Good things develop over time and bad things happen in an instant. This is one of the hardest realities to deal with.
Typically, the good things in our lives don’t fall in our laps. They are a series of choices, hard work and luck that slowly build on each other. The slow, compounding growth is often hard to recognize for what it is and what it will become. It just feels like life.
Morgan Housel puts it like this: "Progress happens too slowly to notice but setbacks happen too quickly to ignore”
It’s impossible to miss a setback. Problems hit us head-on. They’re easy to identify so they end up becoming the markers in our timeline when we reflect back.
I can easily rattle off the list of setbacks and mistakes I’ve made running Ambler for the last 15 years because they felt like a specific event. Progress and wins take time and grow slowly so they don’t have a time stamp in my memory.
So how do we recognize the good things that are brewing and build upon them? How do we identify and celebrate the progress being made?
I don’t have this sorted out yet, but two things come to mind:
- Take time to reflect on what is working in our lives and write it down.
- Have friends and mentors regularly speak to us about what they see working in our life.
How do you deal with this phenomenon in your life? Do you have a way to identify and celebrate the progress you’re making?