Maintain Patience, Effort and Consistency in Achieving Your Goals

When impatience comes up for me, I always wonder how deep this patience well can go. It's never ending. The practice of patience is never ending. There is always a test that comes up each and every week or even every day for some of us. Whether the test takes place at our work, in our relationships, our daily interactions with the world, with our family, and the list could go on.

One of my favourite scenarios where patience gets tested is when we land at the airport and have to wait for our bags at the baggage carousel. We all hope to see our bag come out first so that we can move on out to the arrival hall but instead on this day, we wait and wait and wait. As if we can rush time. And I feel airports and everything that goes with flying tests one's patience. To learn to be at ease during this time is a powerful lesson to own. Moreso, if you're a real impatient person. If you are, get curious about that.

P.S. I thoroughly enjoy flying and all things travel related. And the difficulties that sometimes accompany the act.

When we think about the things we want to achieve or the goals we we set for ourselves that we would like to hit, we tend to underestimate how long it will actually take to fulfil these goals in their entirety. Thus the feeling of giving up strikes sooner than we necessarily would like.

Questions like: Why is it taking so long? Am I doing the correct things to move me closer to hitting my goal? Is there be a quicker way? Should I find a teacher or mentor of sorts to help me gauge where I am on this journey? Am I being as consistent as I think I am?

And these are great questions to ask and reflect upon. We're capable of lying to ourselves even if they're tiny white lies and we convince ourselves that we are actually putting in the work. How do we know? Are we recording or tracking our progress some how and by some means? This will allow us to look back at our days and see the data/concrete information that indeed we have been doing the work and what exactly we have been up to. And if think it's a bit OCD to track everything, know that everything doesn't have to be tracked/recorded. Only that which pertains to your goal. Of course if interested in recording other things, you're free to do so e.g. tracking calories if your goal is to lose weight or gain weight is one example yet there are many others too.

The thing about setting goals is that as we announce it out loud to ourselves and or others we actually get a hit of satisfaction in advance. It feels good to just set the goal itself and proclaim that we will work towards doing it. The downside to this is that for many it feels so good already that taking action and taking the steps towards that goal becomes a secondary kind of thing. Meaning, the most challenging part is not setting the goal although it may seem so when one actually sits down to formulate them, but instead, beginning from where one is and going for it by putting in the effort.

If there's one thing I learnt 10 years ago when I first stumbled upon some incredible/gem-like information was that one has to

Realize that results are not in your hands, the effort you put in is.

I'd have this written on my skateboard, on the grip tape itself (in a silver marker), so that I'd see it every time I went out for a session. It'd be my reminder or anchor throughout my days as I went about moving in the direction I wanted back then. The reason why it was so powerful to learn this way back then is that we cannot control the results, but what we can control is the amount of effort that goes into the endeavor/journey. The effort is up to US. And it's very freeing to know this. Raw and real. When things aren't going as planned, looking back at ones effort it can show us the facts.

This is also a reminder that those that we feel that become successful overnight really do not. Instead, it has been effort compounded over a long period of time and longer than we can imagine to reach the so-called peak or develop the skills required to bring about the "success". There is no overnight success. We post up all the goodness on social media but not everyone is willing to share the behind-the-scenes efforts that got them to where they are today. It just isn't sexy. However, when a person does share this in whatever way they do, it connects to us on a deeper level, a more human level. We feel like it's possible for us too. We get inspired and motivated to get out there and put the effort in. Be it the RIGHT EFFORT.

So after scribbling this down, the point here is to make a solid effort at the thing you are going after. To understand that it'll always take way longer than you expect. To do a little bit every single day is far superior than doing something once a week (we lose momentum). 20-30 minutes a day goes a long way and compounds over time. Effort adds up and where you could be a year from now is unimaginable. Begin to notice when your patience gets tested and get curious about it. Investigate the uneasiness.

"Do not wait until the conditions are perfect to begin; beginning makes the conditions perfect" – Alan Cohen

It is never, never, never too late to begin!

If you've made it this far, thank you for reading and maybe this resonates with YOU.

Comment below and or share this with someone who could use a bit of insight.

A green view from Victoria Peak, Hong Kong