FASTER.

rusticsimpledesign
Apr 14
3 min read

Let's skip to the good part. So often we focus on wanting a result faster. We want to be three years ahead, with the right following, the right systems, the right account balance, the right weight. We want what we want and we want it now.

"They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself." -Andy Warhol

If you're in a period of bliss, you don't stress too much about what's changing. You just ride the wave of happiness and let life take you on its journey. It's those intentional changes that cause us anxiety. You've decided you want to make changes and yet you want immediate results. You want to start your business & have it be successful right out of the gate. You want to lose 20 lbs while you're sleeping. You want to have a great list of subscribers anxiously waiting for your next product release. You really wish last year you had just started, yes even inconsistently, so that you'd be farther along.

If we break this down we can start to see how part of this holds us back and another propels us forward.

To be ready for change you need to get so sick of where you are that doing the work to make change happen feels less painful than staying where you are. It's so much easier to spend time scrolling social media or watching netflix than working on your business or going to the gym. So you have to want the harder right more than the easier wrong. This is the part that propels you forward.

But let's say you've decided to go all in on your side hustle so that you can eventually quit your job. You've been working on things regularly and you are much farther along than you were a month or two ago. Then the faster feeling hits you. You thought it was going to be easier. You thought it wasn't going to take this long. You wanted results sooner than you're seeing them. You're starting to lose your resolve. This is where most people give up.

But you cannot be successful if you quit.

I've heard different mentors say things along the same line: just 10 minutes a day, do one thing each day, just keep swimming (nemo reference, cause why not.) This is the simplest truth- cause yes, if you keep making progress even small progress, you will eventually reach your goals. But the harder part of this advice is that you will still have a messy middle. You will want to give up a thousand times. You will have to keep deciding over and over that you still want this bigger harder thing more than you want your comfort.

And you may need to complete more than one thing a day or 10 minutes at a time. You may need to sacrifice a weekend, or all of them, for a short time. People aren't sharing how hard it is to make it. They aren't sharing how it took all of their savings to get their business off the ground, or all of their free time for years. And it's doing you a disservice. You think other people are finding overwhelming instant success. But everyone starts at zero. Yes, some people find success faster because of who they know and those people will always be ahead. But the average person doesn't get to skip to the good part. We have to do the work. We have to long for greatness. We have to long for when it gets easier. Because if we don't, we won't find it.

If instead of wishing time would move us farther down our path, we simply appreciated that we didn't give up and celebrated our wins along the way, we would be much happier. Everything happens how it's supposed to happen, when it's supposed to happen. You're not late. You're right on time.

"If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading." -Lao Tzu

I am right there in the faster boat with you. Every time I get a new idea or project going, I get frustrated somewhere in the middle that the winds feel slower for me than for other people. And then I remind myself that I'm not in a race. I just want to be better today than I was yesterday. And that makes the journey better.

Warmest regards,