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Are Time-Limits Limiting You?

April 17, 2009 by Nicole J. Butler · View Comments 

I flipped on the TV one morning to have some “background noise” while planning my day. Rachael Ray’s show caught my eye because there was a woman in the audience who had moved to NYC to pursue her dreams of acting on Broadway. Her parents were trying to woo her back home (I missed the part that said where she was from) by offering to pay her grad school tuition and buy her a car. She asked the Rachael Ray show for advice (why, I’m not sure, since Rachael’s show is a cooking show), and Rachael had an astrologer and her mother on the show to give advice to this woman. The astrologer said something about Jupiter being in some house and that she should give it 6 more months. Rachael’s mom said that if the woman was asking the question, she must know that her time is up, then they asked her if she had given herself a time limit and she said that she had given herself 5 years, and this is year 4. This made me start thinking… When I told my mother I was going to pursue an acting career, she was outwardly supportive, but I think she was a bit disappointed that I wasn’t going to go to law school and become a high-powered attorney, or become a foreign-language interpreter and work for the UN (both of which were careers I considered). She asked me how long I was going to give the acting thing. I didn’t have an answer. I never planned on NOT getting what I wanted. After visiting New York, I decided to move to Los Angeles, sight unseen.

A decade later, I look back, having (finally!) made significant headway in my career. What if I had given myself a time limit? What would it have been? 5 years? 10? Would that have loomed over me like a circling vulture and sent me running home, or would it have made some things happen faster than they have? Who knows? Should people give themselves time limits?

Personally, I don’t think so. Why give yourself any limits at all? Why not just jump in, see what happens, and adjust accordingly. If you hate acting (or whatever you do) in 6 months, do something else. If you still love it (but haven’t made a penny) after 20 years, keep doing it. I do think it’s important to:

  1. Define success on your own terms, and
  2. Allow your vision of success to be flexible so it can grow with you.

There are some things that I once wanted to do that I no longer want to do. There are other things that I NEVER thought I would want to do, that seem desirable to me now. Life is a living, breathing process (literally and figuratively), we are all works in progress and I believe that we need to be open to possibilities. I’m not talking about “loose morals” or “anything goes”–everyone has their own boundaries, of course, but why not push those boundaries out as far as possible to see how far you can go WITHOUT doing damage to yourself or anyone else? I’ll tell you why we don’t: FEAR

Fear of not being enough, fear of being “too much”, fear of the unknown, fear of what people will think, what they will say, what they will do if… Some fear is necessary. It keeps us from sitting down on a flaming barbecue pit or trying to pet the lions at the zoo. Fear of fire and fear of large, roaring animals with sharp teeth can keep you safe. “If I wear red lipstick, people will stare at me.” So? “If I try to have an acting career and it doesn’t work, people will laugh at me.” And? I’ve had people say that I’m fearless. Uhhh…WRONG!! But I’m more afraid of being paralyzed by fear and regretting my inaction later, so I usually try to do things that scare me. I’m talking CALCULATED RISKS, y’all–not snake charming, lol. I am more afraid of looking back at the end of my life saying “I should have…” than saying “I tried it and it didn’t work.”

This is one of the quotes I love:

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” –Anais Nin

–Nicole J. Butler

P.S.–Some woman on “Rachael Ray” confessed to having used her washing machine as a salad spinner. If any of you out there do that, and I find out you did, I will NEVER eat anything at your house.  Gross.

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  • You are so right - again! Stop doing that. Geez Louise Louise.

    I'm starting coaching with a life/balance coach next week, & she asked in her Welcome Packet, "What accomplishments do you think must occur during your lifetime so that you will look back when you are old and consider your life to have been satisfying and well lived—a life of few or no regrets?" And that's what it boils down to. Maybe you give yourself a time limit, and when the ringer goes off you're able to walk away - no regrets. Then that's OK for that person. Another person might hear the "ding" and think, "It's not enough time!" That's OK too.

    So I guess it's not about having a time limit or not having a time limit, but about having regrets or not. Yeah.

    <abbr>Michelle | When I Grow Up’s last blog post..Yay, Bribery!</abbr>
  • Thanks Gina. I believe we each have our own path, and we don't always know what the next step will be until we extend our foot to take it. As long as your vision/ dream is alive in you, not following it will do a disservice to you and to others.
  • I agree with the above perspectives, but I am single and God spoke to me about starting my own business. I believed I would be profitable that first year. Then, I started learning about God and His own timeline. I know I will make a living at it, but it may not be as soon as I thought or hoped.

    I have been learning a great deal from my pastor at www.alcf.net. He was called to start a church in CA and had to move across the country. God had told him that he would be reaching thousands, but for years, he preached to the original 34 and just grew a little bit each year. He had a family to support, but God got them through.

    Then, according to God's timing, more and more people started to accept the pastor's call to follow Jesus. He now preaches to a church of 6,000 members that is growing by about a thousand a year. He also has a radio station that reaches all across the country. If he had put a deadline on the vision, he would have missed out on the blessing. I have to keep this in mind as I plug away at my business. Keep on keeping on, and God bless.
  • Thanks, Sis Ivd! I had someone email me directly to say the same thing, and I do appreciate different perspectives. For those dependent on other individuals (or those with other individuals dependent on them) as they follow their "dream" I still say "no time limit on your dream." Instead I suggest finding a way to eliminate or reduce the amount of infringement. Obviously the children have to get fed, and most of us can't live off of other people forever (if at all) - there is a way to make it all work, it just requires elbow grease and creative thinking. People do it every day, so it is has already been proven possible.
  • Sis Ivd
    I believe certain people SHOULD set time limits when their dream infringes on others depending on them, (a house full of kids, for example or using other peoples money,for another example). Others who are not tied down to anyone or anything should go for it and not look back. When you know that you know that you know you're going to make it or die trying, then there are no other options until you have done all thing possible and necessary and left no stone unturned and if it still isn't happening for you, THEN it's time to re-evaluate that 'dream' and you'll know within your own heart that it's time to say 'when'.
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