How does self-esteem esteem affect our role as legal nurse consultants? How does age esteem play into this?
First, what does age esteem mean? I interviewed Bonnie Fatio about this topic for a Legal Nurse Business Podcast. Bonnie is a vibrant woman in her 70s who exhorts us to embrace your age, realize your worth, and start reaching your full potential.
Age esteem could best be compared with self-esteem, but with that dimension of age. It’s feeling good about yourself at the age you are today, being happy to look in the mirror and realize that you have a little more character in your face. It also stands for this admiration and respect for age and aging.
Did you know that your self-esteem is highest in middle age? Self-esteem sharply declines among older adults and starts to decline at age 60.
People who have higher incomes and better health in later life tend to maintain their self-esteem as they age. In a study repeated 4 times, researchers found self-esteem is related to better health, less criminal behavior, lower levels of depression and, overall, greater success in life.”
Self-esteem and the Legal World
First you may be working with attorneys who are representing elderly people (and your definition of elderly changes as you get older). You’ve probably seen cases of drops of self-esteem when elderly people lose function after trauma, and become dependent on others, immobile or confined to a house. These losses, superimposed on the decline in self-esteem as people age, become part of the damages.
Age esteem also affects you personally as a legal nurse consultant. Nurses on average across the United States are in their 50’s. The baby boomer population is moving into the retirement years. It raises questions for everyone in that generation about what they see as their opportunities to contribute and how productive people are and continue to be as they age.
Living in Florida as I do, I see many older people with new jobs after retiring from another job. They work in Walmart and Home Depot. Are they there to keep busy, to maintain self-esteem or out of necessity? I don’t ask.
Secondly, many of the LNCs I have talked to about starting a career are in their 50s and 60’s. They see legal nurse consulting as a way to transition out of a clinical role to a job that is less physically demanding (although certainly mentally challenging). They eagerly look forward to building their businesses.
Thirdly, you might be caught up in issues regarding elderly parents or siblings where age esteem and aging factors are affecting your interactions with those individuals in your life.
You are in control of your self-esteem
Bonnie commented, “We create our own reality. We are the age we believe ourselves to be. That doesn’t mean that we don’t feel aches and pains. That doesn’t mean that I think I can still skydive, although why not? It means that we are capable of thinking positively about ourselves and about our age.”
Quite a few people in my life were not surprised I moved from running a successful large legal nurse consulting business to coaching LNCs, writing books, editing books and taking up kayaking.
I’ve heard too many stories of people whose lives nose dived when they reached retirement age.
What is your age? What age do you really think you are? Are you busy, engaged, and look forward to each day? How’s your self-esteem?
Listen in as I talk to Bonnie Fatio, a confident Swiss woman who discusses age esteem and self-esteem in one of my podcasts: How to Combat Your Worst Enemy. Listen at this link.