It’s never too late to start because life is long and there’s always plenty of opportunities for you to go out and achieve success. The only time when it’s too late is when you decide to leave the game and give up. Otherwise, you’re still in the ring and fighting until they ring that bell.
Thankfully, there is absolutely zero age limit to achieving success. All it takes it a little bit of creativity and thinking to propel you forward and upwards. When someone rejects you, there are still an abundance of opportunities out there to get to where you want to be.
There are plenty of people who started later than you and still came out ahead. It’s just in your head if you think that it’s too late to start building your dream life. There are wildly popular Youtubers who started at age 13 and became wildly successful by their 20’s.
By this logic, people in their 20’s, 30’s, 40’s, and above should never start their Youtube channel. That’s false. It’s not age that propels someone to success, but rather how interesting the content is. It’s never too late to start because your dream life isn’t dependent on how old you are.
It rather depends on how much value you provide to your end customers. That’s what it ultimately depends on. When you start thinking that it’s too late because of any other reason besides that, you are making excuses for yourself. You’re trying to avoid the pain of rejection instead of going for the joy of winning.
Don’t throw in the towel before the game even starts. Show up every day and put in the time. Have faith that one day, it may all work out.
It’s Never Too Late to Start Meaning
The phrase “it’s never too late to start” means that no matter what your starting point is, there are plenty of opportunities out there to go upwards. It just takes effort, consistency, and time in order to get there. Remember that there’s always someone younger who’s doing what you want to do.
If that’s the case, then everyone else should throw in the towel if they didn’t start even earlier than them. We all know that’s false. Now, after you put in a fair amount of effort and you get no results, then you should look into tweaking and changing your approach.
However, that can be figured out after you start. They key is just getting started. As humans, we naturally want to solve problems that are in front of us. However, we also naturally want to avoid problems in front of us. Once the problems force themselves onto you, you will have no other choice than to confront it directly.
Therefore, the very first step is just to get started. Don’t let mental blocks stop you from stepping foot into the game. It’s all in your head. When I started blogging, the number one fear that I had was the blogosphere is so overly saturated already.
What’s my voice going to do anything in the sea of wonderful content that’s already out there?
I’m thankful I got over that nagging voice tugging in my head. I ignored it. I realized that it’s never too late to start and I started my blog anyway. It may be that I can’t reach any kind of success with the blog after I pour months of effort into it. However, I will be so thankful that I actually tried.
The biggest failure isn’t falling down, it’s not trying in the first place.
Why It’s Never Too Late to Start
One thing that it’s never too late to start doing is to SMASH that social share button and post to your favorite social media! Your friends could be on the verge of starting something but thinking that it’s too late to start on that side project that could change their life.
This article has the potential of avoiding that line of thinking and give them to push to finally start on their goals. So with that said, let’s go into the concrete reasons why you should start on that project you’ve been wanting to start on.
1) Life is Long
The single biggest reason why it’s never too late to start is that life is long. Time takes a huge amount of, well, time to pass. Think about where you are today and think about where you were 10 years ago. Don’t you think a large amount of time passed between then and now?
We overestimate what we can achieve in a day and underestimate what we can achieve in one year. 365 days is an ample amount of time to go out and achieve your goals and succeed. People quit their jobs in one year after starting a side business working 10 – 20 hours a week.
Your dream life can only be as little as a single year away. All you have to do is start on the project. Even if it’s a little later than a year, the point is that it’s years away, not decades. A lot of change happens in a singular year. Success can happen a lot quicker than people realize.
2) Opportunities are Unlimited
It’s never too late to start because there is an unlimited amount of opportunities. If you live in a developed world, you are living in the land of opportunity. You hit the birth lottery jackpot! Even if you don’t live in a developed country, you can always move to one.
Keep in mind that I tried my hand at so many things and failed at so many of them. I tried to day trade, make money flipping products, and interviewed for investment banking jobs. I either failed or got flat out rejected at every single one of those pursuits. However, I brushed it off and kept going regardless.
