Importance of timelines in goals — a.k.a. deduction fallacy

Have you been told by someone that you cannot do something that you really want to do? Start a business, run a marathon, or be and feel healthy?

I often come across clients in my coaching practice where they are told by their loved ones and/or friends to forget about their dreams as they are not “made for it”.

I have myself heard from some people about me not having it in me what it takes to be an entrepreneur, e.g.

People from personal growth community say these are self-limiting beliefs and you can do anything you put your mind too. There is truth to that.

Nothing is impossible forever!

But I want to explore a deeper fallacy behind these statements (when somebody says you cannot do something). A fallacy that is based on our language constructs and unwillingness to use “timelines” in our statements.

Common fallacy — an example

A lot of people are used to making deductions. They might make wrong ones at times, but even if they make right deductions, the statements that are used to make deductions are like this:

1. You are shy. (A0)
2. It takes a salesman and an outgoing person to start a business and make it into a successful one. (B0)

The second statement can be reframed as

• (someone has a successful business) => (they are outgoing), which is the same as
• (someone is shy or not outgoing) => (they cannot have successful business).

From (1) an (2), it follows that you cannot have a successful business. (C0)

Notice that (A0 and B0) => (C0). That is a correct deduction. (Meaning, assuming A0 and B0 are correct, C0 is true too.)

Time-dependence of most real-world statements

But we forget the role of time in these statements. Statements in propositional logic are time-independent. But real-life statements are not time-independent.

Take the statement (A0) above. When the person in the discussion made this statement about me, they were right. At That Time.

Is the statement going to be true in one year? One decade? 20 years?

All of these statements are time-dependent, and things can change. People change all the time!

Things are not true or false. They are true or false given a specific time. And time is the biggest changer there is.

Assumptions, assumptions, assumptions…

I still have not started a big business, but I see the fallacy of the above statement already. Such statements tend to affect us. And the person saying it does not even realize that they are making a lot of assumptions.

Another assumption that is made above was that you have to be a good salesman to have a successful business. Maybe that is true, maybe that is not true. It is not quite clear.

There are so many assumptions that are made in stating a fuzzy fact in English that most of the time, the deduction is not of very high quality, especially if the person in question has the determination to achieve what they put their heart to.

Nothing is impossible forever

I believe that if your goals are “reasonable” (meaning there are at least a few people in the world who have achieved it), then it is not impossible for you. All that is needed is a willingness on your part to keep going.

If Forrest Gump could be such an accomplished man, you can be too!

Nothing is impossible forever, as these folks at Not Impossible Labs put it so well.

Same with Stockdale paradox. It is faith that things will work out eventually… that can keep us going despite all the odds and make “impossible” things possible. But if one is “optimist” about the timeline of achieving the goal, that might actually be impossible. Nature does not work on your timelines, and you might mistake it to be a failure and impossibility.

Nothing is impossible forever. And heck, even if your goals are “unreasonable”, if you stick to them, you will live a contented life even if you don’t achieve your goals. And who knows, you might actually achieve them too.