In order to get the best out of midlife and beyond, you have to have the right mindset. You have to breakaway from old patterns, limited thinking, and the conventional wisdom that your best years are behind you. You also have to take on new attitudes as well as regular practices affirming that your best years are yet to come. My recent readings and conversations with different midlife experts have led me to five power ideas in creating a new mindset for getting your life in high gear.

1.Focus more on "being" than "doing"
Melita Debellis, life coach and entrepreneur, recommends three ways of thinking for living a hip and hopeful midlife. First, pay attention to the cultural imprints that may limit your sense of what is possible. Second, re-frame your sense of identity and what you want to become at this time of your life. Third, rethink what it means to be successful by asking yourself what is most important to you.

2.Engage in a life-long topic
Dr. Fred Horowitz, expert in midlife development and co-author of25 Reflections on a Happier Midlife and Beyond,, suggests engaging in a topic that is deeply important to you, which arises over and over throughout your lifetime. As you experience change and challenge in your life, it is necessary to live a more conscious life. In this way you can develop a stronger self, more powerful self, more aligned self, more successful self, more loving self, and more effective self.

3.Clear the clutter
Toni LaMotta, midlife reinvention specialist, uses spiritual teachings to support those who are reinventing themselves from the inside-out. Her latest book isWhat You REALLY Want, Wants You: Uncovering Twelve Qualities You Already Have to Get What You Think Is Missing.One of her favourite themes is clearing the clutter from life and completing anything that is incomplete. This could include paying old taxes, cleaning up relationships, or throwing out piles of documents for past projects, as she did herself for her doctoral work.

4.Do more great work
Michael Bungay Stanier is the founder and Senior Partner of Box of Crayons. His latest book isDo More Great Work: Stop the Busywork, Start the Work that Matters.He recommends doing more great work, work that really matters. You need to be focused, a quintessential component of superior performance. You need to have the courage to be counter cultural and buck the system. You need to be resilient and show the willingness to get up when you have been knocked down.

5.Have a "positive attitude"
Jim Selman,CEO of Paracomm Partners International, is a recognized authority in the field of organizational transformation and culture change.He contends that the way you observe what is present alters your experience. As Shakespeare said, "There is nothing good or bad in the Universe, but thinking makes it so." Having good or bad days is entirely a function of your point of view, and your point of view will determine your experience. Be present with what is happening, your experience, and having a choice about how you observe your world based on what you are committed to in a given moment.