Rather than asking yourself is it too late in terms of age there are other
questions that are more relevant to ask yourself if you want to make a career
change and this has a lot less to do with your current age but more to do
with your current situation your circumstances your expectations number
one would be the level of success that you expect from your career change let's
say that you want to become a pianist and actually professionally play in
concerts and in an orchestra and doing your earlier years let's say you have
already had some experience of playing the piano so you are not completely
starting from zero but you're not really an expert in it and let's say that now
for the past 10 or 15 years you have worked as a teacher and now you have
this really strong intention of becoming a professional pianist so I don't think
it's that relevant to ask yourself if it's too late or not because no matter
what age you are at whether you're 20 30 40 or even 60 or 70 it is not impossible
to become a pianist as long as you're willing to learn it and spend time on it
and put the effort into it then you can certainly become a professional piano
player of course that really depends on each individual it depends on a lot of
things like your talent your grit etc but it is a possibility so now the
relevant question is what level of success do you expect if you're still
eighteen or twenty then you can very reasonably expect that you can get to a
very high level and become one of the greatest piano players in the world but
if you let's say start at age 85 then maybe you can become a professional
pianist but you might not be able to get to that level of success as a 20 year
old could but as long as you are able and willing to accept that kind of
limitation then there is actually nothing that stands in your way of
becoming a pianist right the second question is what kind of risks are you
willing to take let's say that you've been working as a computer engineer but
now you're thinking of switching your career and want to study let's say
German literature and you want to become a professor in that area no matter what
age you are at if you're 30 40 or 50 of course it is possible to study German
literature you can just go and enroll for the program get the degree and then
try to get a job as a professor so the question is not whether it's too late to
study German literature and become a professor or not but the question is in
your particular situation with your circumstances for example having a
family or having financial responsibilities are you willing or not
to take the risk upon you and the risk is for example not able to perhaps
immediately get a job after graduation or maybe making less money than you made
working as a computer engineer number three is your assessment of costs and
reward ratio at this point in time in your particular situation are you
willing to spend the money the time the effort and the energy to get a certain
perceived reward and I think that this has less to do with your age but has
more to do with your particular situation especially your financial
responsibilities let's say that you are 25 years old and you have been working
in accounting but now you want to become a film director at this very moment you
just got married and you have two small kids that rely on you financially so on
one hand this possible reward of becoming a potentially becoming
successful film director is very enticing but on the other hand there is
also the cost the cost of making less money in the beginning and maybe having
to use part of your savings to take part in the courses getting your education or
your experience in filmmaking and the money that you could otherwise use to
support your family better and at the same time you might be 70 years old and
let's look at the same scenario you have been working in accounting until you
were 65 and you've not been doing anything for the last five years and now
at 70 you've suddenly thought about becoming a
FileMaker is it too late or not I don't think that that question is relevant
here here you have a possible reward of becoming a filmmaker or maybe making a
film for your own satisfaction and then on the other hand you look at your cost
perhaps you are at the point in time where you don't have any financial
responsibilities anymore let's say that your house is paid off
and your children have grown up so they are financially independent so in this
scenario although you're 70 years old by pursuing filmmaking you're not really
losing out or sacrificing anything else number four is the amount of energy that
you are able and you are willing to expend on your endeavor and I think that
the question of energy is much more relevant than a question of age because
one person can be much older than the other person but have a lot more energy
let's say that you are 55 years old and that you studied biology but now you
want to build a second career and become an archaeologist I'm not certain if
there is an age limit to that but I assume that there is not theoretically
there would be nothing limiting you to study archaeology and become an
archaeologist and go to the pyramids and do your excavations and research but the
bigger question is do you have the energy or not and this is a very
individual thing and you have to look at it
case-by-case because there are a lot of people who at age 55 or even 60 are much
more fit and are much healthier and stronger than people in their 40s or
let's say you are 40 years old and you want to go into acting of course it's
possible there are a lot of actors that started when they were older and that
made a name for themselves and there are a lot of roles out there for people in
their 40s 50s and beyond as long as you don't expect to always or necessarily
have the main role the question becomes not a question of age but the question
of you in particular you as an individual do you have the energy to
pursue this career path or not and the answer might as well be yes because
I said earlier an increase in age does not necessarily go hand-in-hand with a
decrease in energy many people especially if they reach a certain age
ask themselves whether or not and it is too late to change careers and start
building their career in a new industry or area but I've noticed that not only
do 40 or 50 year olds ask themselves these questions but increasingly I've
also seen a lot of people who are only in their 20s or early 30s who are
questioning whether or not it is too late so let's begin by asking ourselves
what does that actually mean whether it's too late there are certain
professions certain occupations which actually give you an age limit where you
pass that age you are not able to enter that field an example of that would be
if you would want to have a professional career and software at a level where you
would be able to play in the World Cup for that there is obviously an age
restriction I don't know what that exact age is but I'm pretty certain that if
you want to have that kind of career then you would need to start very early
in your teams at 14 15 16 or maybe even that is too late and if I correctly
understood from the website of NASA there is even no age limit to become an
astronaut as long as you fulfill their criteria so when you think about it
there are very very few occupations and careers where there is an absolute age
limit for you to enter it so if you happen to want to build a career or
start a job in a field that actually has an age limit and you are past that age
limit then I'm sorry to tell you that yes it is too late to change your career
to become let's say that soccer player but apart from the very few exceptions
there are really very very few occupations that have a strict age limit
so realizing this what does the question is it too late actually me it definitely
doesn't mean that there is any external party who limits your entry into that
new career or feel so if there is anyone who would say
it is too late to change careers then that could only be you or the people
around you who have that opinion