Becoming a Titled Player

At some point in my life I would like to become a National Master (am aiming for this in the next 5 years). I was just curious about how long it typically takes titled players to earn their titles and what their early progress looks like.

@Politics_Matter Depends on the effort and sacrifices you do to make this happen ;-)

Maybe 5 years, maybe decades

For some: never.
For others: even later.

I object to Candidate, International and FIDE Master titles. There should be Master and Grand Master. Period.

All the masters play slowly.
In the next game you played too fast.

So what age would be considered too late to aim for a title?

As a late-starter (16) it took me 23 years actually reaching CM. Admittedly, 10 years before that it was pretty close.

Why does everybody these days care about gaining titles? They're becoming obsolete anyways with the strength of chess players nowadays. But regardless, why would you want a title? To impress chess players? Surely not to impress the general public, because if you are even expert level for example you can say that you are better than 95% of all players, which is impressive enough. Well, if it's not to impress the general public, then it must be to impress chess players. Now, let me tell you something about chess players: they are so few that impressing them doesn't matter! No, perhaps you want a title to boost your own self-confidence. But there are many ways to do just that, such as learning a language, or doing your own projects. (Obviously you don't do these activities to boost confidence but such a thing often follows from doing them as night follows day.) Anyways, the short answer is titles are not important!