Each year we set goals and purposes to be achieved in the course of the 12 months that have just begun, older adults do not escape from this self-criticism and personal analysis that seeks in many opportunities to change some behavior habits, health, nutritional, physical or doctors.
But, have we asked ourselves, how can we assist older adults to establish and achieve their goals? In young people, the primary objectives can be related to obtaining a new job, a new car, higher income, a better home or pleasure trips. In older adults, the goals may be linked to adapting to the physical and health changes, a new financial situation, finding a new place to live that is satisfactory to their current condition of life, etc.
All these aspects of daily life in older adults should be taken into account when planning the goals at the beginning of each year or just in the new situation in which they are, so that the objectives that are set can be easily reached without generating stress or isolation in the older adult, it is essential to take into account these points that we mention below:
• SET CLEAR AND CONCRETE GOALS
Your goal should be concrete, dine as a family every Sunday, learn the use of new technologies to be in contact with the family, for example.
• INCLUDE MEASURABLE GOALS
Our new year goal should include a way to measure it, whether in time, distance, or duration. We must know how much we have advanced in our purpose and how much we still need to achieve it.
• SELECT A SMALL AND ACHIEVABLE GOAL
Keep dreaming about reaching more important goals, but if you have never communicated with your family via WhatsApp or Facebook, of course, it will be much harder to achieve this goal the first year. Instead, this year you can learn to use these communication channels and then to increase your goals gradually.
• YOUR GOALS ARE YOURS ALONE
However small and insignificant they may seem, a new year’s purpose must be important to you, more than to others. This goal becomes relevant to you because it forces you to make an extra effort and improve some aspect of your family and personal life that you want to change.
We must support older adults in this new situation of social and financial adjustments, and help them to conquer new paradigms, many have already fulfilled their obligations with their children and in retirement, older adults can and should undertake new projects, return to postponed goals with dynamism, passion, and clarity.
Many have lost strength, ability, and mobility, but have developed other skills that open a wide range of new options that do not mean large outlays, finish or start studies, resume hobbies; make local tourism, walks, social gatherings and group outings in the family. It is very common to find older adults in art schools among other trades, learning new schemes to fulfill their dreams.
Many older adults got tired of asking their grandchildren how to send an email, how to send a message through WhatsApp or Facebook and take computer courses or ask for help from third parties to conquer these new challenges. Many resume their profession and become valuable mentors to new generations, or they are self-employed, with a different perspective of their original trade or in an entirely new field of work.
For social, economic and above all human reasons, older adults today reject the old concept of retirement where there is only the passivity of the home, isolation and rest.
Residential Plaza at Blue Lagoon provides an affordable home with assisted living services that allows adults to live in a safe, caring and supportive environment that helps them maintain their dignity and independence.