you're not behind: how to let go of a timeline you never chose

married by 25, house by 30, and have life figured out by now. who wrote that timeline?

..i can promise it wasn't you. somewhere along the way we were handed an imaginary schedule for when things were supposed to happen- and we've been quietly punishing ourselves ever since for falling behind in a race we never signed up for.

this episode is the foundation underneath our august theme of releasing control because most of the forcing we do is not about the goal, it's about the deadline attached to it.

we get into where these timelines actually come from, how they steal the joy out of good things that arrive "late," and my own story- what my life would look like right now if i'd stayed on the schedule i set at 25.

next week: the reset for when life isn't going according to plan.

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Transcript

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Married by 25, house by 30. By now you should have had it all figured out. But who created that timeline for you?'Cause I can promise you that it wasn't you. Somewhere along the way, we were handed this imaginary schedule as to when we were supposed to do things, and since then, and since maybe passing these milestones, we've been quietly punishing ourselves for not meeting these guidelines or not following along with this timeline. You are sabotaging yourself in a race that you absolutely never signed up for. Hello, hello. Welcome back to the Self Love Archives podcast. I am your host and your self-love bestie, Julia Salvia. Welcome to another episode. I'm so, so, so grateful that you are here, that you took the time out of your day, out of your week, to listen in. Today, we are talking all about this imaginary timeline that has been created for us. Not necessarily the one that you created for yourself. It's, even if you think that you put together, "Okay, I want this by, by this time. I want this then. I want that then." You didn't really create that for yourself. Maybe these are goals that you set into, into place, but have you ever stopped to think about whether these are actual things that you want, actual goals of yours in what you value and what you want out of this life? Or are these just milestones that you assume that you should want, or assume that you should have, or assume that you should want and have at a specific time? In the month of August, our theme is releasing control and being flexible, and this episode really dives into the foundation of where we're feeling like we need to have such a hold and such a control on our lives. Are you going to push your narrative forward? Are you going to forcefully make something happen just so that it l- that it aligns with a timeline? We know that time is a mental construct. Someone created the calendar. Someone created the dates. Someone created the physical clock. So whose timeline is this really? Is it actually your own timeline, or is this something else that was created? Well, to really figure that out, we have to look back at where we came from. Our timelines are inherited. It's our parents' timeline, our culture, comparison. It's social media, the feed, the things that we see constantly all day long, especially if you're scrolling. It's all arbitrary. On time is a myth. We can make a really funny joke as someone who is always late, on time is a myth. But we really are all running on our own clock. It's what do you value? Why do you feel as though you need something at a certain time in this timeline of yours? So I want you to think for a second, where is this supposed to? I'm supposed to have this at this time. I'm supposed to get married on this, on this date or when I'm this age, or I'm supposed to have my dream job by this age, or I'm supposed to have kids by this age. Where did that supposed to come from? This imaginary timeline costs you your present state. It costs you the time that you have right now, because you're so worried about meeting these deadlines that don't exist. That you completely forget to live in the present. These deadlines make really good things that come into your life feel like failures because they're too late. Like finally getting your dream job at 35 even though your imaginary timeline in your head was, "I want my dream job by 30." When you finally get to it at 35, you're like, "Well, this is late. It's not as good. I could have got it thir- five years ago. I should have got it five years ago. I was supposed to have it five years ago." You diminish the value of the things that you want and the f- things that you deserve, quite frankly, because of a certain date or time or age within that timeline, when if you released control and were a little bit more flexible with what it took to get there, with all of the support that you had around you, all of the other things that you were able to do that led up until that moment There would be so much more value and happiness and joy around finally reaching that goal or that thing that you really wanted to tr- to reach. So what in your life have you discounted or lessened the joy of because it didn't match up with your timeline? I thought that by 25 I would be married, and by 26 I would have my first child. And I'm 32 now. I am seven years past that deadline. I thought that I needed to have my dream man and the dream family and home and career by 25. And I think back to where I was at at 25, and if I decided to stay with the person I was with at 25, I would be miserable All for what? Rushing to a timeline? Rushing to have something because I wanted to have this thing by this certain date? When the person I was with didn't align, when the life that I was living didn't align, when the world that I was in didn't align. The only thing that aligned was my age. I was 25, and 25 was the, was this imaginary number, age, in my timeline that I needed to be at to have all of these things. And what did I think was gonna happen next? I was gonna live the rest, the rest of my life, the other 75 years of my life, just in this