You are not too old and it is not too late
to dive into your increasing depths
where life calmly gives out
its own secret.
Rilke
In the last blog, you talked about the misconception of not having enough time. We also discussed some tools to use to disabuse ourselves of that excuse. There is enough time to do what is important to us. Read that blog post here.
What I am asking as we walk through this series, is that we, myself included, are honest with ourselves and try some new thinking on. Not every “story” will resonate, and every “cure” will not work for each person. But we never know what will work until we try something different. And, if the same old thinking and comfortable stories are not getting us where we want to go, why not try something a little different?
Today, we will expand on the issue of time being insufficient, as we explore how age does not limit us either.
With this thinking, we buy into the belief that to be successful, we need to start young. That the only way to truly achieve great things is to get started at a young age and work and work until we finally achieve greatness at an older age. That we are too old to start new things, reset our careers, begin a new hobby, or job, or aspire to new goals.
We are plagued with feeling that if we tried to start something new at this point in our lives, we would fail. Maybe we want to write a book. Perhaps we want to take up ice skating. Maybe you want to completely change your career. Perhaps you have always wanted to run a marathon.
But as we consider these things, we think to ourselves, “Only young people do these things. I’m simply too old to get started on something this big.”
This belief simply is not true. It needs to be rewritten.
There are tons of famous people who came to their new careers, and fame, much later in life. Joy Behar, of The View, didn’t start her career in show business until she was 40. Vera Wang didn’t start designing clothing until she was 40. Harland Sanders, the founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken, was broke until he finally found success at age 65. Charles Darwin published his most famous book, The Origin of Species, at age 50. Morgan Freeman, Kathy Bates, Betty White, Gene Hackman, and many others didn’t really get started until they were over 50.
If they can do it, surely we can too. To rewrite this false narrative, we need to realize that being older gives us more wisdom. We have more to offer, a broader skill set, and more experience than youngsters.
For myself, I didn’t start learning to paint until well into my 30s. And, as I enter a new decade, I have had a book of poetry published, and found a new passion in writing. I am passionately looking forward to what comes next!
Let us rethink this limiting belief and turn it into an empowering one by honestly assessing what age brings to the table of our latest aspirations.
Restrictive Belief:
● “I’m too old to accomplish anything new.”
Empowering Beliefs:
● “My age gives me the benefit of wisdom.”
● “I have gained experience over the years.”
● “I can avoid mistakes that younger people make.”
● “My varied experience has taught me to prioritize and learn things faster.”
● “I’m never too old to learn something new.”
See you next we when we explore ways to break out of this restrictive mindset.
[…] up on last week’s theme, let’s continue talking about being too old to try something […]