Good things take time
Expect anything worthwhile, to take time — Debbie Millman
Tim was a childhood trainspotter.
He spent hours on end tinkering with a model railway. He taught himself the fundamentals of electronics. At the age of 21, with a degree in Physics from Oxford University, Tim had made his first computer using a soldering iron and an old television.
Thirteen years later, in 1989, he submitted an initial proposal for the universal linked information system. Two years later, this initial proposal led to the birth of the world wide web. These days what was initially a tool to resolve organisation challenges for communication has now evolved into an instrument able to create almost utopian dreams of social change.
Those last two years were merely the culmination of endless hours of foundational work that Berners-Lee did in the 1980s at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN). It had taken more than a decade!
In this era of immediate self-gratification, one of the greatest yet inherent fallacy of our culture is the moment we “summit our mountain”; the I’ve made it moment! We have struggled to get somewhere, and when we do, it is all-encompassing. But we have forgotten the hustle. We often see others living our dream lives, but we fail to see the challenging journey that came before.
As children, we always get asked what we want to be when we grow up. I remember wanting to be a commercial pilot for a major part of my childhood. But I now wonder if I knew the effort that preceded that goal. The number of pre-requisite flying time and a financial outlay necessary to log those times, and Would my answers still be the same?
I recently heard a talk where a child’s response to the same question was “everything”. And it begs the question — if we could you accept the aeons of pain, the struggles, the sweat, blood, the toil and then perhaps the summit. As someone famous once said, everyone wants to go to heaven, but we must first die!
By the time a professional sportsperson has reached the top, they have been playing for decades. A squillion hours of practice has gone into things. Andrew Agassi, in his book, Open: An Autobiography talks about the rigours faced when his father coached him in his early years. He recalls all the times in his backyard, hitting balls against a machine that would shoot up the tennis balls on a court with a net raised 6 inches above regulation for a stricter practice. At the age of 7, young Andrew was hitting his daily quota of 2500 balls.
In pursuing our goals, often we are trained to direct a disproportionate amount of attention to the result leading us to neglect the route.
Prioritising the process makes the journey is crucial, and be aware of:
Leaning into the Dip
Seth Godin, in his 2006 classic titled The Dip speaks of an interesting phenomenon associated with all pursuits.
The concept that when we pursue something, there is the initial novelty and sexiness with it until it also becomes mundane and no longer new. Between starting and reaching a certain level of mastery, there is always a time of struggle when we have the choice to continue or quit. This phase of the journey is the curve, Godin calls the dip; with success more likely assured to those that firstly recognise and then lean into the dip.
Far too often, it seems the downward curve turns us away, scares us into retreating and typically becomes the difference between the finishers and quitters. To achieve goals, one must recognise this dip. And then either lean into it or (realise early enough and) quit — while quitting is not necessarily bad, let’s chat about that another time!
The great lie of diversification
Is breadth the more important trait to have or being an expert at one single thing! We live in a world that celebrates people that have an opinion.
I wrote in an earlier post that, in fact, it was one of the greatest disgraces that we may not have an idea. But to avoid shame, our borrowed opinions become our own, whether we agree or not. We become a society of jacks, where there are few masters of their trade.
A fearful kind of living, a strange sense of being afraid of non-abundance. That someone else may get ahead of us sooner than us. So we try and be everything!
We believe the most significant lie we have told ourselves; the sooner we speak and the more confident we appear, the further we will get. We fake it to make it.
Making small daily gains
History has always appeared to reward the giant leaps. From traversing the summit of the highest point on earth in 1953 to taking that giant leap on the moon in 1969, significant achievements have always required an enormous jump. Or that is what the world asks us to believe.
If running a marathon requires me to begin with running one, it is unlikely as it requires an extensive amount of motivation to run that 42 km. Often the weight of this first significant effort is enough to demotivate me never to run.
In The Progress Principle, researchers and authors Teresa Ambile and Steven Kramer talk about small wins being significant predictors of well-being at work. Ambile and Kramer analysed responses of 12000 journal entries with almost 238 workers from seven companies, whose job mainly revolved around creative productivity.
The individuals in this research reported a sense of progress when they achieved smaller goals they had purposefully designed (keeping in line with the bigger goals). It was these little successes that worked as catalysts and kept them going for more. The authors believed that it was this inherent fact that drove the overall performance in well-run organisations.
The little wins provide the drive to create those giant leaps. Often these wins are what reinforce our belief in ourselves to keep going. So to run that marathon someday, perhaps I begin by running a kilometre today and add a quarter to my session regularly. It is, in fact, far more manageable and, most importantly, not as overwhelming!
And so
We all want things in life. The world asks of all of us to be the smartest, the wealthiest, the happiest, the fastest. Not to only win the race, but to also be the (b)-est!
As Keith Payne writes in The Broken Ladder, although our priorities may be different, a desire for something more is an impulse we have had even as primates.
Our culture makes us spend a significant amount of time telling us and making us think about the end. Mostly unnecessarily!
The path, the process of the journey, is what eventually leads to the goal. And this journey takes time. All good things do- but we need to be aware of:
- The Dip — Anything we pursue in life will come with its own set of challenges. Every journey has its hardness and mundane phases intertwined within it. Getting to the end requires us to recognise these and lean into them to get through.
- Blocking our cultural call to diversify — Of course, the world will ask of you to know everything about everything. And although appearing to know everything may give us a sense that we have arrived at “level expert”, — but this is untrue. It is simply impossible. Most of the people we label as successful have toiled and worked hard to get to the pedestals we place them on. It is essential to see the steps they have climbed get there!
- Making small daily gains — Starting little makes it easier to motivate ourselves with bite-sized chunks rather than try and swallow the bun! Incremental growth brings synergy and allows for compound growth over time.
Thinking about the outcome feels right because it is almost romanticising the concept. However, the process and realising the time it takes is the hard and mundane part.
And while these points are in no way a path to success, it is crucial to be aware of them.
Because often, we become our biggest hindrances to what we set out to achieve.
