Age is no barrier to success. Unless of course, you believe it is. In a world overflowing with poor role-models, sifting through the endless stream of negative news, and fear campaigns around age can leave even the strongest willed person feeling demoralized.
However there are many incredible examples of success by people of all ages as was expressed by self-help classics research guru Tom Butler-Bowdon (pictured left). Having avidly studied the entire self-development industry for years, he knows that although success takes a good deal of time to cultivate, it is very much possible even in later decades of life if you are committed to the process.
I personally could not agree more and wrote a blog article about the very inspirational 82 year old 2012 Oscar winning actor Christopher Plummer, whose career success and recognition is peaking in his 80’s. To see the post click here. In order to help you decide on whether currently changing your life direction is a wise idea, I have outlined a 4 step process below to assist you to ‘see’ into your future.
Change Your Future Exercise
This exercise works on the assumption that you feel you need to take a new direction in your life and have some ideas in mind about what you would like to pursue. (If you do not know what you would like to pursue and need help discovering it, see previous articles).
1. Clear the mind – Sit or stand straight with your shoulders back and head up. You can either close your eyes or have them open but looking slightly up and take 3 deep breaths. With each breath, clear your mind by focusing all your attention on your breath.
This will ground you into the present moment.
2. Open your mind to worst case future scenario (based on the change you want to make). Spend up to 1 minute imagining a movie where you can see, hear and feel the progression of your life up to 10 years from now and imagine nothing has gone right. Although you have periods where you feel engaged in what you are doing (because you are passionate about it), you have achieved no external signs of success and may even have gone backwards in terms of finances, relationships and health.
This is the worst case scenario and the question is could you still live with this possibility 10 years from now? Would following your passion still have been worth it?
Contrast this with keep doing what you are doing now worst case future scenario. Spend up to 1 minute imagining a movie where you can see, hear and feel the progression of your life up to 10 years from now and imagine things have continued to deteriorate. You rarely feel happy any of the time and you have achieved little or no additional external signs of success and may even have gone backwards in terms of finances, relationships and health.
Could you still live with this possible scenario 10 years from now? Compare it to the first.
3. Open your mind to a mild to moderate success only scenario where you made the change in the future. Spend up to 1 minute imagining a movie where you can see, hear and feel the progression of your life up to 10 years from now and imagine only mild to moderate success. Although you have periods where you feel engaged in what you are doing (because you are passionate about it), you have not hit the big time in any way, you have had many ups and downs and know there are many more to come.
How does it feel to live with this possible scenario 10 years from now?
Contrast this with achieving mild to moderate success only with what you are doing now future scenario. Spend up to 1 minute imagining a movie where you can see, hear and feel the progression of your life up to 10 years from now and imagine things have continued to move along steadily in the expected way. You rarely feel happy much of the time but you have continued to satisfactorily progress at work and you are likely to have progressed in terms of income but may or may not have progressed in terms of overall finances, relationships and health.
Could you still live with this possible scenario 10 years from now? Compare it to the one before it.
4. Open your mind to a high to very high success scenario in the future that came from making this change. Spend up to 1 minute imagining a movie where you can see, hear and feel the progression of your life up to 10 years from now and imagine high to very high success. You have regular periods where you feel engaged in what you are doing (because you are passionate about it), and although there may have been numerous ups and downs you have achieved a high to very high level of success and are confident of further growth.
How does this possible scenario feel 10 years from now?
Contrast this with achieving high to very high success with what you are doing now future scenario. Spend up to 1 minute imagining a movie where you can see, hear and feel the progression of your life up to 10 years from now and imagine things have continued to move along in a best case scenario type of way. You rarely feel happy much of the time doing what you do but you have great signs of external success and have progressed in terms of income but may or may not have
progressed in terms of overall finances, relationships and health.
Could you still live with this possible scenario 10 years from now? Compare it to the one before it.
You now have a great idea of what your future can hold. You just need to decide on what you want to do.
For more tips, information, strategy and inspiration in relation to growing ever more successful as you age, my interview with Tom Butler-Bowdon can be heard by clicking here.
