There are so many things that you can read or theorize about for years, in depth -- that end up still being very different once you actually do them. Just gotta try stuff.
1. I thought I wanted to be a lawyer through most of college. I took tons of law-related courses, did a few internships, and then realized I strongly disliked actually doing it once I got my first job in the field. Thankfully, I figured it out before going to law school.
2. I studied abroad in Kenya basically on a whim. I realized my penultimate semester of college that I’d managed to get all my graduation requirements done a semester early and somehow not noticed, and decided I’d take the last semester to have a little adventure. It turned out to be one of the best things I’ve ever done.
3. At the start of lockdown in 2020, I took CS50 basically because I was bored and a friend was doing it. I had never even considered studying CS before that point, and now here I am getting my ducks in a row to do an OSU post-bacc.
I suppose the throughline here is that life is full of unknown unknowns, and unknown unknowns, by definition, aren’t something you can think about and factor into your decision-making process. Just like you said — sometimes you just gotta try stuff.
I took CS50 when it was probably very different (Brian Kernighan, the creator of C, teaching C)
Roughly, I ended up as a Chair of a Masters in IT program. Not doing that part anymore, but still a full time non-tenure teaching professor. (What technically, as in according to the rules of academia, qualifies me for all this, is the law degree. Weird. I'll take it!
Anytime someone asks me how I made the leap to building startups the answer is pretty simple: failure doesn’t scare me that much, I have failed many times, but I’ve learned and don’t repeat (most) mistakes. That and I hate anyone telling me what to do. YMMV.
I've never been involved in corporate HR, I'd want advice. Similarly, if I was doing a bungee jump for the first time I'd ask someone to check my harness ... (to spell it out, you seem to be berating someone for doing a reality check, as if reality [of the jobs market] were open to someone to define individually; ignorance and confidence can be easily confused)
If you can breathe, spell cybersecurity, and have decent grooming standards, you can get hired in security. The 3rd is technically optional...
Get training, then take a crappy SOC level 1 analyst job to get exposure and experience - the hiring standards aren't a lot higher than your average call center at a lot of them, as we have a ~1.5M headcount gap in the industry. You will burn out or move up in 9-12 months just like all the other L1s, but you will either figure out it's not for you or you'll be able to get a foot on the next rung of the ladder.
Be bold
Who's going to practice something for 10,000 hours? One who is strongly motivated to do so. Who's going to do well in school exams? One who is strongly motivated to do so (e.g. to please his parents)
Being strongly motivated is about following your own bent. Which takes courage. If you lack courage you won't even be able to perceive what that bent is. But if you have courage then you'll make your mind up and get stuck in.
If you have a deep interest and anything resembling the skills required, go for it. Perseverance is the most important characteristic.
That said, Gladwell is completely FOS about the 10,000 hours — it bears repeating completely Full Of Sh*t. Not only is "mastery" ill-defined, but so is what counts as "practice", and it completely ignores that some people will after 10K hours fail to get to the top, and others can get to the top of other fields in less than 1000 hours (depending on how it is counted).
And, while perseverance is key, dumb perseverance is not — how you learn counts for a LOT.
The best key I've found is to seek out people at the top of the field and learn from them. Either direct in classes if possible, or from their books. You will eventually need to learn the best ways of thinking about whatever the field is, and it is better to learn the best way at the outset, than relearning it 5 times on the way up. The simplified approach at the outset may be initially rewarding, but it is a waste of time.
Also be sure to ask all the 'dumb' questions about discrepancies or things that don't add up, or edge cases. Sometimes, those reveal the most essential elements that you need to progress. As an example of how this can work in far-flung fields of endeavor, when I was alpine ski racing, at one pre-season camp, I was flailing, skiing worse than the previous year, trying with all my might to implement what the coach was saying, but clearly not understanding. Fortunately, he was willing to put up with me as I asked in the evening what was going on, and we argued for hours, with me finally asking "where does that force come from?", and we looked a bit deeper and figured out a subtle bit of how the initiation of the term was a bit different than he described. That answer was the key, and literally from the first run the next day, I improved rapidly. In a completely different field, I went to a C++ conference class series with Bjarne Stroustrup, and in an after-session question, I asked what I thought might be a dumb question, but went ahead anyway, "was I spending too much time on naming conventions on my projects?", because I was worried that I was wasting time. I got a wonderfully detailed and concise answer that was basically "NO, it is worth all that up front-investment, especially for the way it helps you think about the structure ahead of time.".
So, persevere, dig and ask those peculiar questions (obviously, not the 'dumb' ones that can be easily answered by looking it up, but the 'dumb' ones that seem like they ought to be obvious, but aren't explicit.).
Go for it, and I wish you good fortune in your new endeavor. It'll probably take longer than you like, but it's likely worth it.
However, some people (loosely correlated with age but not strictly) have more unavoidable responsibilities than others. For a very prosaic example, a person without mortgage and kids, all other things equal will have inherently less responsibilities than one with mortgage and kids (while both still have options in principle).
