The Timing Is Never Perfect

So just do the thing

The question: “If you could have one superpower, what would it be?” yields a lot of bland answers and for that reason is one of the more tedious corporate ice break-y type questions. There is, however, one answer to that question that has kept me up at night thinking and it came from my dad. My dad’s answer to that question is “Perfect Timing”.

We’ve all heard the cliches that refer to imperfect timing as a deadly sin. “I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time” or “Being too early is the same as being wrong” and many others like it. Timing is something that, no matter how hard we try, is nearly impossible to nail and when we get it wrong, can have catastrophic consequences.

That’s why it makes for such a good superpower. The power of perfect timing gives you the ability to time the market. Or switch careers at the opportune moment. Or move in with your significant other at the perfect point before it's been too long and they’re wondering if you’ll ever commit and after it's been long enough to know that you can handle living with each other.

All of these decisions have a critical time element to them and if we were to have the superpower of perfect timing we would all make much better choices.

But we don’t have superpowers and we can’t manufacture perfect timing. The world is simply too complex with too many unknowns with too much changing all of the time to know when the time is right for a single decision, let alone the multitude we face in the modern world.

With the assumption that perfect timing is a thing of our imagination, I propose this to you: whenever you find yourself doubting whether the timing is right to make a change or take a risk, that is the sign it’s time for you to act.

Perfect timing is only recognized after the fact

I know, I know… the title of this post makes you think that I’m going to argue that nothing has ever been perfectly timed. That’s not what I’m here to say. I’ve even been the beneficiary of perfect timing a number of times in the past. The stars have aligned for humble ole me and I was able to make a big change in my life that, in hindsight, could not have been timed any better.

But here’s the catch: I didn’t know it was perfect timing when I made the change.

It's not that your timing can never be perfect, but rather that you never know that the timing is perfect until after the decision has been made.

For all intents and purposes, this is the same thing. Perfect timing doesn’t really exist if you can’t act on it. And you can’t possibly know if the timing is perfect when you’re in the moment making a decision.

We often think we can time things perfectly. A personal example for me is the stock market. When you look at a graph of a stock over the past twelve months it is painfully obvious when the best time to buy and when the best time to sell was. So much so that I can trick myself into thinking that I could possibly know that going into a trade. But that’s not how it works. Unless you spend your whole life tracking the market, which I don’t, you won’t know when the perfect time to make a move is and thinking that you can will drive you mad. Which is why I invest exclusively in index funds now.

The stock market is a specific example where timing is everything and jumping in before you feel ready can either be a sign that you’ve made the right decision or that you don’t know enough to make the trade and will lose lots of money.

But not everything is the stock market. There are many decisions that we all face that don’t ride entirely on getting the timing right. It is those decisions that you must train yourself to make before you feel entirely ready.

It’s those decisions, and knowing the difference is key, that I have been trying to make faster because playing the waiting game never pans out. I’ve said far too many times, “Man, I really wish I started that six months ago” to allow myself to wait until I’m ready to jump into something new.

For most things, the time to act is NOW

The “Now Clock” by Theodore Rounds

When facing a big decision in life, most of us will look for a sign that it’s time to act. When thinking about breaking up with someone, many will set up some kind of ultimatum in their head. Only if it gets violated will they proceed into single life. Others are looking to switch jobs that they don’t love but don’t quite hate. So they wait for their boss to make their lives hell one more time or for the perfect new role to cross their path. Waiting only delays the inevitable and puts off starting something they’ll actually enjoy. Others still think they should move out of their hometown but the inertia of life keeps them grounded until the universe gives them a sign. Spoiler alert: it rarely does.

All of these are examples of decisions that would benefit from hindsight, but that don’t have access to it. We tend to wait for the kind of clarity that only comes after we have made a big decision, before we make the big decision. It’s human nature to want certainty but the sooner you come to realize that it’s not coming, the more comfortable you become with making decisions before you have a perfect set of information. And the more you learn as a result.

This is something that I have been thinking about a lot recently. I’ve been guilty of waiting too long to make a decision or a change in my life. I’ve waited too long to start publishing online. I’ve waited too long to switch jobs (twice). I’ve waited too long to tell a girl that I was no longer interested in dating them, causing more pain than was necessary (I’ve been on the other end of that equation and it feels like shit from that side too).

Not every change should be made the first time you think about it. We are flighty creatures after all, and many of us bounce too quickly from one thing to another without taking the time to go deep into it and that in and of itself is a problem. But for those large decisions that you are waiting for a sign from the universe to make… this is your sign. Almost every decision is reversible but if you spend too long waiting you may miss your window of opportunity and spend years wondering “What if?”

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