You gave yourself six months to hit $10K. Now it's month eight. You're at $0K.

And the thought hits you:

"Maybe I'm not cut out for this"

Your chest tightens. Heart races. One thought becomes ten:

• "What if I'll never get there?"
• "What if everyone else is built for this, but not me?"
• "What if I've been lying to myself?"

The timeline in your head keeps screaming you're behind. And you believe it's your pace that's the problem.

That's the trap.

Because life doesn't run on your timeline. It has its own. And the moment you stop fighting that timing, the pressure dissolves and progress becomes natural again.

Why Your Perfect Plan Always Breaks You

Most people create mental timelines for everything - career milestones, relationship goals, financial targets - then fight reality when life unfolds differently, creating chronic stress and anxiety.

Having an imaginary timeline in your head most often creates stress because life has its own way of expressing itself.

How many times have you planned something in detail, but when it actually happens, it's completely different.

You plan the "perfect day" to finally get everything done, only for one unexpected email or call to throw it all off and leave you frustrated.

The difference between expectation and reality creates:

resistance.

The anxious pressure in your chest and stressful breathing at the end of the day.

That's the resistance speaking.

The more you ignore it, the more it eats you up.

I know the feeling and used to get stuck in it too.

Setting deadlines for each tasks. And when I didn't reach it, anxiety and stress took over. I felt like I betrayed myself and instead of finding a way to move forward, I spent time trying to fight my way out of my emotions and thoughts. I thought I was productive, but i was actually planning my own hell.

The more I fought reality’s timing, the heavier it all became. Deadlines turned into self-punishment, goals turned into chains, and instead of making progress I burned out faster, stuck in the same loop of pressure and disappointment.

And it only got worse.

The Trap of Timeline Anxiety

You told yourself you should have $10K/month by next year and it becomes a source of daily anxiety. Years pass. The timeline pressure doesn't just stress you out, it steals your life.

Every evening, you lay down on your bed and check your phone. Open Instagram. You see the same videos again. People who made it and earn a lot of money.

Your body feels warm and stressful, eyes glued to other people's highlight reels.

You keep scrolling. "Why not me?" crosses your mind, followed by:

"If I don't hit it by next year, what does that say about me?"

It's not just stress, it robs joy, presence, relationships, health. And instead of appreciating actual progress, you focus everything on the end goal.

You can't celebrate landing your first client because "it's not $10K yet." You miss conversations with friends because you're mentally calculating how far behind you are. Your partner asks about your day, and instead of sharing excitement about small wins, you spiral into timeline anxiety.

Every month that passes without hitting your target becomes evidence that you're failing. The joy gets sucked out of the journey. You're living in a constant state of "not enough yet" while life passes you by.

Three years of timeline stress feels heavier than three years of actual building.

But what if the timeline itself is the problem, not your progress?

What if there was a way to keep your ambition while dissolving the pressure completely?

What if you could work toward $10K/month without the chest-tightening anxiety?

What if progress could feel natural instead of forced?

The shift is simpler than you think, but it requires doing the opposite of what feels natural.

So how do you remove the pressure without changing the goal?

You Can't Connect The Dot's Looking Forward

When I started my entrepreneurial journey, I had a perfect plan and timeline in my head. But life punched me in the face, asking me how much I wanted it.

Not in a cheesy self-help way, but in the raw, unforgiving way life usually does.

"I'll be successful in 1 year" became 2.

2 became 3 and now I'm in my 7th year. Building and trying.

I thought the problem was my progress. It wasn't.

The real problem was my fictional timeline.

During a long stretch of this time, I was dealing with stress, doubt, and anxiety every day. My chest was heavy when I went to bed, my stomach felt tight whenever I sat down to work, and some nights I just lay there staring at the ceiling with my mind running in circles.

• "Maybe I should quit?"
• "What if I'll never get there?"
• "What if I've been lying to myself?"

I I didn't know it then, but this was the real trap. Not my actual situation, but resistance to it. It kept me in a constant battle with thoughts and emotions.

