The Deadline Makes the Dream Real

Many people avoid deadlines because they think it will stress them out or box them in. They’ll tell themselves they work better without that pressure, that creativity needs space to breathe.

But here's what actually happens: the goal drifts. It stays perpetually important but never urgent or prioritized.

Time constraints don't limit us—they liberate us from the tyranny of infinite possibility. When you have forever to do something, you'll take exactly that long. When you have three months, you make choices. You say no to other things. You start. You make mistakes. You begin again.

The deadline forces you to confront reality. Can I actually write that manuscript in six months? Maybe not with perfect prose, but yes, if I write 500 words every weekday. Without the deadline, you'd never calculate what's actually required. You'd just keep "wanting to write" for the next decade.

Deadlines create necessary tension. They transform "someday" into "this week." They make the abstract concrete, the eventual immediate.

Your future self doesn't have more time than you do right now. So give that goal a date, and watch how quickly the path becomes clear.