Think You’re Too Young, Too Old, or Too Late to Achieve Your Dreams?

I wrote this originally as a guest post on Free Money Finance on February 5, 2010.

Have you ever felt like you’re too young, too old or too late to make a serious change in your life – like finally getting out of debt, finding work you were meant to do, starting the business you’ve always wanted, or living your dream lifestyle?

I think most of us have been there at one time or another.  We think our dreams or goals are out of reach because of the situation or circumstances we find ourselves in.  Or we believe the lies that we’re not qualified, gifted, talented, rich, or knowledgeable enough to do it.

Earlier this year, I re-read The Rhythm of Life: Living Every Day with Passion and Purpose, by Matthew Kelly.

In the book, Kelly offers an inspiring list of now-famous people who didn’t let their age or stage of life stop them from achieving their dreams and living a life of significance:

  • Mozart was eight when he wrote his first symphony.
  • Anne Frank was thirteen when she began her diary.
  • Ralph Waldo Emerson was fourteen when he enrolled at Harvard.
  • Bill Gates was nineteen when he cofounded Microsoft.
  • Henry David Thoreau was twenty-seven when he moved to Walden Pond, built a house, planted a garden, and began a two-year experiment in simplicity and self-reliance.
  • Bill Gates was thirty-one when he became a billionaire.
  • Thomas Jefferson was thirty-three when he wrote the Declaration of Independence.
  • Coco Chanel was thirty-eight when she introduced her perfume Chanel No. 5.
  • Mother Teresa was forty when she founded the Missionaries of Charity.
  • Henry Ford was fifty when he started his first manufacturing assembly line.
  • Ray Kroc was fifty-two when he started McDonalds.
  • Dom Perignon was sixty when he produced his first champagne.
  • Oscar Hammerstein II was sixty-four when he wrote the lyrics for The Sound of Music.
  • Winston Churchill was sixty-five when he became Britain’s prime minister.
  • Nelson Mandela was seventy-one when he was released from a South African prison, and seventy-five when he was elected president.
  • Michelangelo was seventy-two when he designed the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.
  • Frank Lloyd Wright was ninety-one when he completed his work at the Guggenheim Museum.
  • Dimitrion Yordanidis was ninety-eight years old when he ran a marathon in seven hours and thirty-three minutes, in Athens, Greece.
  • Ichijirou Araya was one hundred when he climbed Mount Fuji.

Whatever your age, the rest of your life is ahead of you.  You can’t go back and change anything about your past, but you can change your future.  Now is your time to take action!

Ask yourself:

  • What dreams have I been putting off that I know I need to pursue?
  • What attitudes, people, or things are holding me back?
  • What are three things I can do right now to move me toward the achievement of my dreams?
  • Who (people) and what (tools) can help me?

Remember these words from English novelist George Eliot:  “It is never too late to be who you might have been.”

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Comments

  1. Great read.
    You missed one Wilbur David Sanders franchised his first KFC at the age of 65.

  2. You are correct His father was Wilbur!

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