5 Little Habits That Determine Whether You'll Thrive Or Flatline After 40
Getty Images | Canva Something shifts when you realize that the future you've been chasing doesn't actually exist yet. For most of your life, you've probably felt that familiar buzz telling you to keep moving, keep striving, get somewhere better than where you are right now. But here's what changes everything: creation only happens in this moment. Not tomorrow, not next year, not when you finally have it all figured out.
People who thrive after 40 understand something profound: They know that you don't attract what you want in life; you attract what you are right now. Your current energy, beliefs, and habits are creating your experience in this moment and the next one and the one after that. This doesn't mean you stop growing or setting intentions. It means you stop waiting for some future version of yourself to finally arrive before you can feel whole, purposeful, or alive. The power to transform your life isn't somewhere down the road; it's today.
Here are 5 little habits that quietly determine whether you'll thrive or flatline after 40:
1. You can't keep dragging the past around with you
This is no small task. And just to make sure to understand this: Letting go of your past is not bypassing it. Take a moment and acknowledge how your space of now is currently filled with thoughts and regrets about the past or hopes and worries about the future. It’s hard to find the now in all this clutter, yet you need your pure intention in the now if you want to create a new life.
Until you feel resolved with your past, you can’t help but bring its frequency into the now, while hoping for a better future. Can you see how this prevents you from experiencing the now moment? Imagine you live in a house filled with old garbage and furniture from the past, and you really want a clean house with new furniture and new experiences. Because of all the junk, there is no room for anything new. It is already too full.
Because it’s so crowded, you long for more space and peace, but the old stuff drains your energy. Even if you were able to bring in one new chair, it doesn’t give you the peace you’re longing for. Instead of cleaning it out, you end up just hoping for something better in the future without the energy to do anything about it.
Then, in a moment of clarity (maybe after reading this article?), you feel inspired to move it all out. Finally! Now you begin to see a clean, open space. Finally! Now your life can change to what you want. Now you can refurbish it with what you love.
In this open space, you are able to notice the natural longing in your heart. This longing lets you know what you want to experience instead — now. Because your mind is not focused on what you don’t want anymore, you have the energy to focus on what you do want.
That’s why it’s important to unhook from the past. Self-love is the great unhooker. It will show you how to let go of resisting, grabbing, or holding onto the past. I have plenty of blog posts on the subject of self-love, and I encourage you to incorporate a self-love practice into your life.
2. You need to stop telling yourself you can't
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It’s a limiting belief from the past projected into the future. I know that one really well! For a long time, it has prevented a new now to unfold from my heart. It’s a low-frequency feeling to carry around inside the now, and in my case, it manifested as a future that never arrived in the now.
Feeling capable is a high-frequency vibration and takes you out of the past into now. As long as you carry the frequency of "I can’t" with you, you’ll likely succumb to the old stuff and resist it like you normally do, instead of clearly saying no to it.
Research from 2025 found that your belief in your capability to achieve something matters way more than your actual ability. When you hold onto "I can't" beliefs from the past, you literally avoid the tasks and opportunities that could help you grow, keeping you stuck in old patterns because your mind is operating like success isn't possible.
3. You've got to focus on what's in front of you
When you let go of the past, you enter the now moment. From here, you can create what feels like "a new future," but it is actually being in the now because past and future only exist as thoughts.
When you are consciously in the now, the rush to get or become something in the future dissolves. You are left with what your heart longs for now, and now you let your senses embrace the feelings as if they are already here now. You walk around, breathe, talk, live as if it is already here now.
In the now, the process of creation equals being it now. Now you are staying in the now without projecting yourself — or an image of yourself into the future. Now is pure power, pure potential, and pure possibility.
There is only now. If you want to create some new experience, be it now, feel as if you are it now. Pretend as much as you need, until you get to a feeling of being it now.
When people stay focused on the present rather than dwelling on the past or worrying about the future, they make choices that actually align with their long-term values and goals, studies have found. Being aware in the moment lets you recognize your options and respond based on what truly matters to you instead of just reacting out of old habits.
4. You must ask yourself: what do you really, truly want for your life?
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What experience is your heart longing for? Just listen. Just wait. Just be open. It is here, now. However small, however big, what does it feel like to imagine that that experience is already here now? How do you breathe? How do you walk? How do you talk? How are you different when you have that experience now? Feel that, walk it, talk it, breathe it consciously, repetitively, and gratefully.
