This week’s question from our portal “Ask Us Anything” comes from someone who wishes to remain anonymous.
I’ve made a decision and my first thought is to put a time to it immediately. So I’m making this decision that needs to happen by this time. How important is it to attach a time to my goal? Or am I interfering with the manifestation by being too rigid about the timeline? Should I set a specific date or not?
It’s great to attach a time. Understand this: anything that we haven’t manifested before, we don’t know what the time frame is. That falls under the law of gender.
But here’s the thing that most people miss about timelines and goals:
We never want to focus on the idea that if I don’t reach the goal by the specific time that I failed.
All we want to do is change the time.
Because we don’t know what it is. We have absolutely no idea what the gestation period is for any idea. If you plant a tomato seed, you know roughly when you’re going to get a tomato. But if you have a completely new idea that you’ve never manifested before? You have no idea what the gestation period is for that.
So when you set a time frame and you don’t hit it, most people either beat themselves up and say “I failed,” which lowers their self-esteem, or they give up entirely and say “I guess it wasn’t meant to be.”
Both are the wrong response.
The right response is: “Okay, I didn’t hit it by that date. Let me adjust the date and keep moving forward.” That’s it. No drama. No self-flagellation. Just an adjustment.
What the time does do is it gives you a direction to move in. That’s all a goal is anyway—it gives your life direction.
Without a timeline, most people just drift. “Someday I’ll build that business.” “Eventually I’ll hit that income level.” Someday, eventually, one day—those aren’t decisions. Those are wishes.
But when you say “I’m going to do this by December 31st,” now you have something real. Now you can work backward and figure out what needs to happen each month, each week, each day to make that a reality.
And if December 31st comes and you’re not there yet? You don’t quit. You don’t decide you failed. You just say, “Okay, looks like this is taking longer than I thought. I’m adjusting to March 31st and keep going.”
The timeline serves you. You don’t serve the timeline. But here’s the key:
You have to actually be taking action toward the goal every single day. The timeline without the action is meaningless. The action without the timeline is directionless.
You need both. The timeline gives you direction. The action gets you there. And the willingness to adjust the timeline when needed keeps you from quitting before you manifest what you want.
