Progress is amazing. There is nothing like making big strides in your life. Nothing like it. The euphoria is incredible. The feeling of knowing that you are more than what you once was. Whether it’s excelling in your professional life – getting a promotion, finding a more lucrative job. Or whether it’s excelling in your personal life – improving your speaking capability in a new language, embarking on your first solo travel.
Progress is the best measuring stick for self-improvement. If you have progressed in something then you have improved yourself. You have added more to your repertoire and more to your life experience. No matter what you do, the end goal should always be progress. It can be tangible (a house) or intangible (a job promotion), but progress nevertheless.
The future starts now
The more progress we make today, the better our tomorrow will be. If we apply this consistently to every day, then soon enough we will have made great strides that we can look back on and be proud of. Think of something you have achieved recently or somewhere where you have made progress. Do you remember the first step you took to get to where you are now? Can you see the big strides you have made? If you can’t see the progress then what do you need to do to ensure that you do make progress?
Most people only see successful people as they are – successful. Most don’t see the years of work it took to get there. The countless hours, daily, to just progress. Look beneath their image and you will see what had to be done for anyone successful in a particular field to reach that stage.
The future has always and will always start now. A good question to ask ourselves is ‘what can I do today to bring me one step closer to reaching my goal tomorrow?’ This way we’re making sure we do as much as possible today because we’ve identified tomorrow as the time to reach the goal. Although it may not be realistic that’s fine. The point is that it encourages urgency today to make things happen. So that tomorrow we are one step closer to reaching our goal.
One brick at a time
How does one go about building a house? One brick at a time. Until the job is done. By setting small goals daily. Today the goal could be to build and fit the front door. Tomorrow the goal could be to fit the back windows. By dividing a task into small goals that you can work on immediately, you create a plan of action for yourself. Focus on the small things. Small, incremental progress is the key.
In relation to our own goals, we can look at ourselves as bricklayers. Show up every day and lay a brick as perfectly as we can. Do the same thing tomorrow. Then the next day. And soon we will have built ourselves a house that we can thrive in.
To end this blog I’d like to insert a quote from the great actor Will Smith, which perfectly sums up the point I am trying to make.
“You don’t set out to build a wall. You don’t say I’m going to build the biggest, baddest greatest wall that’s ever been built. You don’t start there. You say I’m going to lay this brick as perfectly as a brick can be laid. You do that every single day. And soon you have a wall”
Will Smith
Thanks for reading.
With love,
Tony.
