“A deadline is, simply put, optimism in its most kick-ass form.”

-Chris Baty in No Plot? No Problem!: A Low-Stress, High-Velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days

 

Every year on my birthday, I reliably have some sort of mini-existential crisis: am I where I think I should be? Have I done enough, been enough? (Breathe.  You already change the world, remember?)

It all started because of certain songs with age deadlines—Jack and Diane (“hold on to sixteen as long as you can”) and a bit of Abba (“Dancing Queen, young and sweet…only seventeen”) were the first perpetrators.  (No, I wasn’t growing up in the seventies.  Yes, I was the coolest kid ever.)

 

These crises are often exacerbated when those birthdays (like this one) became deadlines that a younger me thought were realistic.

 

But here’s what I have am trying to learned: younger you (or your organization from three years ago) usually doesn’t know anything about achievable timelines, because s/he hasn’t gone through them yet.  It’s the blind leading the blind.

 

An example: Once, when I was a nineteen-year-old camp counselor, a young girl (she was probably around six) asked me where my husband and kids were while I was working at camp.  I thought this was hilariously ridiculous.  Didn’t this kid know anything?

 

No, of course she didn’t know anything–at least about being nineteen.  She was six, for goodness sake.  And I’m pretty sure she also thought I was thirty.  But that girl was not incorrect–it is absolutely possible to have a husband and kids by the time you’re nineteen–people do it all the time.  And I’m sure her logic was perfectly reasonable given the information she had.  I”m guessing it probably went went something like this:

Grown-ups = older, responsible, in charge, have kids.

“Miss Lindsey” = older, responsible, in charge of me = grown-up

Apply the transitive property = where are the kids?

 

And I’m guessing that if she was planning her own personal timeline at that age, it would also go something like this:

Age 6-9:  Be awesome at school and friends.  Become jump rope champion of the world.

Age 10-13:  Become a grown up.  Wear make-up.

Age 13-16:  Meet man of dreams and fall in love.

Age 16-19:  Have multiple children while living happily ever after. Maybe in college? (Now officially old)

 

I’m exaggerating, of course, but this does seem to correlate with the standard Disney Princess timeline, so I don’t think I’m too far off here 😉

 

The point is, to her point of view I was just incomprehensibly older than she was–more than three times her age!  Of course all of those things would be accomplished by that time.  Look, it’s simple:

 

Step 1:  Find guy.

Step 2:  Perform ceremony.  Kiss to seal the deal.

Step 3:  Stork painlessly brings multiple children.

 

Boom! Done.

 

I mean, what else do grown-ups do?

 

It turns out, quite a lot.  But I’m sure she learned that when she grew up.

 

I laugh, but this is how I set goals for myself all the time.  “C’mon,” I’ll say.  “Just do it!  Look, it’s simple:

 

Step 1: Do incredibly difficult thing that I’ve been avoiding for years for mental and emotional reasons.  Flawlessly.  The first time.  No problem.

Step 2: Keep doing it.

Step 3: Don’t stop.”

 

Boom! Done.

 

I watched this same phenomenon happen when I was a project manager in a social enterprise in a new industry.  The initial timelines our project teams came up with in complete sincerity–timelines that didn’t allow time for normal human functioning, let alone any amount of surprise or uncertainty–were just as laughable in retrospect as that little girl’s mental life timeline.

 IMG_0729

 

Progress—particularly on personal and social change—is rarely linear. Add to this the fact that when we talk about changing ourselves, our organizations, or our communities, we are usually talking about a hodgepodge of technical problems and adaptive challenges, all mixed in there together—but that’s a post for another day.

 

So if we know we are about as astute about our futures as that six year old girl, what’s the point of deadlines? What’s the point of setting goals?

 

Goals are fuel, inspiration, energy, focus.  Deadlines are a vision of a different state.  A world where something has fundamentally changed.  A challenge to step up to the plate and figure it out.  A needed sense of urgency.  A rallying cry!

 

The Millennium Development Goals are a great example of this: the world drew a line in the sand, and said “this is where we want to be in 2015.”  Then got together over and over again to say, “How are we doing? Is it working? Why or why not? How much left to go?”

 

Birthdays are markers, notches in the wood, saying, “You were here.  Now you’re here.”  It’s a focused pause, a chance to reflect, reevaluate, and reengage, and start again, from where you are.

 

The challenge becomes, how do we use deadlines, milestones, and birthdays to motivate us, to give us a sense of urgency, while still honoring the complexity of what we’re about to do?   The sense of adventure that comes with stepping out into the unknown?

 

The deadline for the Millennium Development Goals is coming up, and not all of the goals are on track.  Yet the making of them seems to have made a difference in and of itself.

 

What happens when you miss a deadline, or you can tell that you are going to?  Do you crumble in shame?  Or do you get up and keep going?   Tweak the timeline, revisit the process, and start again?

 

People with big dreams may eventually come to the realization that their goals may not be accomplished in their lifetime.  Martin Luther King, Jr., for example.  But that shouldn’t stop the urgency.

 

I often—usually because of days like today, where I wonder, how did I get this old?—adamantly maintain that we are all already ninety-three years old.  Trust me—blink and it will have happened.  And every birthday reminds me that there is an ultimate deadline….you know….the dead one. (Smiles awkwardly at bad joke).  So a bit of focused urgency, when in service to your deepest values, is not a bad thing.

 

I’m going to try and remember all of this as I set off to create my annual goals for next year.  But I probably won’t learn.  I mean, I know about as much as that six year old does about my future.  But I’m going to do it anyway, because you know those crazy, unrealistic deadlines?   Sometimes we meet them.