It happens to everyone, and I’ll admit it nabs me pretty well a lot of the time.
The cultural obsession with making “progress.”
Hustle culture. Self-improvement culture. Entrepreneurial culture. Gym culture. Lifestyle culture. Coaching culture. Business culture.
We live in an era where we want to see — and often expect to see — forward movement, all the time.
I have a habit of getting caught up in it, and especially in the story that
I’m not making progress.
What does that even mean?
How do we measure it?
How we we know the measurement is valid?
Any measurement, by its nature, will be in some linear form. That’s what metrics are. Hard numbers are linear. We want them to go in one direction.
Assets should go up, while weight on the scale should go down.
But most real things in life aren’t so linear.
Think of the things you do daily, or maybe weekly.
You take a shower in the morning. You sweat and get dirty during the day, so you take another shower in the evening. Last week, on a hot day, I took three showers.
Did I complain about not making “progress?” Did I complain about “regressing?” because I got dirty and sweaty after taking a shower?
I did not. I took it as a fact of life: we take showers and we get sweaty and we take another shower. That’s how it works.
Same for laundry. Whatever cadence you have for doing laundry, you know it’s not a “once and done” thing. I do not believe that I’ve failed because my clothes got dirty again. That’s the nature of laundry: you must do it repetitively.
I ate a meal. A few hours later I was hungry again. Did I believe I was in a regression because I got hungry? Of course not. I know the body must digest its food and will eventually signal hunger sensations again.
I could go on with examples, but I think you get the point.
Measuring “progress” in these realms is just ridiculous.
This is the true nature of life: cyclical. The things important to keep life going are not “once and done” action items. They are repetitive. Cyclical.
It’s not a question of linear progress. We show up and do them on a regular schedule, whether daily, weekly, monthly, or less frequently.
Exercise. Eating meals. Laundry, Showers. Hair cuts. Taking out the garbage,
Without progress markers, they might feel mundane or boring, but they are not meant to be earth-shattering and thrilling. They are the foundations of living, the practical things we do each day to keep life moving forward.
Perhaps “progress” is really just about showing up with presence to what you’re doing, and continuing the streak for another day.
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