Good Life Project - Life-sucking Lie #3: The Timing’s Not Right

Episode Date: July 9, 2015

How often have you put off doing something uncomfortable and told yourself the timing's just not right?The timing will be better when, if, then, because, after.So you wait. And you wait. And you wait.Did you do what you said you were going to when you got more money, more time, more resources, more stability? More often than not, you probably didn't.Sometimes, bad timing is a legitimate issue. But, equally if not far more often, it's not. Instead, it's an excuse for avoiding the uncertainty of doing something new. It's not based on sound analysis and intelligent exploration, but rather fear and avoidance. Driven largely by the desire to not have to wade from a place of certainty back into the uncertain abyss, even when that place of unknowing is the gateway to stunning possibility.That's what today's Good Life Project Riff is all about. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today's episode is brought to you by Camp GLP. What is it? Well, we're taking over an amazing sleepaway camp about 90 minutes outside of New York City. At the end of August, it will be an incredible blend of about 350 entrepreneurs, makers, world shakers, and just regular people looking to connect, to hang out, to rejuvenate, to restore, and to learn together, literally from around the globe. If that feels like a pretty cool place to be at the end of August, then go ahead and check out the details at goodlifeproject.com slash camp. On to our show. We're circling back to our lies that keep us from success series. And this is number three.

And if you haven't heard number two, then just jump back in our podcast and you can hear them. What we're talking about today is a lie that we tell ourselves very often. And it stops us from doing things that make us uncomfortable, but also hold the possibility for the extraordinary. What does that lie? The timing's just not right. So I've heard this a number of times, but I've also said this probably way more often than I've heard it. And it's the lament of so many people

where you're just waiting for the universe to line up perfectly. And it happens in nearly every part of life. So when it comes to the job, well, you're like, it's the perfect job, but the timing's just not right. It's the perfect house, but the timing's just not right. If we wait another year, it'll be better. It's the perfect person, but ah, the timing's just not right. Not right to find a relationship, get married, have a kid, buy a house, change jobs, start a business, make love, walk outside, go dancing in the rain, play, create, dance, whatever it may be. The timing's just not, oh, I would love to do it. I wish the timing was better. I'm waiting. I'm pretty sure that in six months, I'm going to

have more money. I'm going to be more stable. The weather's going to be better. I'll be just in a much better place emotionally. Wait, wait, wait, wait. The timing will never be right. So you may be right. There may be some truth to the fact that in six months or a year or two years or five years. The basket, the sort of cornucopia of circumstances that would make this easier, better, less fraught for you might somehow blend together in a way where it would work a little bit better. But the flip side is in that same window of time, that same set of circumstances may crater. They may crumble. They may deteriorate. At which point you would go and you would wait and you get to the place and say, um, just a little bit longer. You know, I need another year. I need another six months. I need another month. I need another five years,

whatever it may be before this is going to be just right. I see this so often in the world of professions, careers, and entrepreneurship. People don't want to start stuff because they don't have enough money, they don't have enough time, they don't have enough resources, they don't have enough relationships because the market is in a down phase, because the market is in a sideways phase, because they don't have enough customers, their idea isn't formed enough. Sometimes there's truth to it. Very often, there's very little truth to it. And very often, it's based on a set of assumptions, assuming that in the future, life will tee itself up in a way where this will be easier. That's not often the way life happens. So one of the businesses that I started a couple of iterations back in my professional life was a yoga center

in Hell's Kitchen, New York. And some of you guys know this story already, and forgive me if you know it. But I signed the lease for a floor in a building in Hell's Kitchen, New York City to open what I hoped would be a premier yoga center, a six-year lease. I had a three-month baby at the time. I was married with a new home. And I signed that lease the day before 9-11 in New York City. And I sat there and the whole time leading it up, I was thinking, should I do it? Should I do it now? Should I not do it? Should I wait? Should I look for a better place? I'm a dad. I'm married. I just have a new home. I have a new baby. This is crazy, but I decided this is the time. This is the place because I don't know what the future is going to bring, and then I signed the lease, and then the

day after, 9-11 hit and destroyed the city. And I looked at it and I said, okay, so I need to remake this decision. What do I do? Well, maybe if I walk away from this a year from now, things would be better. But for a variety of reasons, I ended up leaning into it instead. And we ended up creating an oasis, a place where astonishing connections and love and community formed and it turned into extraordinary business. And I could have waited. I could have pushed it off. I could have never signed the lease to start with. The timing was the absolute worst. I could have walked away and just assumed that sometime down the road, things would have been a lot better.

But then I would have missed the first six months to a year where we served a very different role than I ever anticipated serving in a city that was literally in tears where people were wandering around and just looking for a place to be with others, even if nothing was said, to sit, to breathe, to move. And that gift happened because I just said yes. I didn't wait and say, well, down the road. Now, of course, being in that place is something I would have never voluntarily chosen. It's not a circumstance anybody wished to have unfold. The bigger idea is that so many times we say to ourselves, the timing is just not right. And we don't say it from a place of it being a legitimate analysis of what's going on and a really intelligent exploration of the likelihood that things will be better down the road. We say it from a place of

fear. We say it from a place of, if I don't do this now, I won't have to move from a place of relative comfort into a place of relative discomfort, unease, and uncertainty, which is scary and uncomfortable. So I'm just going to tell myself the timing's not right and it'll be better down the road because I think, or at least I'm telling myself, that if I wait, circumstances will change enough so that when I do take that leap, I won't have to feel as much unease, uncomfort, or uncertainty. Somehow, those things will magically resolve themselves down the road. But very often, they don't. And what ends up happening is instead of you doing that thing down the road with a higher likelihood of success, you never do it at all. So if you're sitting here and you're thinking about a wide variety of things,

options, choices that you might make in your life, where there is a risk, there is a possibility of uncertainty, there's you moving from a place of relative comfort into relative unease. And the thing that's stopping you from doing it is you saying to yourself, you know, the timing's just not right. Zoom the lens out and ask yourself, is that really true? Am I really comfortable that six months or a year, whatever the horizon is that you're thinking about, that there's a very, very high likelihood that the

timing will be substantially better and that when and if I do it then, I will still be as interested and in a position to experience it on a much easier, more certain level. Rare is the time that I've known anyone who can answer that question truthfully with a yes. Think about it. Explore it. The timing's not right is very often not a legitimate reason not to do something, but an excuse for avoiding the uncertainty of doing something new. So I hope you've enjoyed this week's Good Life Project riff. As always, just trying to plant some seeds here and get you thinking about the big things that control us, our lives, our actions and decisions in a way that maybe we often don't think about. As always, if you've enjoyed it and

you'd love to jump over and share a review on iTunes, that would be awesome. So appreciate it. And if you feel like this might benefit some friends, go ahead and share it with them as well. Thanks so much for spending some time with me. I'm Jonathan Fields, signing off for Good Life Project. Thank you.