Concepts from Basecamp (The Inner World): Understanding Why the Mid-Life Plateau Happens (Part IV)

We've now discussed three big reasons for the mid-life plateau: lack or confusion surrounding one's purpose, confusion surrounding identity, and a diminishing return on success. You might be thinking that's quite enough complexity for one life phase, but there's another significant factor we need to explore, and one that might hit closer to home than you'd expect.

Reason #4: The Dream Graveyard - Where Creativity Gets Buried

When you were a child, what did you want to be or do when you grew up? For many of us, thinking about what we wanted back then is drastically different than what we wanted as we got older, into our teens and even our 20's. Throughout our school years, the vast majority of our lives are planned out for us. Once we get towards the end of high school, we often get pressured to apply to college, go to trade school, or figure out some path forward. After college, there can be yet again more pressure to get that first job and start "adulting."

Once we start making money, it's very easy to start buying into the external lifestyle that we so badly want to create for ourselves. We trade what we could do, or what "would be cool," for that first house, the car, the vacations to decompress from it all, the renovation, that "bigger house." Just like that, those dreams surrounding creativity or what "would be cool" are put away in one of those metaphorical boxes that end up in the basement, collecting dust. This is what's called deferring your passion.

Perhaps it's not a big deal when you are in your 20's. You stepped into a whole new world of possibilities with all the newfound income you were making. The thought of acquiring all those things and asserting your independence lit you up. It was invigorating! It felt good to work hard, save up, and really stretch yourself. It felt good after you signed the paperwork for that first house. It was a way of living that felt good for a long time.

Fast forward into your 30's or even your 40's, after you have asserted that independence and shown yourself what you can acquire if you put your mind to it. What used to be so invigorating doesn't have that same feeling to it. Maintaining that same path forward is getting harder. It's starting to feel more like a grind than something that really lights you up. Your "emotional garbage can"—that internal reservoir where we stuff all the disappointments, compromises, and "what-ifs" we've accumulated over the years—is starting to overflow.

Welcome to the mid-life plateau.

Whether it be for security, responsibility, external validation, or any other number of reasons, we can only defer our passions for so long. The creative dreams we shelved don't just disappear; they simmer beneath the surface, creating a growing sense of restlessness and dissatisfaction. If you put enough energy, time, and money into any aspect of life, aligned or not, then you will most certainly achieve what you have set out for at some point. But then what happens when you reach those goals and still feel empty?

Many men can end up feeling like life has passed them by, leaving them with a sense of being "too old," leaving them full of resentment, guilt, and an inner desire to know how it would have gone should they have chosen the alternate route. This suppressed creative energy doesn't just vanish, it often manifests in ways we don't immediately recognize.

All of us are wired in a way in which we desire impact. I would even venture to say that if we were to break down the meaning behind the word impact, many of you would ultimately find your way to some form of "being of service to others." Dare I even say the words connection or intimacy out loud?

Oftentimes, the mid-life plateau is when we find ourselves shifting to a place of emphasis on meaningful work. Although the mid-life plateau may be just a little early for the word legacy, this plateau is arguably the beginning of stepping towards that. There is likely emphasis on creating something with real meaning behind it. When we continue to ignore that inner drive for meaning through creativity, it can subconsciously manifest as irritability, resentment that we men often turn into outward anger or passive aggression aimed at others, or even depression due to not going after what we so desire.

This is where many men turn to what feels like the only available outlet: numbing or addiction. When that creative energy has nowhere productive to go, we often redirect it toward temporary relief. When I mention addiction, I mean more than just alcohol or drugs. Addiction can be defined in multiple ways, but the broader definition is particularly relevant here[1]:

A strong inclination to do, use, or indulge in something repeatedly.

If you use one habit to cover up, change, or "band-aid" how you feel over an extended period of time, then you are using it in an addictive way. Let’s put it another way: If you are ultimately trying to change your mental state or perception by using that band-aid, not only are you ignoring key signs that your body is trying to tell you but you are delving into the beginnings of what can become addictive tendencies.

