What No One Tells You About Aging Well

Reframing Aging Altogether

What if everything we’ve been told about aging well is actually keeping us from living well? The products, the protocols, the graceful aging playbook, what if it’s all missing the most important parts? Well, that’s what I’m sharing in this episode, so let’s dive in.

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where our motto is simple, elevate your self-image, elevate your life. I’m Tonya Leigh, your hostess, and I’ll guide you to become the woman who doesn’t just dream bigger. She lives bigger. Let’s dive in.

Hey friends, I am so glad that you’re here, and I’m really, really excited about today’s topic because I’m going to be sharing what I’ve been thinking about a lot lately, which is what does it mean to age well? Of course, we’ve heard all the usual advice. Eat healthy, exercise, maybe even a little Botox. And listen, those things do support how we age, but they don’t guarantee a well-lived life. So as I turned 50 this week, I am contemplating the second half of my life and today, I want to share the seven truths that nobody really talks about. The deeper, more sophisticated pieces that matter far more than surface level tips. So let’s get straight into it.

Truth #1: Let Go to Transform

Truth number one, aging requires letting go. Now, this may sound counterintuitive because the entire anti-aging industry is built on holding on. Holding on to youth, holding on to how you looked at 30, holding on to who you were. But the women I see aging powerfully aren’t gripping tighter. They are releasing. They’re releasing old versions of themselves to make room for who they’re becoming because aging isn’t about maintaining. It’s about transformation. And if I’ve learned anything about transformation, it’s that it requires space and intention. You can’t become the woman you’re meant to be in your 50s, 60s, 70s and beyond if you’re still trying to be the woman you were at 25. I see women holding on to clothes that no longer fit their life, relationships that probably expired years ago, habits that maybe once served them, but now drain them.

And letting go can feel scary. It can feel like a loss. But I want you to think about it differently. What if it’s actually liberation? Every woman you admire who’s aging beautifully has mastered this. They’ve let go of the people pleasing, outdated expectations and the need to be everything to everyone. And that’s why they’re aging so well. They’re not exhausted from holding on to what’s no longer theirs.

Truth #2: Value What Truly Matters

Truth number two, know what you actually value. Most of us think that we know our values, but we’re living someone else’s. What we were taught to value, what looks good on paper, what society rewards. For years, I valued being busy. I thought successful women packed their schedules and prove their worth through productivity, but that wasn’t my value. It was something I thought I should value to be successful. But a life built on shoulds and other people’s expectations will never lead to a well-lived life and certainly won’t help you age well.

What I actually value is connection, inspiration, and beauty. And when I make these the foundation of my life and business, life reorganizes itself and I actually enjoy what I’m creating. When you know your values, you stop performing for this invisible audience and you start making decisions that actually serve you. You say no to what drains you and yes to what fills you up. Aging well requires this kind of clarity. It requires that you stop living on autopilot and start curating a life around you with what matters to you. Not what matters to your mother or your neighbor, and most certainly not Instagram. This is the difference between women who feel alive as they age and women who feel like they’re just going through the motions.

Truth #3: Look Alive, Not Young

Truth number three, it’s not about looking young, it’s about looking alive. Now, the beauty industry has convinced us that the goal is to look 25 forever. I’ve met plenty of women who look young, but they feel dimmed. And I’ve met women in their 60s, 70s and beyond who are radiant because they’re engaged, present, and fully living their lives. I think about Iris Apfel, who was so captivating and magnetic and who lived this passionate life until her final days in her 90s. That’s the kind of vitality I’m talking about, that joie de vivre, the joy of living. You can see it in someone’s eyes and how they move or how they savor a meal or even how they engage in a conversation or how they dress.

Now, here’s where this gets beautifully nuanced. Now, there is absolutely nothing wrong with choosing interventions that make you feel more like yourself. For me, I love my laser appointments and my biannual Botox. And I know women who’ve actually had surgery and loved how it helped their exterior finally match the vitality they feel inside. The distinction isn’t what you choose. It’s why you’re choosing it. Are you doing it from a place of trying to erase who you are? Or are you doing it from a place of honoring who you’re becoming? One comes from fear and the other one comes from self-care and alignment.

I know for me, I will never look 30 again, and I’ve made peace with that. What I’m cultivating instead is something far more magnetic. The quality of being fully alive, and that has everything to do with what’s happening inside me. The women I admire don’t look young. They look vibrant, they look engaged, they’re present, they are turned on by life itself. And that is infinitely way more attractive than trying to freeze time. So the real question isn’t how do I look younger? It’s how do I feel more alive and what choices honors that aliveness?

