In the last few months I’ve noticed something intriguing. My friends seem to be getting smarter. They’re doing seriously impressive things with their careers.

One morning last week, I saw one announce a forthcoming album, another link a news report to the high-profile book she’d launched as publisher and a third post photos where she was on location in Fiji as a producer.

Watching Party Tricks that night, blow me down if another school friend didn’t step out of the lift when Asher Keddie stepped into it. Curiouser and curiouser…

None of these people are the type to ‘curate’ perfect lives online or offline. I’ve had coffees and lunches, dinners and movie nights with some of them over the last 25 years and I’ve seen their Facebook feeds. They don’t shy away from sharing their struggles.

I know about the rejected job applications, the doomed launches, the times when everything fell in a heap and they felt like failures. I know how some struggle to manage their work while raising their kids, helping their families and friends, and keeping the zing in their relationships. I know there have been hard times, financially too.

These aren’t people who’ve tasted overnight success. They’re not ‘well-connected’. Nothing’s been handed to them on a plate or fallen magically off the back of a truck into their laps.

These are just normal people, experiencing career success because they’ve done one special thing—they’ve done the hours.

My friends and I are in our forties now. Some of us have been plodding along a certain career path since school, others since uni. Plodding, plodding, plodding. Falling over, learning. Plodding on. Taking a step up, falling two steps back. Climbing up again. Plodding, plodding.

And now they’re starting to plod emotionally into their Facebook feeds and coffee dates with tears in their eyes, saying ‘Guess what?’.

Author Malcolm Gladwell suggests that it takes 10,000 hours of work to master anything. That first 10,000 is the hard part. It’s the bit where you’re sent discouraging signals that ‘maybe I’m not cut out for this’ or ‘I’ll never be as good as so-and-so…’.

Seeing my friends reap the rewards of years and years of hard work is one of the most exciting things about entering our forties.

And it’s not just about watching these achievements unfold. It’s about what might happen next. What’s it going to look like after we invest our time in other projects? A gorgeous garden, volunteering, our health, friendships or a second career?

The promise of what the next 10,000 hours (or 5 or 10 years) might bring is pretty delightful, now we know what it takes. There’s nothing more exciting (daunting and promising) than a blank page, a fresh start, renewed commitment and a better understanding about the inevitable ups and downs, and why it’s so worth pushing through them.

Feature image of people working in conference courtesy of Shutterstock.