June said something to me in a PT session that got me thinking. “Am I being conscious, or am I being comfortable?” 

I’ve heard versions of this before from other clients, but nobody’s ever put it that cleanly. And it’s a genuinely useful question to sit with. 

Are you picking up the lightest weight because it’s the one within reach, or because it’s actually right for you today? Are you stopping at the number of reps you always stop at, or could you push for one or two more? Are you reaching for a slightly heavier weight and actually noticing yourself do it, or just going through the motions because that’s what you did last time? 

I’ll be honest — I do it myself. Some sessions, I do the same exercises with the same weights, just to cross it off the list. Not because it’s the right choice for my body that day, but because I don’t want to think about anything else. It’s easier. But when I actually work consciously — when I notice what I’m doing and choose it intentionally — I feel so much more accomplished and satisfied with myself afterward. Every single time. And yet I still default to comfortable more often than I’d like to admit. 

Here’s the trap a lot of us fall into instead of asking that question honestly: comparing ourselves to people doing less. I’ve got friends who don’t show up for themselves at all, so showing up feels like enough. But that’s never actually the measure. It’s never about whether you’re doing better than somebody else. It’s whether you’re doing right by yourself, and whether you’re actually challenging yourself in some way. 

I think this is one of the greatest gifts of your sixties, if you let it be. I’ve written before about the sixties being when your body starts doing weird things — and it does. But I don’t think that’s actually the main event. What I think is really happening is that you become more honest and open with yourself than you were in your fifties. I know that’s true for me. I see the same thing happening in my clients as they move through their sixties and start edging toward seventy. 

You notice things. You get out of breath doing something that never used to wind you. You notice your priorities shifting — wanting to spend your time on things that actually put a smile on your face, rather than ticking through everything like it’s one long chore. 

That honesty is the whole point. You can’t be conscious about something you’re not willing to be honest with yourself about first. Comfortable doesn’t need honesty. It just needs autopilot. Conscious needs you to actually show up for the question.