Do you have an immediacy bias? I hope so.
Let me explain.
In 2014, I was ready to move away from the cold. It was an extremely awkward time to do so as my husband and I had just purchased our first home together and welcomed our daughter. Most people don't do those particular life-y things and then think, "Let's move across the country!"
But we did.
We had an immediacy bias.
It had to happen as quickly as possible.
Thus, we pulled up stakes and moved here to the Orlando area in Feb. of 2015, just about nine years ago.
It would be fair to say our first year here was a complete disaster.
We didn't want to purchase a new home, so we rented an apartment that was far from ideal. People kept pulling the fire alarm in the middle of the night, leaving us rattled and our toddler terrified.
My husband left a private lesson music business behind and quickly learned it would be a long slog to recreate such a thing in a town with no decades-long relationships with dozens of band teachers.
Whoops! One source of income, poof.
For my part, I struggled to both write quality content and be a new mom while dealing with my homesickness and just general freaked-outed-ness.
Again, disaster.
Really.
So bad. Tears. (And several bouts with a stomach bug as our systems adjusted to our new environs.)
I cannot believe we didn't move back home after that first year. I guess we disliked winter that much.
Anyway, things improved.
We purchased the home we still live in now in a great neighborhood. Our daughter started at a preschool with her little cousin and thrived there.
I got my writing career back on track and grew it exponentially; my husband started teaching (in the schools this time instead of out of a studio).
Of course, given all of this, I am tempted to say, "Moving to Florida was fine, we just should've skipped that first awful year and come in 2016."
Sure, sure.
But that's not how life works, is it? If we had delayed our move by a year and skipped its attendant disasters afterward, we never would've done it at all. Back home in Madison, we would've enrolled our daughter in a preschool. We would've settled in. We would've delayed a second year, as you do.
We would've slowly, but surely, let the dream of a different kind of (warmer) life closer to family...fly away forever.
I'm telling you, we never would've done it.
Inertia is a powerful force.
So today, I see the power of honoring your internal immediacy bias. It will lead to hardship and pain. And growth. And progress.
And maybe even a new life.
When someone contacts me about writing a book together and then puts off actually getting started with me, it never fails. We don't start.
They get too busy.
Sure, maybe they avert a disaster (am I a disaster?), but I don't think so.
I think that by delaying, they let perfection...the wish for ideal timing...get in the way of results.
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