500 Words a Week - Setbacks & Progress
Progress is intensely slow. It’s a small current in the depths of the sea, slowly building up force unbeknownst to us. With progress, our ability to accurately review time goes out the window. We forget where we have come from, and how far we have developed as all we can remember is the last few weeks or months. When progress is viewed in this short time frame, it can feel like nothing is happening. Yet far below, that once small current is now beginning to develop more force. It’s like going on a new exercise routine and looking at yourself everyday in front of the mirror or weighing yourself everyday. It’s incredibly hard to see day to day progress, or even week to week, yet when we take a longer term view of our progress we can see how far we have come.
What stops our progress is how we deal with setbacks. Setbacks are instantaneous, happening in the moment and having an immediate effect on our progress. Stifling us as we attempt to figure out how they happened, or how we are going to get back on the horse after encountering a setback. Setbacks make us forget about all the progress we have gone through as we are all consumed with the negative side of what has happened.
What stops our progress is not allowing the relevant time to continue working on our craft. As we can’t see immediate improvements with each ounce of effort, we feel disheartened and may stop. We start to ask the question “what’s the point”, “what am I doing”, we give up and succumb to the pain of slow progress. Yet if we were to keep going, that current that was once in the depths far below will begin to make little ripples on the surface. They may be tiny, they may only happen for a moment, yet they show us that we are on the right track. That our progress in the background seems to be working in some capacity. Morgan Housel uses a term called rational optimists. In embracing this mindset, we understand there will always be problems, disappointments and setbacks life throws our way, yet we remain optimistic as we know these setbacks don’t prevent eventual progress.
It’s not that you aren’t going to achieve what you want, be that clarity in your long term vision or even if you have a very specific goal you would like to aim towards, your timelines are just wrong. Expand your timelines, and don’t stop working.
In writing, as with many things in life, there is always someone who has said or done it better. Please find below a wonderful quote from James Clear, who summarised what I tried to talk about in 68 words.
“Finding your way in life is like unlocking the combination of a safe. You have to go forwards and backwards. Life is not a direct march from A to B. The twists and turns are progress, not regression. What feels like a setback in the moment is later revealed to have been part of the path all along. Each move was necessary to get to your end goal.” - James Clear
