your thoughts to guide you as if they’re a unique individual character in your life story.
- How do your thoughts interact with you on a daily basis?
- What is the origin of your negative and positive thoughts about this stage of life?
- What reoccurring thoughts, stories, and/or limiting beliefs do you have about your dream lifestyle?
- Are your negative thoughts routinely taking you into the past or future? What are they trying to communicate to you?
7. Journal your answers to these questions.
8. Conduct an interview with your thoughts. Write out a list of questions and answer them from the perspective of your thoughts.
- As you journal, pay careful attention to the depth and complexity of your thoughts and how they shape your mood and personality.
9. Once you have enough information, close your journal. Give yourself at least a day or two to process.
10. Schedule a time to reexamine your journal entries.
- Based on what you have journaled, create time to rewrite your lifestyle script.
NEXT STEPS: In our nineth article and video in this series, you will learn how to “Be the Star of Your Own Lifestyle Story”.
I invite you to join me in the video, where I will share “How to Unlock the Power of Reinvention”.
Let’s Have a Conversation:
What does your lifestyle script analysis reveal about your life to date? What can you confidently do to begin rewriting your lifestyle script?
