Commitment without A Timeline
One thing I have learned in the year+ I have been building my business and writing publicly is the importance of holding space for two opposing ideas when you are chasing your wildest dreams. That is, the importance of believing and working as if your success could happen tomorrow, while also being committed to doing the work for as long as its going to take (even if that means years). Central to holding space for these ideas is letting go of any timeline of how things should go and making your success conditional on that timeline.
I’m talking about making space for these ideas when it comes to the business of pursuing your dreams. Those things that represent your passion, your deepest desires, the things you want to represent your life’s work. Those things you would pursue for the rest of your life, if that was what was required. Importantly, this might mean doing other things to make money while you pursue this thing. It will likely mean iterating and experimenting. It will require an openness to not knowing exactly where the path will lead.
As you read this, you may be thinking: “Well that sounds nice but also a tad unrealistic. How does one just become okay with potential years of work without success or results?” It is, in fact, a challenge to how often we make our dreams conditional on instant results. And, look, I’m right there with you. If you would have said that to me a few years ago, I would have responded with something like: “Hard pass. Sounds like a waste of time.” And here I am now, a reformed believer in the chasing of dreams. There’s hope - I promise.
Where to begin? What I have learned is that in pursuits such as these it is important to focus on doing what you can control, focusing on one week at a time, and doing things you genuinely want to do/find interesting. If your dream is to make a living from running a blog, your weekly goals might look something like this:
Publish one blog post per week
Join a networking group to get feedback from and connect with other writers
Reach out to 10 potential interviewees to feature on the blog per week
It’s not required but I highly encourage my clients to include something that forces them to put themselves out there and meet other people. Put simply, I like including things that increase the odds of serendipity in favor of your goals and dreams. I do encourage my clients to put goals that they are interested in and would enjoy doing. However, this does not mean avoiding doing things that would be outside of your comfort zone. I love interviewing people and I also get nervous with heart racing, palm sweating anticipation before the start of each interview.
Now comes the hard part: How long are you willing to commit to doing these actions for without obsessing over the results they are producing? How long will you commit to placing effort before results? My hope is that you’ll select a timeline that really pushes the edges of your comfort zone. 6 months? 1 year? 2 years? 5 years? 10 years?
If you’d like an accountability partner, I hope you’ll reach out and let me know what you’re committing to and when you’d like me to check back in with you. I’m willing to bet that by the time I do, you’ll be willing to re-up your commitment for a much longer time frame, maybe even a lifetime.
What I have seen in doing things that you love without expectation is the way that progress sneaks up on you. You turn around one day and our wowed by all that you’ve done without realizing it. You’re surprised by the things that you did and delighted by the person that you became in the process. I have found that approaching our dreams in this way is a method of re-teaching ourselves to remember that the journey is often what matters more than the destination. May you enjoy the ride.
