Don't Wait: The Perfect Time Is Now
There is no such thing as the right time. Plenty of people put off starting something because they're convinced a better moment is coming, and that moment never actually arrives. Life is full of events you don't control, and any one of them can scramble whatever plan you've made. You can't see everything coming. So you can't promise yourself that the window you've picked will turn out to be the ideal one.
I lost years to this. I sat and waited for conditions to line up, and while I waited, experiences I could have been part of drifted past me. Goals slipped out of my hands. Dreams I kept close went quiet and then went away. At some point it clicked: waiting for the time to be right is a lot like waiting for another person to hand you happiness. Neither one shows up.
I read everything I could find about when to act and how to act. Then I woke up one morning with a plain answer in my head. The perfect time is now. If I didn't want to spend the rest of my life waiting, I had to move today. That's what I've been doing for the past month, and in those few weeks I got more done on my personal goals than I had in the previous several years.
So where do you start? If you're like me, you've stalled for ages on the things you actually want: a baby, a better job, getting into shape, hitting a personal milestone. The waiting only burns time you can't get back. But there are a handful of steps that let you chase those goals without losing another day.
Write down what you want. Goals, dreams, all of it. Before you do, be honest that this list belongs to you and not to anyone else's idea of your life. Mine had another baby on it, a better marriage, an audition for American Idol (this was the last year I'd be able to try), and a stack of other things. For any of it to become real, I had to start moving right away.
Once the list exists, choose the one that matters most to you in this moment. Everything on mine mattered, but the American Idol audition came with a hard deadline, so that one jumped the line. I'd told myself since Season 1 that I'd try out someday. This is Season 15, the final season. For years I made excuses: I wasn't good enough, the timing was off. I sent in my audition video three weeks ago. I don't know yet whether they'll take me, and it almost doesn't matter. Knowing I finally did it feels wonderful.
You can run at more than one goal at once. For each one, jot down the ways you could get there, starting from where you are right now, and take the first step (or at least move toward it) today.
Knowing the right time is already here is a relief. Things can shift at any second. Some of those shifts I'll set in motion myself, and some will land on me with no warning, and I've made peace with both. I'm done parking myself on the sidelines, scanning for a moment that was never going to be perfect anyway. I found the right time for anything I want to do. It's this one.