Over the last decades, increasing life expectancy and the related growth of the aging population have been seen as one of the greatest challenges of modern society [1]. Though life expectancy has been consistently growing, the quality of life of older adults has not directly followed this pattern. To approach the problem of maintaining and increasing the quality of life of older adults, scientists from different fields, including psychology, have investigated the nature, mechanisms, factors, and predictors of aging (for example, [1,2,3]). These studies have revealed plenty of mechanisms that affect aging, including, but not limited to, biological factors [4,5], lifestyle strategies [6,7], psychological mechanisms [8,9], and social environmental factors [10,11]. Most of these studies have focused on favorable or unfavorable effects for active/ healthy/successful aging. In 2019, the WHO, in its “Decade of Healthy Ageing 2020–2030”, reported the conceptualization of “healthy aging” as “the process of developing and maintaining the functional ability that enables wellbeing in older age” [12]. The key areas in which healthy aging is manifested, according to the WHO, are functional ability, intrinsic capacity, and environments. A systematic analysis of the studies conducted in the last twenty years showed [13] that resources of aging could be modified, and they differ in terms of the degree to which they can be modified. Whereas some resources, such as genetics, are hardly modifiable, environmental, lifestyle, and psychological resources could be more flexible for modifications. From this perspective, we can assume that if some resources of aging are modifiable, then a person can, to some extent, create their own aging process. 1.2. Resources of AgingMany biologists support the idea that there is no universal process of aging [4]; moreover, this process can be controlled much more strongly than many people used to think. Studies on genetic and environmental predictors of longevity and life expectancy have shown that genetic factors explain only 25–30% of the variance in life expectancy [4] and about 40% of the variance in longevity [16,17]. Though genetic information could be seen as hardly modifiable, its effects on the functioning of an organism can be moderated by environmental and social factors [16,18,19].Environmental factors include a wide range of phenomena, from the economic status of one’s country and ecology to individual lifestyle. Thus, some environmental factors are controllable and modifiable, whereas others are not. Modifiable environmental factors include nutrition and diet [7,20,21], physical activity [6,22], sleep [23,24], and bad habits, such as smoking and alcohol consumption [25,26]. The positive effects of a healthy lifestyle on health and overall functioning in aging have been well-established. In particular, results have shown that nutrition and diet could affect cardiovascular health [27], moderate mortality from different causes [28], and influence physical and mental health [29,30]. The effects of physical activity for health and cognitive and psychological functioning have been shown in a range of studies [31,32]. Previous research has suggested that an increase in physical activity prevents cognitive declines [33] and the development of different forms of dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease [34,35]. One’s chronotype and schedule of sleep were found to affect life expectancy, longevity, cardiovascular health, and risk of diabetes and Alzhemer’s disease [23,24].In the cognitive field, cognitive reserve can be seen as one of the key preventive concepts, as well as one of the most obvious examples of the futurization of aging [15]. By understanding which activities are most effective in maintaining cognitive functioning, we can incorporate such activities into our daily lives, reducing the likelihood of degenerative phenomena. Moreover, the range of possible activities is quite wide, which allows a person to choose their optimal types of activities.Data on personality and emotional resources of aging are more complicated. On the one hand, research demonstrates the strengths of one’s emotional sphere and the personality of older adults, e.g., a positive paradox of aging, better emotional regulation [36,37]; and changes in personality towards maturity from the perspectives of both the Big Five model and Dark Triad model [38]. Further, we can assume that the results reported in the studies on older adults were formed throughout the adults’ lifespan. On the other hand, modern psychology does not give clear explanations of how these favorable outcomes are achieved. Finally, from a psychotherapeutic perspective, we could argue that though some positive outcomes could be formed in the face of one’s life situation without intention, a conscious modification of personality or emotional strategies constitutes outstandingly hard work. Thus, in light of the present work, we assumed that one’s personality and emotional resources of aging could be formed, but would need significant efforts.The social sphere and, related to it, prosocial behavior have always been considered important factors for the wellbeing and mental and physical health of older adults (for example, [39,40]). Studies in this field have reported the role of prosocial behaviors in general [11], as well as in generativity [39], in one’s quality of personal relationships [41], and in volunteering [10]. The findings underlined the complexity of prosocial behavior and revealed that it was formed from early adulthood and even adolescence throughout the whole lifespan [11]. Although prosocial behavior seems to be natural for humans, associated with evolutionary processes and social approval, their development is moderated by a variety of factors. Thus, prosocial behavior could be stimulated to achieve better results and stronger outcomes for aging.

To summarize the previous research, the factors and mechanisms that have been shown to have a positive effect on quality of life, mental and physical health, and psychological wellbeing in aging are developed throughout the lifespan, but this development is not predetermined. Rather, it is based on genetic predispositions (physical, metabolic, cognitive, emotional, etc.), but it is activated and mediated by non-genetic factors, including one’s conscious intent. These conclusions give us ground to suggest that many of these resources could be developed by modification of one’s behavior with regard to the future benefits drawn from including simple strategies that develop resources for aging in a daily routine.

Our study aimed to approach processes related to the futurization of aging. We focused on resources that are associated with positive outcomes in aging in previous research, and we analyzed to what extent subjective beliefs about the impact of these strategies on aging are related to the performance of these strategies in the past. We hypothesized that awareness about the effects of lifestyle strategies in aging would be higher, since associations between a “healthy” lifestyle and health are well-established, and health has been considered one of the crucial domains for maintaining quality of life in aging [4,17]. We expected that those who reported higher scores on subjective beliefs about strategies of aging would also report higher scores on the performance of these strategies in the past. At the same time, we assumed that there might be a gap between subjective beliefs and reported performance, so we suggested that there might be no association between scores on subjective beliefs and real performance in the past. Finally, we hypothesized that if strategies of aging are supposed to have a positive impact on aging, they could be associated with psychological wellbeing not only in aging, but also during adulthood.