I met someone recently who told me he felt he peaked in high school. He meant it! Those were the years things were great for him, and he seemed resigned to life never being that good again.
That makes me sad. He's 36, and for him to say that, I'd imagine he's been through a lot. But it also made me think about how casually we talk about the best parts of life as though they’re behind us.
My twenties were the best years of my life.
Life was so good when the kids were little.
Those were the good old days!
And maybe they were.
But "those were my happiest years" and "I've already had my happiest years" are VERY different conclusions. It’s subtle, but the second makes a depressing prediction about a life that's still happening.
I try to hold the opposite belief: the best is yet to come. It might sound like a greeting card, but that sentence is my most useful mental hack. What you expect from your future affects what you’re willing to try and what you get out of it.
What you expect changes what you do
Sure, we probably don’t regularly think “the best is behind me”, but I’d wager we’ve all made smaller versions of that judgment - "I'm too old to switch now" or "that ship has sailed!" - which imply you can’t do things now that you could before.
The problem with these little assumptions is they change what you do.
If you think you’re too old to switch, you probably won’t seriously explore switching. If you think you missed your chance to get good at something, you’re unlikely to spend the next year getting good at it.
And then the belief starts producing its own evidence. You don’t try, so nothing changes. Nothing changes, so you become even more convinced you were right.
But the reverse can happen too. If you genuinely think there are amazing things ahead, you’re more likely to put energy into things that could make that true. You try to get the meeting. You dabble with learning the skill. You give something a shot because you have a weird belief it might go somewhere.
And it often does! The future starts looking more interesting because you’re actually doing things that could make it interesting.
The best can change shape
Professional athletes have an extreme version of this problem. Their careers really do peak in their 20s. By their early 30s, they often have to start over in something else. Many struggle with this. Depression is more than twice as common in retired athletes as in the general population - often because it’s easiest for them to also believe the best is over and life’s downhill from here.
The athletes that do come out of it well seem to be even more excited for the next stage - whether that's family, coaching, commentary, or business. They feel the "best" is still yet to come, even though it might look different. David Beckham became an investor and business owner after football. Last year, the club he owns won the league, and he called it one of the greatest moments of his career - over a decade after he stopped playing.
Similarly, Maya Moore left basketball at her peak to focus on her family and her work in criminal justice, and says she's never been more excited about what's ahead.
We non-athletes fortunately have it a little easier - our core skills usually don’t literally expire at 32 like they do in competitive sport. So if they can believe the next chapter is just beginning and can reinvent, we can too!
Having something to look forward to is a good thing
A lot of people get sad about things they want but don’t have yet.
I get that, but I think you can also look at it the opposite way: if you still believe it’ll happen, then you have something pretty great to look forward to.
I feel that way about having kids. I’d love a family someday and don’t have one right now. But that doesn’t make me think my life right now is somehow lacking. I don’t know exactly how or when it will happen, but I expect it’ll happen - and thinking about it makes me excited. I enjoy my life now, and I also have something so important to look forward to!
If you believe things will get better, the anticipation is also genuine. Think about when you book a holiday! You know the holiday is happening. You look forward to it and you get excited by it.
That’s basically what I mean by the best is yet to come. If you expect it, you’ll look forward to it, show up with more energy, and seek things that get you closer to it.
Some of it might be closer than you think
There’s another thing we do with stuff we want: we assume there’s a huge distance between where we are and getting to enjoy it.
Say you’ve always wanted to try music production. Somehow that quickly becomes: Could I actually become a music producer? Would I have to quit? Isn’t it too late to try new things?
But you could download Ableton (music production software) in ten minutes. Watch a tutorial for an hour. And then spend 2 hours making your first (terrible) song. Congrats! You’re a music producer.
Whether you can make a living from it is a completely different question. You don’t need to solve that before you get to make music. We often make the enjoyable part of an ambition wait for the impressive part. And you don’t need to feel particularly optimistic about where it’ll lead before you try it.
What are you looking forward to this month?
One question I think is worth asking every now and then is: what am I actually looking forward to in the next few weeks?
Life feels different when there’s something ahead you’re excited about. And you can create more of that than you think. Make the plan you’ve been putting off or start the thing you keep talking about. If other people are involved, even better — now they have something to look forward to too!
I think this matters even more when life is rough. You can be having a genuinely terrible year and still believe it won’t be the best description of the rest of your life.
Like I said at the start - the best is yet to come. Give it a chance to be!
I hope you finished this feeling energized!