Empathy is a massive skill I've been learning late in life; reluctance to embark on a change may be a factor of internal confidence, external advice or validation, but also of specific circumstances that those of us being asked opinions may or may not fully share, understand, empathize with. I've been learning to ask follow-up questions before answering very broad inquiries for thoughts and advice: What's your situation, constraints, drive, interest, priorities, goals?
It’s not about empathy. My point is that inherently there are no advices to be had on life choices. Just do what you want to do, decide to try or decide you don’t want to. There are no right and wrong general answer here. A bunch of strangers on the internet can’t give someone permission or an excuse.
In my personal experience the greatest challenge is always oneself and not external factors. So your advice to drop all self-help is wrong in my opinion. There are people who made it against all odds and their mindset may crave the necesseary pathways in your brain as well.
I would even say that the more the odds are stacked against you the more you should try because there are few things as impressive.
It’s easy to fall into the trap of assuming reading advice is inherently beneficial but it needs to result in some net positive behaviors or it’s just wasting time, money, and mental effort.
It is certainly a business but I assume that most of these self-help gurus truly want to help. They are promoting different methods(more or less rational) but the core message is often very similar and amounts to "take action". If all roads lead to Rome you may very well get there.
I think by listening to these books you are in fact priming your brain to find a way to improve your situation.
Lumping all self-help resources into not being useful or even harmful doesn't help. There will always be some quacks, but there will always be some people with genuine insights and the ability to help others understand themselves better and move towards their goals.
I've never paid for Tony Robbins material but would say its been helpful.
In the OP's case they could use the material to understand what is behind wanting the change. Understanding their why.
Is it a feeling of significance / love / variety / contribution that they're lacking? How could they go about getting what's missing? What are their options?
These are the types of things that I get from Tony Robbins - almost like a problem solving framework for personal problems.
All that being said, do people use self help as a form of procrastination? Yes I'd say many do. However I believe the people with all the resources that refuse to take action are no worse off than they would have been anyway.
As they say, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.
Which is kind of my point. Some material may be better than placebo, but when we are talking about self help as an industry you need to consider the impact of everything from Scientology to actually lethal practices like Breatharianism. The trends within the industry seem to focus on what’s useful as a business rather than what’s helpful to it’s customers. So yes some people are helped, but some people are also financially ruined or even killed.
It’s not that everyone is trying to scam others, just that the same kind of forces that cause clickbait still apply and impact what’s popular.
I don't believe it takes effort. On the contrary, reading self-help is basically a guilty pleasure. Otherwise it wouldn't sell in such massive quantities.
Is the problem here the external factor of my son's desires? Or is it a problem with myself, putting his desires above my own?
Sometimes the right thing to do is to sacrifice your dreams for others.
Good on you for putting your family first, and total respect for parents and parenthood, but man, reading lines like that reinforce my decision to stay free of those sorts of obligations.
I don't ever want to leave camp "do what you feel like doing".
To overcome the belief that "my responsibilities are preventing me from doing X" you need examples of people who have those same responsibilities but are doing X, or some X-adjacent thing.
Luckily there are lots of examples through interest forums, youtube, etc where people with say a mortgage and two kids are still traveling and adventuring. There are people who have built support networks so that they can still have time to learn languages while caring for an elderly parent, autistic child, sick dog, etc.
The viable path to unblocking yourself starts by asking for help. Ask how others are doing it, get advice, take time off specifically to do this initial research. The thing you will likely find is that you can't go straight from A to B. You need to build a support network, tie into relevant services, improve your financial circumstances, etc. But once you know something is possible it can be sufficiently motivating to do the upfront work.
"I judge myself by my intentions but I judge you by your actions".
Even when we are aware of it, fear can control us. And, previously poor people know, from experience, what the consequences of failure can be.
This was demonstrated on a macro level by the generation that grew up in the Great Depression having a high savings rate (emergency fund), repairing rather than replacing things as long as they could, and being otherwise thrifty almost regardless of income.
Yea, I've realized that if I want to do something - some goal - if you don't literally _just do it_ then odds of it happening become slimmer and slimmer.
The advice I like is "read them until they all sound the same".
A change shouldn't be just hoping that you "end up at the right place at the right time" this time. That is rare.
Especially if they are already rich.
>DOers are those we read about all the time.
Because nobody wants to hear about the DOer that failed and ruined his/her life.
>You never hear about those that did nothing. Maybe, we read their name in a grave stone.
And maybe they had a great family and their name will be remembered in the family for generations as the "founder" of the family. Almost a mythological figure.
So for what’s worth, here is my advice to you: drop Gladwell and self-help books, if you want to and can switch to a new job, do it. Should it work or fail, you will have experienced trying. If you don’t feel like it or find yourself unable to because banks won’t loan to you, you can’t be hired or it’s finally not financially viable, don’t do it and rest in peace knowing it was your decision/you tried.
You don’t need an external reason like being too old or outside validation, you are old enough to make your own choice.