feeling married to our timelines

What’s your 5 year plan? When are you going to change jobs or get promoted? When are you getting married? When are you going to have kids? When are you buying a house?

We all have timelines. We all have ideas about when we want things to happen. We all have plans.

And while it’s good to know where you’re going, we often get so attached to these timelines.

So when it doesn’t happen the way we’ve planned, we feel like we’ve failed. When the plan doesn’t come to fruition, we’re frustrated, upset, confused. When our expectations aren’t met, we crumble.

And I’ve been there. I know. I’ve wanted things to happen so badly. And I know that when they didn’t happen, I felt like a complete failure. 

Just one example- my personal life plan. You see, I wanted to get married right out of college. My plan was for Adam to move to Cincinnati after graduation. Work in the same city as me and get engaged shortly there after. There were so many reasons that I thought this HAD to be the plan- we’d get to be together, we’d be equidistant from our families, we’d live near friends, we’d explore a new city together.

But none of that happened. Instead, Adam moved to Columbus. We dated long-distance and got engaged two years later. I moved to Columbus and worked remotely for my Cincinnati company. I had the chance to understand what working out of my house looked like. And eventually, I was laid off at that job. Which catapulted me into learning about self-love and compassion. Which was the catalyst for me to ask myself what I actually wanted. Which eventually led me here to you.

I never would have dreamed that I would move to Columbus. I never would have dreamed that I would be my own boss. I never would have dreamed that I’d be working from home. I would never had dreamed that I’d be helping others break up with perfection.

So you see, sometimes what happens looks nothing like our original plan or our original timeline. But it also can become something that’s better than anything we could have imagined. My life now has taken a whole new path. And if I would have been clinging to my timelines, I might not have slowed down enough to see that I really wanted to become your coach.

Throwin it back today to our engagement day. Being totally surprised and letting go of my timelines.

So what timelines are you holding onto? How can you loosen the reins on them?