In any construction project, the foundation has to be solid before anything can be built on top of it. Someone who regularly passes by a project may see a lot of workers and machines plugging away without any visible results. Then, seemingly overnight, the project grows by leaps and bounds as more progress appears to be made in one day than in the last several months. The reality is that there was a lot of progress being made on the project even when it wasn’t visible to onlookers. Once enough progress was made in one area, it allowed lots of progress to be made quickly in other areas.
This applies to your life as well. It may seem like progress is painstakingly slow at times or even nonexistent. Sometimes, however, you have to progress in one area before you can progress in another. For example, you might be working on controlling your emotions and feel like you’re stuck in the same place. Maybe you still get emotional at work but you’re in a state of peace whenever you’re at home, which could be a sensation you haven’t felt in a long time. All the research and self-improvement work you’ve been doing is settling in and starting to manifest in your life. Naturally, it starts in the areas of your life where it’s easiest to recall it and put it to work. Over time, it’ll steadily spread into the other areas as you keep practicing and improving at it.
I have to remind myself of this every so often. While I try to avoid spending too much time thinking about the past, it’s helpful to periodically take time to remember where I used to be and how far I’ve come since then. There are milestones I’ve reached this year that I never thought I would reach in my life. Occasionally, someone I haven’t seen in a while will point out improvements I’ve made since we last saw each other. Their distance allowed them to see something in me that I couldn’t since I’m with myself all the time, and I only became aware of it when they mentioned it. It’s nice whenever someone does that and lets me know I’m on the right track, which is why I let others know when they’ve improved at something. If you’ve stuck with something long enough, you’ve probably received that sort of compliment from someone who’s watched you for a while. When you get comments like that, take them to heart and use them as signs that you’re doing well. And, when you get the chance, why not pay it forward to someone else who’s making progress? Finally, try to go easy on yourself and recognize when you’ve made some improvement. That’ll make it a lot more enjoyable to keep pursuing progress and probably help you progress faster than being hard on yourself. I hope this has been helpful and I’ll see you in the next post.