Here is the deal. I create a process that I have every reason to believe that it will produce successful results for me. I start down the path and then sometime in the future I do not get great results right away, so I quit.
This above sentence is true in life, business and my personal health. I used to think this was a problem unique to myself, however, I have learned as I have talked to more people about this problem that it is very common, even ubiquitous. You see that this is a human trait. We all do this in some manner, so there is no use feeling shameful about it.
Instead I think we need to own it, recognize the problem and deal with it head on. But how?
My first suggestion is around habit formation. If you can identify something that you absolutely know will benefit you, over the long term, then that is a perfect candidate for habit. If you can create a habit out of something like that it will, eventually, positively impact you for good. Once the habit is formed, then you are no longer worried about results. You just simply do it. The compounding effect of the habit’s impact on you will eventually kick in and you will see results. There is this tipping point that occurs. It seems that there is a certain amount of natural resistance against change, but eventually the combined weight of your the success that you build with habits will eventually crush the resistance. So my first advice – create good habits. Focus on that first.
Whereas, I have had some success on my first suggestion, my second one I continue to struggle with. The most difficult things to deal with are the ones that take a long time to overcome. Measured in years. I am far to impatient for this and therefore I am opt to change midstream before the process that is in place has time to even take effect. This applies to many areas of my life, but the easy one to pick on is weight loss. Now I have had some success losing weight and more importantly improving my physique. However, now that I am at this point, the long haul is what is becoming real important. I think of it like this. It took me 20 years to get out of shape, it is silly for me to think that I can reverse that in just 2 months! Same concept applies to almost everything. I took me 20 years to become financially irresponsible, it is not going to get fixed in 1 month of keeping a budget. Being patient is the first key, but more importantly maintaining faith in the process that you create for an extended period of time is critical.
How much time should you trust your process before you decide to try something else? This is the challenge I am working on now. I think a good approach is to have a way to dispassionately look at incremental progress. After 3 months, do you have something you can look at to make a determination if any progress is being made at all? That is the key question and the toughest part. Picking on weight loss again. You could use a scale, measure yourself in 3 months and that would be an objective measure – kinda. A better one would be body fat percentage. If you had a way to measure that and then in 3 months, you did not have a positive change, then you could say that whatever you are doing is not working and that you need a change.
So on a long term objective, with a process that you are following to get there then it is important to establish a time frame to check in that is appropriate and a measuring tool that will give you an objective view of your progress. This is very difficult to do, it requires patience and structure. Which is the chief reason why I fail at it all the time. However, the first step to progress is understanding the real problem, right?
Guy Reams
