We often focus on the short term. Thirsting for immediate feedback. Seeking results, we want them quickly.
However, most meaningful change will be preceded by longer term actions and inputs. Weeks, months and years.
This path relies on patience. It requires discipline. It demands focus.
Being able to eventually run a marathon means increasing mileage over many months.
Earning that promotion will only come if we put in months, and more oftentimes years, worth of effort and consistency. Turning up like the professional we are, day in and day out, along the way.
Achieving meaningful lifestyle changes will require us to put a plan in place, supported by habits and tools that backup that plan.
Overnight success stories and ‘hacks’ make for great headline reading and linkbait. Meaningful change is not so fast to manifest. In many ways, this is a good thing. If it was overnight, we would be unlikely to value it.
Nurturing the Seeds We Plant
Consistency. Turning up again and again. Striving. Keeping the goal, the goal. This is the true language of change and achievement.
This mindset shift can focus our efforts.
To set ourselves up to succeed, we can take the pressure off immediate changes and play for the long haul instead. We can establish small steps, strung together over the long term to support real-world transformation.
We can ask ourselves the following question as we go:
What seeds can we plant today, and nurture, to then reap the rewards from in the future?