WHEN WILL YOU HAVE ‘made it’? Do you have an age by which you have decided you need to have ticked off your list of achievements? When we were children, ‘success’ felt as though it would all slot into place at the ‘ancient’ age of 25. “I’ll be married with two kids by then,” we would naively say, or “I’ll have my own house and an amazing job”, or “I’ll have won the Academy Award for Best Actress by then” (just me?). We laugh about it now (probably with the bitterness of hindsight), but how much have we really changed? Do we not still, foolishly – and perhaps dangerously – believe that success is the preserve of the young?

“Yes, and quite simply, it’s social conditioning,” explains founder of Seven Career Coaching, Evelyn Cotter, of our fascination with ‘young’ success. “We have a collective adoration of what appear to be overnight successes on shows like Love Island and others, where very young people shoot to fame suddenly. This, and the rise of influencer culture, has contributed significantly to this idea that huge success can happen at such a young age. The reality is that these are a very slight minority, but the problem is they are the most visible and people then use the most visible as a benchmark.”

This excerpt has been republished from Marie-Claire Chappet's article for Harper's BAZAAR Australia.

CLICK HERE to read the original article in full.