SURRENDERING THE NEED FOR A TIMELINE

**This post is all about learning to surrender our need for irrelevant timelines in our lives.**

Do you desire to build more patience into your character and let go of some of the stress you’ve put on yourself related to the “timeline” of achieving your goals? Today we are chatting about the concept of surrender and how it is a skill that can be developed. I will be talking a bit about my faith in this post! If we don’t share the same one, the principles are still applicable to whatever or whoever you believe helps you along as you stay your course. 😊

So. I’ve wasted a LOT of time worrying about things I can’t control and trying to strong-arm my life into a certain timeline, that, apparently, it was not meant to be on. We all logically understand the concept of only focusing on what we can control, but when it comes to our actions this can be much easier said than done! Or maybe that’s just me…

An example of a broad timeline of completely irrelevant timing that tortures no one but ourselves when it doesn’t happen the way it’s “supposed” to. Each of our metaphorical timelines are extremely nuanced I know, but this is just an example of the general ridiculousness I know someone out there has had in their mind since they were in college.

Since we have a high level of ambition and desire for excellence, surrender can be an even more difficult concept for us to carry out in our lives. We want to be more and do more and become more and help more and give more…we are always looking for how we can do MORE instead of being content with doing our BEST each day.

I’m not saying that working to become better is a bad thing, I’m simply suggesting that action combined with striving is much less effective than action combined with surrender.

I believe that for surrender to be a concept that is even remotely graspable, we must have faith in something that’s larger than ourselves. For me, I’m a Christian so that’s God/Jesus/Holy spirit, but no matter what you believe, the principles, when it comes to the idea of surrender anyway, are the same.

If we have no belief in anything but ourselves, then striving and stressing really are our only choices. This puts us in a place where our individual work must be enough to create the outcomes we desire in our lives. I don’t know about you, (I have a feeling you’re the same as me here) but I have dreams and goals that are WAAAAAY too big for me to accomplish on my own, which is why my peace comes from the belief that God will multiply my efforts into something bigger than I could ask, think, or imagine as a measly little human being.

That being said, I’m also a believer in hard work. If I think sitting on my couch and praying for God to make my dreams a reality is something that will work, I’m delusional. I also don’t take something being harder than I thought it would or taking longer than I thought it would as some kind of sign that God is telling me to quit. It’s the combination of work and faith that creates the ideal balance for surrender to be a practice that sticks (most of the time anyway. It’s an ongoing journey without an end for me, ha!).

How do we “practically” surrender, meaning what are logical thought processes we can employ so that when our natural human instinct for dissatisfaction with our outcomes arises, we can combat it? There are many different options, but here are just a couple I keep in my thought-life toolbox for a rainy day.

This is something I heard one of my favorite authors and mentors, Darren Hardy, speak on recently. He talked about not becoming attached to outcomes, because the root of our need to strive comes from the fact that we are not happy with the outcomes in our lives, and wish we were further down the road towards the “success” we desire. AKA we have not surrendered the timeline and instead are frustrated because we cannot control it!

Instead of resting our satisfaction on getting certain outcomes by a specific date or point in our lives, if we focus on continued growth, progress, and becoming an expert at whatever it is we are working towards, we will be much less frustrated on our way to the bigger goals we have our hearts set on.

I’m all about setting goals and attaching a date to them, but because we cannot control the timeline, if we have daily mini-goals along the way to simply be 1% more of an expert in our field, 1% more faithful, 1% more patient, 1% more into our stretch zone, 1% more loving, 1% more open to the people around us (insert what YOU want more of, not what you THINK you should want or what someone else tells you you want) imagine the progress you’ll have made by the date you attached to your longer term goal, whether you actually hit the goal or not?! (Wow, that’s a lot of using the word “goal”)

Point is, you’ll have made a ton of progress and your frustration levels don’t need to be through the roof. Sign me up for THAT. Usually the extreme frustration from inability to control my timeline comes from my ego and wanting to be perceived by others in a certain way, but the befriending the ego discussion is a fork in the road for a different day.

This is where the faith part comes in. If you know you’re doing all you can to hit the goals you’ve set but you’re still not quite there, you must have faith that God has a broader perspective of the timing that is right. You will get there, it’s just in His timing not yours. Your timeline, believe it or not, is also not all about you.