perfect harmony? That's an extremely unrealistic look at life, number one. And number two, if I did decide to keep and try to make everything perfect that I had at 25, as I said, I would, I would be living a miserable life. At 25, I was living in Connecticut. I lived in a different state than where I'm from, and I had no friends. I ha- was in an abusive relationship. I wasn't happy with my health. I was using work as a way to escape my life. And looking back, I am so grateful that I decided to completely trash the whole timeline and deadline thing that I had in my head in order to fight for and align with what I actually want out of life Sometimes it takes taking a step back and understanding that maybe it's not the actual deadline that matters. Maybe it's not the numbers that are in your head or this list in your head. Maybe it's about what value there is in all of the things that you actually want out of life. Maybe you don't actually want to be married. Maybe you just want a partner that supports you and loves you. Maybe it's that you don't want your dream job that makes you tons of money. Maybe it's that you want a job that gives you a really lovely work/life balance, that allows you to travel the world, that allows you to spend time with your family. Take a look at the timeline that you've created for yourself and ask yourself, do you really want these things at these specific moments of your life, or do you want something more valuable? And if you do want something more valuable, are you willing to wait to have it no matter what age you are, no matter how it is found, no matter how unlinear the path is to get there? Everything in your life up until this point has unfolded in the most unlinear, weird, and imperfect order, but the perfect order for you. So no matter how old you are right at this moment, everything that has come before probably didn't go the way that you expected it to or wanted it to, but where you are right now is exactly where you need to be. It's exactly where you are meant to be, where you are supposed to be, and that timeline didn't even matter. If the things that you have wanted so badly in life are things that you truly have wanted, not because someone else told you to, not because you see other people, uh, uh, have it on the internet, but because you truly know that you are deser-deserving of them and that because you truly want them, you will get there. But it might just not happen exactly the way that you hoped or intended, but it'll happen in all of the ways that are meant to happen. It'll happen in all of the ways that you couldn't even imagine it would happen that way. And the thing is, is that once you're there, you wouldn't take a single thing back. You wouldn't have a single regret. That's where I want you to be in your timeline for you. I want you to, I want you to know where you are going, and I want you to have milestones But I don't want you to have a timeline that aligns with a certain age or a certain number or a certain thing in your life that if you don't reach it, it holds you back, or it makes you feel less than, or it makes it feel less enjoyable or less accomplished if you didn't reach it at a certain moment. When I was 25, I was in an abusive relationship, and then when I was 27, I found myself in the same, the same place once again. Right before my 28th or 29th birthday, I met the man of my dreams. If I was so worried about what everyone else had, what I kept seeing every time I would scroll on social media, comparing myself to other people and other things, and if I was so crazy about sticking to a timeline, I would be in a relationship right now that I don't wanna be in. I would maybe have a house that I don't really want, live in a place that I don't really wanna live in. I would have things that don't align with who I am and what I want out of this life. All for what? All to take a picture and post it on social media to say that I have something, that I did something just be- because I'm a certain age, just to say that I did it, just to compare to everyone else, when behind the smile or the accomplishment in the picture, it's not really an, an accomplishment at all. It doesn't actually make me genuinely happy at all. I just did it because of a timeline, because I thought I was supposed to, because I thought I was supposed to want that. I was supposed to have that. But you're not on anyone's clock except your own. Your life's path is no one's but your own. So rather than put so much weight on how old you are Or where you're at in your life in comparison to how old you are. Put weight into the things that provide your life value, your life worth living, your life with purpose. I want you to swap "I should have everything by now" with "I get to do this. Whenever it comes, it will come." Always flow. Never force, always flow Let the world and the universe work for you, work with you to give you all of the things that you could ever dream of, all of the things that you've always been worthy of, always been deserving of. Let the world work for you and with you, not against you. Just let it all flow into your life. And if you have to, maybe write out this timeline, this imaginary timeline that you came up with in your head, crumple it up, and burn it. Trash it. Throw it out. Let it go back into the world. And start creating things that are meaningful for you. Maybe it's not a timeline. Maybe it's just a story of how… A, a story or a visual of how you want your life to look and how you want it to make you feel. And next week, we're talking about what to do, the reset when life just isn't going according to plan. So if you're feeling like your life isn't going according to plan, you've already let go of this imaginary timeline, what do you do when it just feels like it's all crashing down? What is the reset? What is the first step that you need to make to get back on track, get back to creating a life that you love? I love you to the moon and back, and I will see you next week, same time, same place, Sundays 12:00 Eastern. Have the best week ever.