Research on mental rehearsal found that when you imagine yourself already living your desired experience, your brain activates the same neural pathways as if you're actually doing it. Athletes and high performers use this all the time because mentally practicing success with all your senses engaged literally programs your brain to make it feel more familiar and achievable when the real moment arrives.
5. You've got to trust yourself to figure things out
I first remind myself of the feeling that I can change. I can leave the past behind. If I can’t feel it right away, I work it till I can. This is why letting go of the past is essential in order to be in the now and feel its power. Feeling that I can start opening my heart to new possibilities, and I feel inspired. With my heart open, I remind myself that there is no future!
This gets me every time. I drop in deeper because I can feel the truth in that, probably supported by my realization from that meditation. (So in my case, the two power mantras are I can and There is no future. When you look inside yourself, you will find the ones that unlock your past so you can slip into the now.) The familiar "future-oriented past" that has lived in my belly as a feeling of being rushed or needing to get somewhere can now disengage. I can no longer argue with the truth that there is no future, so where am I supposed to go?
Now everything can harmonize deeper into the now moment. Just remembering that there is no future is my moment-to-moment mantra until little belly-buzz has fully realized and embodied that truth. If she starts buzzing, I just tell her lovingly, “Take a chill pill, darling! Sit back and remember that any future projection of having to accomplish something is not true. It can only manifest by being and feeling it as if it is already so."
The chill pill starts working; I start feeling peace and joy again. I have now entered the now, and now it’s just a matter of being and feeling it now and now and now. The more now moments I am, the sooner I’ll see something changing in my life. It feels so good to know that I’m able and powerful now. What a relief! Being in the now makes me even happier, and I feel grateful that I can and that there is no future to create or to get to.
Boy, that was so much work in the past. Actually, it was too much work. What a relief it is to know that's not how it works in this new paradigm — at least not for me. The rules change when you are now. Oh, just for the record: It does not mean that you won’t be active anymore. On the contrary. However, your activity is happening now without projecting or buzzing into a future.
When I am in the now, I know that I am consciously creating what the pure intention in my heart is focusing on. I know that I’m attracting new un-manifest potentials into this dimension of my life by being it now. When I am now, I just know that. Remember, there is no doubt here.
When I am in the now, the rules are different, and perception is altered. Doubt, clutter, rush, and worry do not exist here. This makes me even happier and grateful. I can feel the energy getting stronger and activating the potential inside of me and all around me. The heart keeps opening more and more, and I feel myself to be a manifesting magnet of my heart’s longing.
I can’t help feeling gratitude now. Gratitude is an elevated emotion that attracts the un-manifest from the infinite field of potential into this dimension called my life. Once you are in, it’s all so obvious. Something else happens when I am in this open state of now. I see things in the space all around me that I normally don’t pay attention to when I’m flip-flopping from past to future and future to past.
When I am now, I realize there is a shimmering everywhere. Actually, now that I see it, I recognize that I’ve always been aware of it. I imagine you have, too. When you soften your focus into now, without the strain and drive to get somewhere, you naturally start noticing what is already here in the now. I experience a kind of shimmering that reminds me of a light rain drizzle without getting wet.
This shimmering drizzle of infinite potential is waiting to take form in this dimension. Quantum physics is not really my area of expertise, so if you want more information and understanding about the unified field, please check out the work of researcher Dr. Joe Dispenza: A clear intention combined with an elevated emotion has an effect on matter and magnetizes the un-manifest into form.
Even though there is only now and no future, it still takes time for the brain to be rewired into this new state of consciousness. Remember, it is the mind that experiences past and future, and if you don’t consciously bring the power of pure intention back to now, you may well live out the rest of your life in the flip-flopping.
In my own life, I have to reset the "now button" daily; the busy buzz in my belly has been tightly wired for lifetimes and still needs a daily dose of unwiring back into the now. The best way to speed up your experience of getting out of the past and into the now is by turning it into a daily practice. Creating a new neural pathway to experience the now only happens through frequent and consistent new firing and wiring until this new wiring is firm enough to hold its own.
Oh, the best time to start that practice is now! Moving from the past into the now is easier when you move along with someone who knows the way. The biggest work lies in liberating yourself from your emotional past, which is also where the biggest rewards are found.
Pernilla Lillarose is a self-love mystic & mentor at Divine Feminine Flow and the author of 5 Steps To Dive Into The Divine Feminine Flow.