Another mentor/counselor of mine told me this when I was struggling with what I felt to be a lack of progress in my life. She said something along the lines of, you know your life’s timeline isn’t the only one being designed right? There are hundreds of millions of timelines being intertwined and the timing of yours impacts the timing of others and vice versa, therefore, you don’t get to have complete authority over it.

This used to frustrate me, but now I love it. If I get into my stretch zone every day and push myself just past what I think I’m capable of, or what I FEEL like doing, I KNOW I’m going to progress, and that is all that I can control.

I’m NOT saying everything is predetermined so you should just sit back and wait for fate to take its course. While we cannot control the timelines of our dreams, we can control how committed we are to becoming the people who can handle those dreams.

When we stay the course regardless of external results, we demonstrate our commitment to being trustworthy stewards of blessing.

Another tool to help in your practice of surrender is meditation or quiet time. I know I know, a very trendy topic these days that seems like it is everywhere and every success mentor out there talks about it, BUT that must be for a reason, right? I figured if all the people who have outcomes I want are meditating, who am I to say, “no thank you”?

I’m not a meditation expert, nor have I developed a consistent practice (getting there…progress, not perfection, right?) but quiet time is an act of surrendering in and of itself, which means I’m practicing letting go every time I have my quiet time.

Meditation also gives us dedicated time alone to root through our thought life. This is a personal choice for me, I’m sure some might disagree, but I have a VERY hard time quieting my mind, so instead of stressing about that and leaving my meditation session more stressed than when I began, I sit with the thoughts that do come up.

Obviously at the beginning the thoughts are extremely frivolous, task related things, but the more I let my mind stream, the more thoughts about my worthiness, my past, my excellence or lack thereof as a wife, daughter, friend etcetera come up and I’m able to release those thoughts that are lies and, over time, download new truths based on who God says I am. This practice, along with the guidance and shared wisdom of professional counselors, has immensely transformed my thought life and therefore my self-image. Which also, by the way, leads to much more ease with the whole surrender thing because you know exactly where you worth comes from… and hint hint… it’s nothing external.

This quiet time is also a great moment to visualize yourself achieving the goals you are working towards…experiencing in the mind what it will feel like when your visualizations are your reality and therefore leading your body to experience the emotions attached to the achieving of said goals. There is sooooo much interesting knowledge on the power of the mind/visualization/quiet time out there. I’m not an expert so I won’t bore you with my terrible explanation of the science, but look up Dr. Joe Dispenza if you want to learn the nitty gritty from someone who has studied this extensively. Here’s a link to a great book of his, “Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself”.

So where do we go from here?

If you don’t have a spiritual foundation, build one. No matter what we’re discussing here at The Fortitude Project, that spiritual foundation is the answer for everything. (I’m reminding myself as much as anyone else with this, so don’t be mad at me 😉)
Figure out, based on our longer-term goals, what we can improve 1% at each day and set some daily goals! The follow through with the small improvements each day builds our confidence and moves the needle more than we realize towards our ability to surrender.
Take quiet time each day to let your mind stream. Release the anxiety attached to the idea that you’re “doing nothing” or being “unproductive”. That is a lie keeping us from the breakthroughs that come from consistent quiet time.

These sound like small things, but I know from my own ongoing journey that they are extremely impactful when they become habits.

Here are a few more resources to get you going…there’s also always an open door to reach out to me if you want to speak more personally, specifically, or get pointed towards more resources that I am equipped to provide.

I’m in your corner!

If you’re not quite clear on your vision for the life you want, check out this post where I lay some groundwork for crystalizing that picture.

Interview with Jay Shetty and Joe Dispenza (20 minutes)

Joe Dispenza on Impact Theory with Tom Bilyeu (33 minutes)

Three Simple Steps by Trevor Blake (This one can apply to anyone and everyone)

The Infinite Game by Simon Sinek (More business focused, but phenomenal concepts)

Battlefield of the Mind by Joyce Meyer (Christian based)

The above links are Amazon affiliate links, which means I'll receive a commission if you purchase through my link, at no extra cost to you.