I still came out ahead. You should try more things, fail at them, try more things, and fail more times. The master at something failed more times than the student ever even tried. Take the slice of the unlimited opportunity pie and enjoy it when your big break finally comes.
3) You’re Further Ahead Than You Think You Are
Your starting point is someone else’s goal point. So why even refrain from starting? You’re already starting at a farther point than your peers, it wouldn’t make logical sense for you to not even try. If you put in the effort and time, you can be even further ahead than your peers.
If you don’t even start, you’re wasting the head start that you already have. It would be a shame to give up such an advantage just like that when there are others who would chop off their right hand to have what you have. Understand and know where your position actually is.
Effort compounds. If you just put in more effort, then all your effort that you already put in grows exponentially and amplifies into infinity. Don’t prevent yourself from doing something when the best years of your life are ahead of you. The pain of losing shouldn’t keep you from realizing the joy of winning.
4) Finally, It’s Never Too Late to Start Because Age is Just a Number
Age is almost meaningless. The baby boomers who tell themselves “I’m not good with technology because of my age” are making excuses. Technology is not difficult to utilize by any means at all. Companies design products such as Microsoft Word, social media, and phones to be as simple as they possibly can.
They want barriers to entry to keep competition out so the production of the products are complicated. However, using those products are very simple. So then the conclusion is that the older generations are looking for a way out to blame something else other than themselves.
Age is just a number. No matter how old or young you are, there are people who achieved what you want to achieve. Who didn’t sit on their couch but rather took tangible action and steps. Who didn’t wish for something to happen but who made it happen.
Things that It’s Never Too Late to Start On
So now that you understand why it’s never too late to start anything in life, let’s go over the tangible things that you can work towards today.
1) It’s Never Too Late to Build Wealth
The vast majority of Warren Buffett’s wealth was made after his 50th birthday. The statistic is something like 90%+ of his wealth was made after 50. Therefore, it’s never too late to build wealth. Whether you’re starting with mountains of debt at 50 or at zero at 30, there’s still plenty of time.
Life expectancies are somewhere in the high 70’s, low 80’s for developed countries. If you start at 50, that means you have 20 – 30 years to catch up. That’s a huge amount of time leftover to reach financial success. Slowly but surely is the best way to climb that mountain.
If the world’s arguably greatest investor built the majority of his empire after his 50’s, then you sure can too. Save as much money as you can and make your money work for you in the stock market or real estate. The first 3 – 5 years will be a slow grind but it’ll pick up from there.
2) Health
Health is one of the most valuable things ever that people overlook. Most put it last in the list of priorities. Their number one priority is working that extra hour to make their bosses happy. That’s not the right order of priority. Health should be number one.
Negotiate work with your boss so he or she understands you don’t have excess capacity to work. Focus on sleep and make it a priority. Sleep is one of the most differentiating factors between a successful person or an unsuccessful person. It helps you make better decisions overall throughout the day.
What’s more important is that it helps you avoid bad decisions. Better health makes you win in more ways than one. It should be number one in your priorities list. You can’t win if the weapon you have, health, is damaged.
3) Building Romantic or Personal Relationships
It’s never too late to start bettering your personal life. Some people date and marry early and some people date and marry late. There’s all sort of people with all different kinds of stories like this. Maybe you spent a lot of your early 20’s building wealth and climbing the corporate ladder so it was difficult to date often.
Whatever the case is, it’s never too late. You never know what’s going to happen until you actually go out and see how it goes. Self belief matters and you’ll be amazed at what actually does happen. Maybe you’ll fall flat on your face or maybe you’ll find the partner of your dreams.
However late you’re starting, there are opposite genders who started later than you and got everything they wanted. Ignore that nagging voice in your head that you’re not good enough.
4) Business
Starting a business is an evergreen activity that never goes out of favor. It’s not too late to get into it. You may make less profits than if you started a business sooner but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a chance of you making any profit. The headlines that say “is this industry dead?” are trying to attract clicks to those articles.
