National Wellness Month: Growing Bolder, Not Just Older

By: Dr. Sue Paul, Sr. Dir. Well-being & Brain Health, Asbury Communities, Inc.

August is National Wellness Month, and I can’t think of a better time to broaden the way we talk about wellness.

Most of us hear the word “wellness” and immediately think about the familiar basics: exercise more, eat better, sleep well, manage stress, and keep up with preventive care. All of those things matter. But my recent conversation with Marc Middleton of Growing Bolder reminded me that wellness in later life is also about something deeper.

It is about mindset, about purpose, and about relationships. It is about the stories we tell ourselves about what is still possible.

Marc has spent years challenging the culture of aging. Through Growing Bolder, he shares stories of ordinary people who continue to live with passion, courage, creativity, and engagement well into later life. Not because aging is always easy. Not because they have avoided loss, illness, change, or setbacks. But because they continue to find ways to say yes to life.

That message resonates with my own belief that wellness is not just about living longer. It is about living better. It is about building a life that still feels meaningful, connected, and alive.

In our conversation, Marc talked about how strongly our beliefs about aging can shape the way we live. We absorb messages about aging from the time we are very young. We are told, directly and indirectly, what older adults can and cannot do, what they should expect, and what they should stop hoping for. Over time, those messages can become limiting beliefs. But they do not have to become our truth.

One of the things I appreciated most about Marc’s perspective is that he does not ignore the real challenges of aging. Aging can bring loss. Bodies change. Roles shift. People we love may no longer be with us. We may have to adapt to things we did not choose. But adaptation is not the same as giving up.

Purpose, as Marc reminded me, does not have to be grand or dramatic. It does not have to be a major life mission or a public accomplishment. Purpose can be found in small daily actions: encouraging someone else, joining a group, making a phone call, showing up, smiling in the hallway, or choosing to stay engaged when it would be easier to withdraw.

That is a powerful idea for National Wellness Month. Wellness is not only something we do for ourselves. It is something we create with one another. The people around us shape our expectations, our habits, our courage, and our sense of possibility. A strong community can help us keep moving, keep learning, keep trying, and keep believing that there is more ahead.

I also loved Marc’s reminder that we are not only aging for ourselves. We are modeling aging for the generations coming behind us. When we stay engaged, curious, active, and open to new experiences, we help younger people see aging differently too. We show them that later life is not just a period of decline. It can be a season of growth, contribution, wisdom, and joy.

For me, this conversation was a reminder that wellness is not a checklist. It is a posture toward life. It is choosing curiosity over resignation, connection over isolation, purpose over passivity, and possibility over limitation.

This August, as we celebrate National Wellness Month, maybe the invitation is not to overhaul everything at once. Maybe it is simply to ask ourselves to notice a few things:

Where can I say yes?

Where can I re-engage?

Where can I encourage someone else?

Where can I notice the small moments of joy that are still available to me?

Aging well is not about pretending we are younger. It is about continuing to grow bolder in the life we have right now.