I can't tell you what to do. I can only point out my observations of my own, and other people's, sitches, and what's worked and what hasn't.
Open-ended "I will give you all the time and space you need" arrangements rarely work. Deadlines almost always do, but you have to be careful that:
a) They are expressed as YOUR own personal boundaries, and NOT you trying to control THEM;
b) They CANNOT be a bluff; they must be SINCERE and you have to be willing to face the consequences behind them; and
c) You may end up getting something that looks a helluva lot more like COMPLIANCE than it does like COMMITMENT. Without a parallel DBing/GAL plan to go along with it, I don't think such hard-line approaches are sustainable.
So I can't tell you what to do. But I see where you always found comfort knowing you had these built-in dates on the calendar, and they framed a LOT of your strategies and tactics. Now that these built-in circuitbreakers have been removed, I worry that you will go into "Whatever happens -- happens" mode, and in fact I can already hear that from you.
That's not a criticism, or even specific advise -- just an outside observation, fwiw.