Think about when people say the phrase, "Oh, I need a drink after this week!" While that statement doesn't directly indicate addiction, it starts to go down that road depending on how consistently we rely on that external thing to manage our internal state. This could be anything, such as work, sex, porn, over-training, social media, and shopping. The quintessential "dopamine hit" that we all hear about nowadays, when overdone and used as a substitute for authentic fulfillment, sets the stage for addictive patterns.

The connection is clear: when we bury our creative dreams and authentic desires, we create an internal void that demands to be filled. Without healthy outlets for that creative energy, we often turn to whatever provides temporary relief from the growing sense that we're living someone else's life.

At the risk of being insensitive, the specific reasons we chose to defer our passions really don't matter as much as how you feel about it now. The key question becomes:

Are you okay with having set those passions aside for all those years while you focused on other things?

It's very possible that your answer has changed over the years. If your response is ever a resounding NO, then it might be time to lean into some personal development. Something is missing, and it's highly likely that your beliefs need to be examined and challenged so that you can adjust.

This Pattern Played Out in My Own Life

Let me take you back to my early 20's. Coming off my teenage years, I had developed a strong belief that safety was built by making a lot of money. Looking to get into a career, my focus was entirely on salary. I was 22 years old when I finally had an opportunity for a job on the West Coast that was paying well more than I could find anywhere else. I really didn't care what my job was; the goal was salary. Looking back, I even had people tell me early on that to work your way up the ladder you have to sell your soul and join the "good old boys" club. I don't think you could have convinced me against my drive for salary, so "Sure, if that's what it takes, I'm in!"

When I jumped at that job opportunity at 22 years old, I traded fulfillment for the adult version of safety. Safety for adults is typically tied to all things financial, while safety for children is typically tied to belonging and fitting in. I bought completely into financial goals by this point in my life. I was lost, confused, and very naïve. I had absolutely no idea who I was. If you had told me that there was a way to figure out who I was and that it was rooted in being vulnerable and delving into my emotions, I probably would have doubled down on the salary emphasis. I was full of anger, and I had very little self-confidence, although I'm not sure I could have identified the self-confidence part at that time.

The backstory that led to my misguided beliefs runs deeper than just career confusion. You might remember from previous blog posts that my parents were divorced when I was 12 years old. Leading up to the divorce, I can remember them going out to the garage to yell at each other as if we kids didn't hear them and we had no idea what was going on. We may not have had the vocabulary to put it in the same words as the adults, but we knew full well that things were not good, and as a child, that's scary. That's even more scary when it's the people that you are relying on to survive.

After the divorce, us kids had one week with Mom and one week with Dad. I can remember my Dad taking advantage of many opportunities to throw emotional and verbal jabs at my Mom that would lead to her crying during the trade-off of the children. Even as a teenager, I told my Mom on a few occasions, "Why do you let him get to you? He's just trying to get a rise out of you." Those teenage years of being traded from one parent to another felt a lot like being in the middle of a pissing contest. When one parent was preferred, the other didn't always take kindly to that. I also remember thinking on many occasions, "What's the one thing that turns adults into children?" My answer at that time was, "children." I didn't realize that we all have an inner child back then. More generally, I became very interested in why people do and say what they do and say.

By my late teens, I was so far removed from myself that making responsible decisions and planning any sort of future was a massively esoteric question that was nearly impossible to figure out. I didn't like school at all, and thinking about the endless number of jobs that one could sign up for was so wide open that there might as well not be any options. I had absolutely no idea, and I'm not sure I was willing to receive or ask for help. Regardless, my focus remained steadfast: I was going to figure out how to "make a lot of money."

I ended up going to college because in the mid-2000's it felt like the adults of the world were preaching it so loudly that there really wasn't any other option. Even the trades seemed to get reviews filled with sentiments that made them feel inferior or lesser at that time. I briefly attempted focusing on biology because the family chiropractor that we went to see during my childhood, Dr. Dan, worked 20 hours a week and seemed to be doing just fine financially. Good income and half the work? Sure, why wouldn't I want that!

