Take Control of Your Future Before Another 10 years Gets Behind You
Is now the time to take control of your future? Well yes it is. Here are some song lyrics that have been telling us this for ages: “I wish that I knew what I knew now when I was younger”. So said Rod Stewart in the Faces’ song Ooh la la. Ok so Rod was talking about the romantic side of things but it’s another of those thought provoking lyrics for me. It makes me think of the Catch 22 aspect of life – youth being wasted on the young and all that.
When you are young its hard to take advice from people who are older isn’t it? You know it all and it’s different nowadays anyway is what you tend to think. Then of course you get older and, looking back, sometimes wish you’d listened to that advice. You realise that some things are just universal truths. The pressing need to take control of your future being one.
The catch 22 is that you have to experience things yourself before you realise that if you’d taken the advice you could have avoided those experiences. Making the most of life being a case in point – not wasting time as you just know how much of it you’ll have.
When you are young it feels like you have all the time in the world. There’s no urgency. There’s much more time ahead of you than there is behind. There doesn’t seem to be any need to take control of your future. The trouble is though that as you get older the opposite is true. And time passes much faster.
Take Control of Your Future By Looking back
You can get a feel for this by looking back at the big world events that have happened in your life. Think of a couple and I bet they seem like yesterday. For me at 50 a couple stand out. The twin towers attack in 2001 and the death of Princess Diana. In ‘97.
With both I can remember every detail of where I was and what I was doing at the time. Neither affected me directly but both seem like yesterday even though they were 13 and 17 years ago respectively. On a lighter note I also remember a conversation I had with a workmate 10 years ago.
I’ve always looked younger than my years so when this guy found out I was 40 at the time (he was 26) he was quite amused. When I commented that he’d be 40 before he knows it he scoffed “Yeah in 14 years!” Like I say that was 10 years ago so he’s nearly there. I’ll be digging him up in another 4 years ! but then I’ll be 54 ..
Another song lyric that makes the same point….
“Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain.
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today.
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you.
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun”
Pink Floyd, Time
Where am I going with this? Well it’s back to the Do It now thing. There’s never a right time to do anything but the longer you put it off, the more time goes by and the less likely you are to do “it”. So if there is something you want to do, an ideal life you envisage for you and yours – it’s time to do it. Now. Take control of your future.
As I write this a friend has just posted an interview with Hugh Laurie on Facebook – He has been saying the same thing:
“It’s a terrible thing, I think, in life to wait until you’re ready. I have this feeling now that actually no one is ever ready to do anything. There’s almost no such thing as ready. There’s only now. And you may as well do it now. I mean, I say that confidently as if I’m about to go bungee jumping or something – I’m not. I’m not a crazed risk taker. But I do think that, generally speaking, now is as good a time as any.”
The new economy is a place where people who are prepared to do it now can find ample opportunity. It IS the right time to take control of your future. In a world where most have unprecedented opportunity to leverage the incredible technology we have at our disposal it’s just a crying shame not to. Have a look at one way you can take control of your future by signing up for a complimentary video series below and plan where you’ll be the next time ten years has somehow got behind you.
Take Control of Your Future Before Another 10 years Gets Behind You
By Dave Menzies