Truth #4: Prioritize Pleasure, Not Just Productivity

Truth number four, your pleasure matters as much, if not more, than your productivity. Now, this one’s a hard one to hear if you’ve built your entire identity around achievement. I know because I was that woman, and it’s the one that I still can be challenged by. But here’s what I know from years of playing in that intersection of ambition and ease. Productivity alone isn’t sustainable. It’s not how you age well. Aging well requires pleasure. It requires you actually enjoying your life, not just producing in it. I have to remind myself of this. It’s not lazy to take long baths or frivolous to buy flowers or indulgent to choose pleasure over being efficient all the time. To me, this is sophisticated living. Life isn’t meant to be optimized nonstop. It’s actually meant to be savored. And when you prioritize pleasure, you don’t become less interesting. You actually become more so because you age with this richness instead of feeling depleted.

So ask yourself what would change if pleasure mattered as much as productivity? How would your calendar shift? How would your days look different? And most importantly, how would you feel? And here’s the best part. As you favor pleasure as much as productivity, your energy shifts, and that changes what you attract and what you repel. Pleasure isn’t frivolous. It’s actually a very, very important ingredient of aging well.

Truth #5: You Need Real Interests

Now, truth number five, you need real interest. Not things that improve you or advance your career, but things you do simply because you love them or you’re curious about them. Women who age well have rich inner lives. They may be learning new languages or studying art. Maybe they’re exploring the world of wine or reading philosophy, not to be impressive, but because they are genuinely curious. For me, my interests are reading, but also pickleball and any type of game. I love playing games. Also, travel.

But as I enter into my 50s, I’m thinking about interests beyond the current ones. What I want to explore, what I want to learn, what will be the next thing that adds that richness to my life. And these are things outside of work and business. This matters because when your identity is only the roles that you have in your life, whether that’s being a mother or a partner or a professional, what happens when those things shift? Women who age well don’t panic when life changes because they’ve been cultivating interests all along. I had to give myself permission to be interested just because I wanted to. I wanted to learn new things, even though they may not lead to some big outcome, but they’ve made my life so much more rich. And those pursuits didn’t just fill my time. They have actually filled my heart and my soul. They’ve made my life more interesting. And quite honestly, I think I’m more interesting as a result.

Truth #6: Aging Well Means Disappointing People

Truth number six, aging well means disappointing people. Now, this one is hard, but it’s very important. As you get clearer about who you are, what is valuable to you, you’re going to say no more. You’re going to leave situations that don’t serve you. You’re going to stop explaining yourself, and that can be uncomfortable, especially for the women who were taught to be accommodating and keep the peace. But the women aging beautifully have learned how to be elegantly difficult. They maintain boundaries without apology. And here’s what’s fascinating. When you disappoint people, you find out who really values you. The people who are upset by your boundaries are benefiting from you not having any. So yeah, aging well means being the woman who leaves early, who says no, and the one who chooses herself. And I want you to know that’s not selfish. That’s actually very sophisticated.

Truth #7: Tell Your Aging Story On Purpose

Now, onto our final truth, truth number seven, tell your aging story on purpose. If you don’t tell your story on purpose, someone else will. And their version is usually going to be about decline and invisibility. But what if aging is your renaissance? What if these are the years of your expansion, not your contraction? The story you tell about aging shapes how you experience it, but when you tell the story of possibility, of how your best years are ahead of you, how you’re too old, how you’re becoming invisible, you’ll experience limitation. But when you tell the story of possibility, of how your best years are ahead of you, how you’re grateful for the wisdom and the lessons, how you are so more valuable because of your age, that’s when you create possibility. So ask yourself, what’s the aging story that you want to live into? Because we’re all the actors in the plays of our lives, which are written by ourselves. So make sure you’re writing a story that you want to actually live out.

So those are the seven truths, my friends, that nobody tells you about aging well. Not hacks, not surface tips, but the deeper work that creates a life worth living. Now, if you love this episode and you’re thinking this is how I want to approach my life, I want to invite you to join me inside the School of Self-Image where we go deeper into this and so much more. This is where you will get clear on what’s really important to you, on what you value. You’ll also get clear on the woman you are stepping into. There are so many tools, so much support, and the most fabulous global community of women who see this work as non-negotiable. Every week, we receive messages from members who tell us how this work has impacted their lives, how everything shifted when they started to see themselves and their lives as works of art, not things that needed to be fixed. Because the reality is you’re not broken. It’s probably just that your self-image needs an upgrade.

So if you are looking for that vibrancy, that aliveness, if you are wanting to step into your next season with so much clarity, come and join us. You can go to schoolofselfimage.com/join to learn more. And then finally, one last thing. If you enjoyed this conversation and you don’t want to miss the next, make sure you hit that subscribe button and I will see you in next week’s episode. Cheers.