The time will pass anyway...

One of the things that comes up again and again in the work I do with leaders and ambitious doers is that so many of us get frustrated when our goals take longer to accomplish than we want them to (and they almost always take longer!). We tell ourselves it's not worth trying anymore, or beat ourselves up for not succeeding fast enough, or recalibrate our ambitions downward so achievement seems easier or more likely to come sooner. 

But the thing that we all need to remember - and this is a hard truth to internalize -  is that THERE IS NO RUSH. And the world has no stake at all in making our dreams a reality.

So take some of the pressure off. Or take in these words: "Never give up on a dream just because of the length of time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway."

The time will pass anyway.

The time will pass anyway...

The reason I share this quote is because it is just so obviously true. There are so many things about which we tell ourselves "Oh, it would take forever to do that or build that or achieve that. What's the point in trying?" 

Well, the point is: the time will pass anyway. So why not fill it with trying, fill it with failing, fill it with taking mini steps towards a big dream or a big goal, fill it with doing things that stretch you or scare you or grow you.

Sure, we might not get there - wherever "there" is. But you know what? The time is going to pass whether we sit on our asses and agonize about the things that won't happen or whether we get out there and make things happen in whatever ways we can.

And you know what else? Even if we don't get "there", at least we'll have some great stories to share and battle wounds to show off. Life would be so boring if we played it safe all the time, so why not just get out there and see what might be possible?

Everyone starts from no where, as a "no one". Even Oprah started out as "just some girl from Mississippi." And how much sadder and worse off would the world be if she had held herself back by thinking "who am I to be someone" (and given where she was starting from, she had a lot more social and personal and economic reasons to think that way than many of us do).

I'm not saying we all need to go out and become Oprah. All I'm saying is that the time will pass anyway, so we should go out there and do our own thing. Make stuff happen. Build our businesses. Send that first (or fiftieth) email. Ask for what we want. Put ourselves on stage. Whatever it is. Why not you? Why not each one us?

The time will pass anyway.