Mae Jemison — who in 1992 became the first Black woman to travel into space — was forced to contend with people’s limited imaginations throughout her pioneering career. During her education, she fended off marginalization by professors, refusing to buy into their dismissive assumptions based on gender and racial bias. Never deterred from possibilities that others couldn’t see, Jemison knew she had every right to pursue her lifelong dream of becoming an astronaut. Along with making space exploration history — circling Earth on a NASA mission aboard the space shuttle Endeavour — Jemison is also an accomplished engineer and physician, and a dancer to boot. Exemplifying her own advice, she has shown just how much is possible when we disregard barriers as the flimsy constructs they often are.

In a go-getter society that prizes prodigy and speed, it can be daunting to go back to the drawing board to pursue a new goal. But motivational speaker Les Brown reminds us that no matter your age, it’s never too late to dream something new. Brown had a long line of unsuccessful interviews before he landed his own CBS talk show — at the age of 67. “What if I’d just given up and stopped? … I believe that if you forget your years, your years will forget you,” he said in a 2012 interview. His story reminds us that passion and commitment, much more than age, are the keys to reaching your goals.