Even though there are constant new sources of energy such as alternative energy, coal still never went away. Even after a hundred years, it’s still here to stay. There are declining industries, but declining doesn’t mean nonexistent. It’s not too late to start that new venture that could change your life.
Could you still fail? Absolutely. The most likely reason would be that your competition was too good, not because it was too late to start.
5) Getting in the Right Career
People rebrand themselves time and time again. There are people who move into software engineering after spending so much time in finance. There are people who move to nursing after working a corporate desk job for so long. The right career is just around the corner.
It’s not easy to change careers, absolutely. However, it’s possible. There are stories of people in their 40’s who pivoted into software engineering. For one thing, it’s about actually having the necessary technical skills to perform the job. The second step is meeting and talking to the right people.
There will be more rejections than acceptance letters. All it takes is just that one yes and you’re in the door.
6) Changing your Mindset to a Positive One
Let go of any grudges or negativity that happened to you in the past. The best you can do is to let go of those thoughts and look towards the future. Learn from the mistakes you made so that you don’t make the same mistake twice. Then have an overall happy positive outlook for the day.
It’s never too late to start adding positivity into your life. There’s no good that happens to you for dwelling onto the past. There are infinite opportunities to better your life going forward. That’s what matters more than anything that happened before. What you will make of our life going forward.
Maybe there was a disagreement with a friend that really got to you. Or someone said something insulting or offensive that you just can’t get over. Forget about it and move on. There’s no denying it happened but there’s also no denying that it doesn’t help to think about it so often either.
7) It’s Never Too Late to Travel
If one of the items in your bucket list is to see the world and experience new adventures, it’s never too late to start to travel. Even if you have kids, there’s still plenty of time for you to make the trip and see new things out in the world. Or it could be because you didn’t have the funds before.
Time is a finite resource but people still have an abundance of it. Let time work for you so you can acquire funds or find a window of opportunity to see a different side of the world. Take your kids with you or find a trusted baby sitter to watch them for a week or so.
When my parents had to go to South Korea for a week when I was in the 11th grade, they made enough food to last me a month. I was all alone in the house for 3 weeks and nothing bad ever happened. With the invention of technology, it’s easier to stay in touch while you are away, if you are really worried about your kids’ safety.
8) Be Happy
It’s never too late to start to be happy. Happiness is a choice. Yes, there are environmental factors that influence that happiness meter but ultimately, it’s up to your outlook on life that makes the difference. Whether you think it’s good or bad, you’re right. Your thought controls your perspectives and overall mood.
Most people are frustrated because they didn’t accomplish as much as they wanted to accomplish. Self actualization is our number one goal in life. Once you start to achieve what you set out to achieve, you will be content with who you are as a person.
Simple mistakes here and there doesn’t bother you as much. When you achieve as much as you want to, you know who you are as a person and don’t let one off mistakes affect your mood, emotions, or happiness. You always have the time leftover to be happy.
It’s Never Too Late to Start, I Really Mean It
Wherever you are starting from, there are limitless opportunities to get to your final destination. This isn’t one of those cheesy motivational quotes that tell you you can achieve anything as long as you put your mind to it. It’s one of those quotes that is truthful. There are no rosy pictures to paint.
Ultimately, it’s all up to you. What will you do today? Will you continue doing the same things over and over again or will you start a side hustle that can change your life in a year? Are you going to watch TV and catch up with friends or spend a few hours working towards achieving success?
Below are some of the most common excuses people say about being too late:
- All the good ideas are already taken
- People already started it, what’s going to make me different?
- What if it doesn’t work out?
- It’s been years since this was popular, I’m too late
The excuses are things that people say to make themselves feel better. Not a single person has a monopoly on everything on Earth. Even the best of the best loses here and there. They are not invincible and they never will be invincible.
If you don’t think that you can fulfill that market, someone else will. Do you really want to let others fulfill your dreams for themselves or are you going to go out and do it on your own? Stop overthinking things. Sometimes, you just gotta say “I don’t know the answers but I’m gonna do it anyway”.
It’s never too late to start anything that you want to start today and it will never be too late in the future either.