Curse of the Timeline

Feel like you’re “behind” on life’s milestones? Read on to discover how self-imposed timelines quietly suffocate creativity, fuel burnout, and deepen imposter syndrome.

For high-achieving, competitive women, there are few things as charged – or as damaging – as our own, self-imposed timelines.

It usually has to do with success and establishing ourselves in the world:

“I want to buy my first house before age 30.”

“I plan to earn six figures after three years at this job.”

There are also personal timelines, which are more specific to women thanks to ticking biological clocks:

“I want to be married by this age. I want to start a family by this age.”

Eventually, after all the starter-adult goals pass and we realize we

a) can still be sexy and strong after birthing children and developing crow’s feet and

b) have something massive and important to contribute to the world.

That’s when the timelines feel really pressing.

Because this stage is more about finding ourselves than fitting in. More about being authentic as opposed to blending. And often tied to eyeing self-care for the first time in a decade or two.

Which leads to a lot of ladies feeling like there just isn’t enough time.

Or I’m behind already… why bother to get started?

If You Already Have That Dream…

Substack is an extraordinary watering hole for the later-to-life entrepreneurs, creatives, and business-builders.

I’ve seen scores of posts in the last week alone about people finding themselves after 52, after 65, after 74.

Whether they chose to delay their dreams, had no choice, or were simply slow to realize what they wanted to do doesn’t really matter. What matters is that they got there.

So if you have a dream, any kind of dream… it’s not too late to pursue it. Not at all.

A Plague on Creativity

When you convince yourself that you should do (or should have done) things by a certain time or on a rigid timeline, you’re surreptitiously killing your creativity.

But not just your creativity – also your productivity.

This kind of self-imposed pressure puts you into a reactive, perfection-driven mode—and let’s just all agree, that’s the last place you want to be if you’re building something new or if you’re engaged in any kind of creative work.

Not only does this rigid approach to performance damage your capacity to produce, but it also increases stress and narrows your own cognitive bandwidth.

And what happens when this kind of pressure hits hard?

It amplifies self-doubt. Intensifies anxiety. Drives you into cycles of over-giving and perfectionism, and then dips into burnout and checking out.

All of which, together, is the perfect recipe for imposter syndrome.

Why Timelines are the Bane of Ingenuity

If you’ve decided, self-imposed or otherwise, that you have to hit a particular deadline or finish a new project by a certain date, your brain makes a mental shift.

You go from exploring possibilities and thinking outside the box to avoiding failure.

And in this state, your attention narrows and your creative risk-taking muscles shrink up.

The effect? You’re robbed of the time and space to incubate ideas. You’re not out daydreaming or walking or napping or wandering around to see where life takes you. And these things matter—they’re all tied to higher originality and increased problem-solving ability.

Tying yourself to a rigid schedule also creates a hefty dose of ever-constant, low-grade stress. This non-stop drip pushes your brain into “survival-mode thinking” (which is not a super creative space, trust me).

In turn, you gravitate toward quick and easy answers and toward familiar solutions over anything novel or unconventional.

And it doesn’t really lead you to what you want… to what you know you were born to do.

So, Flip It.

I invite you to ditch the timeline. Cut it loose.

Because when you live in the opposite of that rigid, survival-driven space, when you’re filled up on self-care and have the freedom to breathe deeply…

That’s when the magic happens. When it all makes sense. That’s when you break out of the box or your comfort zone or any other self-imposed limitations you’ve been battling.

So if you have a long-held dream… if there’s something you’ve been waiting to launch or do or create because it’s not the “perfect time” or because you’re too late or because you don’t feel ready…

Then I invite you to throw all those excuses into the trash. And do the big scary thing.

I’ll be right here, rooting for you.

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I’d love to know—what dream have you put off because it doesn’t align with your timeline?