The Myth of Perfect Timing
There’s a deeply comforting narrative many of us cling to. The idea that the right moment is out there, waiting. We convince ourselves that, eventually, things will fall into place: when our schedules ease up, when our finances are more stable, when we feel more confident or qualified. Then, and only then, we’ll finally take the leap.
But that moment, the “perfect time”, rarely, if ever, arrives. It’s a moving target. Just when we get close, it shifts again, always slightly out of reach. And so we wait.
What starts as prudence can easily become paralysis. We tell ourselves we’re being strategic or responsible, when in reality, we may simply be afraid. Fear has a remarkable ability to disguise itself as wisdom. It wraps itself in language that sounds reasonable. Wait just a little longer. Make sure the timing is right. But often, waiting isn’t a thoughtful decision. It’s a habit. One we’ve practiced for so long that we’ve stopped questioning it. And it isn’t harmless. The longer we wait, the more we start to doubt whether we were ever meant to begin at all. Confidence quietly erodes. Creativity stalls. Our sense of what’s possible starts to shrink.
This kind of waiting can also leave us stuck in a single chapter of our story especially if that chapter was painful or disruptive. It’s easy to become known (even just to ourselves) by one defining event: the loss, the setback, the thing that didn’t go as planned. Not because we consciously choose to, but because we stop creating anything new. We stop gathering fresh material. And the longer we stay anchored in the past, the harder it becomes to believe in a future that could look different.
That realization has shaped a lot of my thinking lately. This week, I’m taking a solo RV trip I’ve wanted to do since I was a little girl. It’s the kind of thing I always said I’d do “someday”. The truth is, I wasn’t really waiting on circumstances. I was waiting out my own discomfort. And I might still be doing that, if not for one question that finally got through: What might I miss if I keep putting this off?
Because that’s the thing about waiting, we rarely know what we’re missing. We don’t get to see the version of our lives that might have unfolded if we’d acted sooner. We can’t know what insights, relationships, or moments of strength might have shown up. We only know what didn’t happen. And eventually, that becomes its own kind of regret.
Fear will always make a compelling case for staying still. It speaks in a voice that sounds almost like wisdom. But progress doesn’t come from silence. It comes from motion. And readiness? It’s not always something you wait for. More often, it’s something you build through action. We think clarity comes before the leap but more often, it comes because of the leap.
Momentum doesn’t require certainty. It requires courage. The courage to move even when things feel unfinished, unresolved, or uncertain. And the willingness to believe that motion itself might unlock what you’ve been waiting for.
So if you find yourself in a holding pattern, ask yourself this:
Are you truly waiting on something essential or have you just made the waiting feel essential?
Because the “right time” isn’t coming.
But the moment you stop waiting? That’s when everything can start to shift.
And if you’re not sure where to start, try here:
What’s the thing you keep telling yourself you’ll do later?
What if later isn’t where the magic is?
