The shift happens gradually, but by fifty, the smartest people have finally let go of these exhausting habits.
Your brain doesn't stop developing in your twenties. In fact, emotional intelligence peaks as we enter our sixties, which means the fifties are when the real shift happens.
Most people think emotional intelligence is something you either have or you don't. But research tells a different story. It turns out that while IQ stays relatively stable throughout adulthood, EQ rises with time. And nowhere is this more apparent than in the behaviors people finally let go of once they hit their fifties.
Here are nine things emotionally intelligent people stopped doing in their fifties that most people cling to without even realizing it.
1. Seeking approval from everyone
I spent my thirties performing. Not on stage, but in every conversation, every social situation, every career decision. Always calculating: Will they think I'm smart enough? Cool enough? Successful enough?
Somewhere in my forties, the math stopped working. The energy required to maintain that many approval-seeking calculations became exhausting.
By fifty, emotionally intelligent people develop what psychologists call a stronger internal compass. Instead of relying on praise or acceptance to guide decisions, they learn to trust their own judgment.
Research from UC Berkeley shows that older adults score higher on three of four branches of emotional intelligence, including managing emotions. Part of this is learning that most people are too busy with their own lives to judge yours as harshly as you fear.
When someone disagrees with me now, I ask myself one question: Does this decision align with who I am? If yes, that's enough.
2. Comparing their timeline to others
Social media didn't invent comparison, but it certainly amplified it. Careers, creative output, relationship milestones. Many people keep score even when they pretend not to.
The shift comes gradually. You start noticing that the people who seemed to have it all figured out at thirty were struggling at forty. The late bloomers suddenly found their stride at fifty-five.
Emotionally intelligent people in their fifties finally understand something liberating: You're not running the same race as anyone else. You never were.
Lives unfold in very different rhythms. Some achieve success early. Some find love after divorce. Some change careers at fifty-nine. There's no universal timeline, and trying to match someone else's pace only drains the energy you need for your own journey.
3. Holding onto grudges
Here's something nobody tells you about grudges: they require constant maintenance. You have to feed them, rehearse them, keep the anger fresh.
By your fifties, you've carried enough resentment long enough to realize the weight. Not the philosophical weight, but the actual physical exhaustion of maintaining anger toward someone who might not even remember the incident.
Emotionally intelligent people don't suddenly become saints. They still get hurt. They still experience betrayal. But they've learned that forgiveness isn't about condoning bad behavior. It's about refusing to let someone control their emotional landscape years after the fact.
One guy told me he hadn't spoken to his brother in fifteen years over a caregiving dispute. His brother died at sixty-nine. The regret, he said, is worse than the anger ever was.
4. Ruminating on past mistakes
I once spent six months replaying a failed business pitch in my head. Different words, better timing, sharper examples. As if mental rehearsal could somehow rewind time.
Ruminating on past mistakes is a misguided attempt at control. We're obsessed with the idea that, with enough analysis, we can somehow prevent future failures by perfectly understanding past ones.
But here's what emotionally intelligent people in their fifties finally grasp: The past is fixed data. You can learn from it or you can loop it endlessly. Only one of those options moves you forward.
When you stop insisting that you should have done things differently, it becomes easier to work with the life you have now. Not the one you wish you'd built, but the one that actually exists.
5. Worrying about the future constantly
Chronic worry is the brain's attempt to feel productive about things it can't control. Your mind tricks you into thinking that by imagining every possible catastrophe, you're somehow preparing for them.
By their fifties, emotionally intelligent people understand that life is inherently uncertain. And they understand that it's better to face this reality clear-eyed than to live in denial about it.
Research on emotional intelligence and aging shows that older adults use better emotional regulation strategies than younger adults. Part of this is antecedent-focused regulation: selecting environments and using cognitive strategies that target emotional experiences before they occur.
In other words, they stop beating themselves down with stress about imaginary futures and focus on what they can actually influence today.
6. Trying to control things outside their influence
I watched my friend Sarah spend her entire fifties micromanaging her adult daughter's career choices. Constant advice, judgment, anxiety about every decision.
It damaged their relationship for years. The daughter was going to live her own life anyway. The only thing Sarah's control attempts accomplished was pushing them apart.
Emotionally intelligent people in their fifties finally learn the difference between concern and control. They care deeply about outcomes, but they understand that most things, including other people's choices, sit firmly outside their sphere of influence.
This includes partners, adult children, colleagues, and pretty much everyone else. You can share perspective, you can offer support, but you cannot orchestrate another person's life no matter how much you love them.
Letting go of that illusion is exhausting at first. Then it becomes the most freeing thing you've ever done.
7. Pretending to be someone they're not
How many hours have you spent pretending to enjoy conversations that bore you? Nodding along to opinions you don't share? Hiding parts of yourself to appear easier, more agreeable, less complicated?
By their fifties, emotionally intelligent people are done with the performance. Not because they've become difficult or combative, but because they've realized that authenticity costs less energy than pretense.
They stop liking things just to fit in. They stop hiding their interests because they seem "too young" or "too frivolous." They stop softening their opinions to avoid conflict.
This isn't about being inconsiderate. It's about recognizing that meaningful connections require showing up as your actual self, not a carefully edited version designed to please everyone.
The people worth keeping in your life prefer the real you anyway. The ones who don't? They were never truly in your corner to begin with.
8. Ignoring their emotions
Many people spend decades treating uncomfortable feelings like uninvited guests. Shove them in a mental cupboard, slam the door, get back to work.
The problem with that strategy? The cupboard eventually overflows. Those ignored emotions don't disappear. They accumulate, mutate, and resurface in ways that are harder to manage.
Emotionally intelligent people in their fifties stop fighting their emotional experience. They cry when they need to. They acknowledge what hurts instead of pretending it doesn't. They understand that feeling things isn't weakness, it's maintenance.
Research shows that emotional clarity and repair predict life satisfaction and positive affect in older adults. Translation: the people who can identify and process their emotions experience higher wellbeing.
Emotions are information. Anger signals a boundary crossed. Sadness points to unmet needs. Anxiety reminds you to slow down and reassess. When you stop treating them as enemies and start treating them as data, everything shifts.
9. Expecting perfection from themselves or others
Perfectionism looks like high standards, but it's actually fear wearing a productive disguise. Fear of judgment, fear of failure, fear of being ordinary.
By their fifties, emotionally intelligent people finally understand that perfection is not only unattainable, it's also boring. Real growth happens in the messy middle, in the attempts that don't quite land, in the projects that succeed despite their flaws.
They stop expecting themselves to be flawless. They stop expecting others to be flawless. They meet people where they are, not where they wish they were.
This applies to relationships too. That friend who never remembers birthdays? That's who they are. You can adjust your expectations or keep feeling disappointed. Only one of those options improves your life.
When you release the demand for perfection, you create space for actual connection, actual progress, actual humanity.
Final thoughts
Your fifties aren't about decline. They're about refinement.
All that research showing emotional intelligence peaks in later life? It's not magic. It's the accumulated result of finally letting go of behaviors that never served you in the first place.
The approval-seeking, the comparison, the grudges, the rumination, the worry, the control, the pretense, the emotional suppression, the perfectionism. These aren't character traits. They're habits. And habits can change.
The emotionally intelligent people in their fifties didn't suddenly become enlightened. They just got tired of carrying unnecessary weight.
Which of these are you ready to put down?
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