It felt like running on a treadmill, working hard, sweating every day, but never getting closer to where I wanted to be.

Until one day, I heard Steve Jobs' commencement speech.

The quote stuck with me like a song you can't get out of your head.

Looking back, I could finally see he was right. Most of the things that kept me awake at night, causing mental fights whenever I sat down to work on my projects, made sense over time. I understood why it had to happen, and suddenly, there was relief.

Even after hearing Steve's words, the doubt, anxiety, and stress kept coming back. And maybe you know that feeling too. You understand things will work out in the long run, but how do you handle the pressure today?

That's the part no one tells you, and it's exactly what I want to show you.

The Paradox That Sets You Free

Steve Jobs was right about the dots connecting backwards. But here's what he didn't say in that speech:

how to actually trust when you're drowning in timeline anxiety.

Through years of my own timeline stress, I learned to step back and observe my thoughts instead of being consumed by them. Like watching weather patterns from inside a warm house - present but not swept away.

This shift helped me see that my stress about the timeline never came from the situation itself, but from my emotional reaction to it.

Here's the paradox: The only way to control the timeline is to let it go completely and let it unfold in its own way.

It was like staring at storm clouds and forgetting the sky was always clear behind them. The clouds weren't the problem, my reaction to them was.

The next time you have anxiety or stress about the timeline, do this:

1) Make Space Between You and Your Thoughts

Asking a question interrupts your overthinking mind. You shift from being lost in thoughts to observing them. Like pausing a spinning record - the music stops and you can hear yourself think again.

Next time you feel emotionally triggered by your timeline, ask this:

"Is this thought actually true?"

The question slows everything down, giving you time to observe instead of react.

2) The Welcoming

When the storm hits, most people run. They escape into their mind, distract themselves, or fight the feeling. But it always comes back stronger.

The only way out is through, by facing it completely.

Step back first: You can't welcome anxiety if you're trapped inside it. Breathe and notice: "I am aware of this anxiety. I am not the anxiety itself." You've shifted from victim to observer.

Turn toward it: From this stable place, bring gentle attention to the pressure in your body. Don't fix it. Don't analyze it. Just allow it.

Let it transform: When resistance drops, the storm weakens. What felt overwhelming dissolves into simple energy moving through you.

This isn't "dealing with stress." It's completing the cycle so the same knot doesn't keep returning.

What Timeline Anxiety Really Reveals

Here's the deeper truth: timeline anxiety is rarely about time itself. It's about worth.

"$10K by month 6" isn't just about money - it's about proving to yourself (and others) that you're capable, successful, worthy.

But your true nature doesn't need proving. You're already whole and complete. When you see that, the pressure dissolves. Goals stop being about survival and start being about expression.

This doesn't mean abandoning ambition. It means pursuing from fullness instead of lack. You still aim for $10K, but not because you need it to feel enough. You go after it because you're excited about growth and contribution.

Living This Shift

I've lived through this transformation myself. For years, I built my app under constant pressure: every delay felt like failure, every missed deadline like proof I wasn't enough. I thought peace would only come after hitting my numbers.

What changed wasn't the deadlines - they still exist - but my relationship to them. I stopped letting timelines dictate my worth. The result? I could finally enjoy the process while still moving toward big goals.

Instead of anxious loops, insights started flowing. Instead of forcing progress, momentum built naturally. Instead of punishment, work felt like play.

The goals didn't disappear. The challenges didn't vanish. But the suffering did.

When you welcome anxiety instead of fighting it, you stop treating life like a test you're constantly failing. You start trusting the timing while still moving forward.

The goal stays. The pressure dissolves.

Want to try this method on your timeline anxiety right now?

I've put the complete 5-step process with real client examples in this Google Doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vyRAN7DVjePPWHNikzg_D4e-1rcO-Sy4QmOVf3y_Wrc/copy​

This is the foundation of the full Flow Method system I'm launching for solo- and entrepreneurs.

If this helps with your timeline pressure, the complete course with business-specific applications launches next week.

If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to reach out to me!

Much love,

Tomas