If you think you may have peaked in your career or worry that you may already have, take heart. A recent study published in Nature shows that we can peak at any age. Researchers examined the careers of 30,000 scientists, artists and directors and found that almost everyone is likely to experience a hot streak, but its timing is completely unpredictable.
Source: SLATE, October 11, 2018. Link. There is an insidious and pervasive feeling that the best years of our lives exist somewhere between the ages of 27 and 45, give or take a few years. That is the implicit message of both 40-under-40 lists and age discrimination in the workplace: Once you’re past those solidly middle-age years, your days of accomplishment must be long behind you. The Nature study turns that assumption upside and effectively says it doesn’t matter where you are in your career – there’s still time to make great work.
INSIGHTS: Take heart in the comment of Dashun Wang, lead author of the study, “As long as you keep producing, your best work may be yet to come.”