After failing out the first year, I went to Community College and got an A.A. degree in Humanities. For those of you who don't know what that is, it's like getting a base model Honda Civic with the hand crank windows and no A/C. I paid the school enough money, and they were happy to cobble all those classes together and call it "a degree."

Can you see the isolated, disconnected, and angry teenager that wasn't willing to ask for help but wanted an easy way to become financially independent without actually working for it?

Here's what I failed to recognize: my teenage years had actually indicated what I was genuinely interested in—psychology. Psychology was something of a dream while my misguided focus was entirely on making a lot of money. I can remember hearing external reviews that a B.S. degree in psychology wouldn't make you much money. If you wanted to do well in that field, you basically had to go and get a Doctorate. Remember when I said I hated school back then? It sounded like far too much work for a process that I despised, and back then, the thought of being in school until 25 or 27 years old felt impossibly long. I didn't want to be my grandfather's age when I was done with school! It might sound weird saying that out loud, but that was genuinely how it felt at that time.

So I buried that dream in that box in the basement with all the others and focused on the "practical" path of chasing salary.

Fast forward to the mid-life plateau. I had finally given up binge drinking on the weekends, so my go-to numbing habit was gone. I achieved the lower end of the salary range that I set out for so long ago (Which was still pretty great.). The closer I got to it, the less fulfilling it felt. I had a life that, on paper, people would trade for. There was one major fault-line though: the career I had built that salary on was completely out of alignment with key, top-tier values that I hold as an individual—health, authenticity, and freedom.

The suppressed creative energy that had been building for years was demanding attention. Without my weekend drinking to numb the growing dissatisfaction, I had to face the reality that I was living someone else's definition of success while my authentic self remained buried in that box in the basement.

Finding life coaching was the absolute biggest blessing I have ever received. It brought me back to my roots. Remember that fascination with psychology and understanding why people do what they do? It has something of a psychological base with much more emphasis on its holistic nature. As men, there are a lot of stigmas surrounding therapy, and we tend to steer clear until we hit rock bottom or face an ultimatum. Life coaching brought me back to my truth. Not anyone else's. Mine. It helped me trust myself and my ability to make the best decisions for my life.

To this day, one of the best and most uplifting compliments I have ever received with regard to the coaching I offer others came from a client who said:

In three sessions, we've gotten into stuff that my psychologist hasn't gotten me to in three years.

That compliment opened me up to the power that I hold within me and the power that coaching possesses all at the same time. It showed me that when we align with our authentic interests and values, we naturally become more effective at serving others.

Take Aways

The lesson here isn't that everyone should become a life coach or that psychology is the answer for everyone. The lesson is that our early interests, the things that genuinely fascinate us before life teaches us to be "practical," often point toward our authentic path. When we ignore these callings for too long, they don't disappear. They go underground and create the very dissatisfaction that defines the mid-life plateau.

Early on in our adulthood, it can be very easy to start buying into the external life that we want, deferring our passions in the process. The juice may be worth the squeeze in those early years, but as time passes, it becomes crucial to check back in with yourself. Is that life you traded for still something that lights you up, or has it become more of a chore, weighing you down?

The mid-life plateau often represents a shift from seeking a paycheck to seeking meaningful work. If we men choose to play it safe and too conservative for too long, it's easy to feel like life has passed us by. This manifests as depression, addiction to temporarily numb the pain, or negative emotions that we direct outwardly at others or inwardly at ourselves.

Remember, if you put enough energy, time, and money into any aspect of life, aligned or not, you will most certainly achieve what you have set out for at some point. The real question is whether that achievement will bring the fulfillment you're seeking, or whether it will simply highlight the dreams you left behind in pursuit of safety and external validation. The choice of what to do with that realization is entirely yours.

The Built to Elevate mission is rooted in this simple progression:

Knowledge creates power.
Power creates choice.
Choice becomes empowerment.
Empowerment is freedom.

This is where the plateau ends, and the real climb begins.

Only one question remains: Are you ready to elevate and move into that all-powerful version of yourself?

Yours in Elevation,

FJ.

[1]  "Addiction." Merriam-Webster.com, Merriam-Webster, 2025, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/addiction. Accessed 07 September 2025.