Whatever our dreams are, we practically hear a clock ticking. Our family, our friends, even the media all make us wonder when we are finally going to be “there” and why we aren’t there yet.
But there are no age restrictions on success. It takes as long as it takes, and when you reach it, you won’t reject success because you’re not the right age for it.
“There are people on top, and then there are people who don’t matter. That’s how I felt,” admits Nathan, who works in advertising in New York. “I looked down on myself for not being where I wanted to be, and I suffered through every day like it was my personal humiliation.
“I didn’t take pride in what I did. I practically created a fictional job description for myself whenever anybody asked me what I really did.”
Nathan says that in his business, “there’s nothing but perception. We don’t make better mousetraps, we don’t make anything. We sell perception, and our jobs are perception. It was like I heard this clock ticking, with each day bringing me closer to failure.”
Nathan sought help from a career coach who asked him who he was really competing with and why. “When I said I guess I was competing with everybody in the company because I wanted to be on top, she said, ‘Well, if you were on top of the company, then you’d be competing with every other company to be bigger than them.’ Basically, she made me see that there was no way to win this contest and that I could either sit back and enjoy the ride or keep trying to race to a place I could never get to.”
Nathan’s perspective shifted. “Now I try to keep my focus on doing the best work I can, and I know that I’ll get where I’m going when I get there.”
Age is unrelated to people’s commitment to their job and their level of job performance.
Tuuli and Karisalmi 1999