We all want success. And we all have those times where we wonder if it's ever going to happen at all.
But if you feel like your progress is slow, don't fight against that for a moment. Sit with it.
What makes you think it is "slow" - what are you comparing it against, to decide that something should be happening faster?
Slow is a comparative term, implying that there is a standard against which your progress is measured. Before simply thinking, "How can I make all this happen faster?" - just ask yourself, why do I think I need to be anywhere other than where I am right now?
Of course, if you've been working at this a while, its natural to want it to come together, to be all the things you have seen in your dreams and just want to happen already!!
But so often the feeling of wanting to be somewhere else already, to be further along, for things to happen faster and bigger and better - that comes from a comparison. Comparing our journey to others, and seeing their apparent "overnight" success, and wondering if we are failing. Comparing our journey to some external standard - often one we aren't even fully aware of - but just unconsciously measure ourselves by on a daily basis, as if there is some set qualifier that determines what success is. (And of course, that goal post will always move and you will never quite measure up.)
Instead of following that feeling of pressure that things should be different right now, sit with it a moment.
What if you are already exactly where you need to be? What if you are not running behind, things are not happening too slowly, but that everything is happening in the perfect timing for you and your life?
Overnight success takes years!
The thing with overnight success is, it normally is years and years in the making - it's just that it happens mostly unseen, and all we see is once it breaks the threshold and gets noticed.
Occasionally there will be stories of literal overnight success - but those are rare. And if it happens to someone, that is part of their story and journey - not yours. Even when we think we want exactly what someone else has, we don't. If we set aside the comparison, and get to the heart of what we truly want - we don't want to be anyone else, living anyone else's life. We want to be more fully ourselves. Living a life deeply planted in our own purpose, no one else's.
The times we don't feel that, there is simply something getting in the way, like a belief that what we really want for ourselves isn't possible. And so we begin to wish we were something or someone else, or we try to be more like others, the people for whom we think these things are possible, so we must have to be like them.
But the opposite is true. While we can draw inspiration and learning from others, the only way to be truly successful in a way that fulfils and sustains you, is to me more you. And you cannot look to anyone else to tell you what that means for your journey.
The feeling of rushing, this sense that you are somehow behind and need things to happen faster - it comes from an attempt to outrun your fears that you are not enough and never will be. And maybe, just maybe, if you could figure out how to make it happen now, then you would feel okay.
But instead of agreeing with that feeling, and so then striving and hustling every day to "make it happen" and obsessing over every little detail, or stressing about every word or post or move you make in your business as if it is the one that could make or break you....
What if you just take a breath and tune in to what you really want. Because it for sure is not the striving and hustle that makes you feel like you're falling behind and will never catch up.
What if instead of overnight success, slow and steady is actually a wonderful gift from the universe.
Because what looks like not much at first on the surface, is actually the tree deepening and spreading its roots.
A strong foundation for something that lasts.
Do you want to shoot up overnight - with obvious growth where everyone can see and you feel like, Yes, something is happening! - only to be knocked over in the first wind because you were not firmly planted?
Or can you look deeper, and see all the ways you are becoming so deeply and securely rooted in your own soul, that when the growth happens, you cannot be shaken?
In a few years time, you will look back and see how much growth has happened, how much everything in your life has quietly blossomed and grown fruit in the right time and season, and you will be grateful for those deep nourishing roots. All those years of growth under the surface that no one could see, building a strong foundation for a life and business and purpose that sustains you through anything. That is resilient in any weather, in any circumstances, for years and years to come. That bears enough fruit not just for a few bites and then it's over, but more than enough for you and for others.
When you look around one day and see how many people are enjoying the shade of that tree, you will be so glad you didn't settle for the speedy-but-weedy sapling you thought you wanted!!
So when you find yourself wishing things were happening faster - just stop and think, is that what you really want? Or when you look ahead to that tall, spreading, deeply rooted tree in your future, are you willing to wait for that? Are you willing to trust the day by day growth, even when it's unseen?
If you can stay intentionally connected to that vision, then that will change the way you feel and act each day.
Rather than striving for whatever you think will make the growth happen, and feeling knocked about by the highs and lows, flashes of success, followed by disappointment - what would you do today, if you knew it was all happening in the perfect timing?
If you knew that you were growing deep roots not just flashy leaves.
Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash
What would you do today, if you lived from that place of certainty?
If you knew there was no rush...
What content would you create?
How would you structure your day?
How would you relax into flow, if you weren't stressed about missing something?
How would you show up for yourself and your business today, if you felt steady and certain in being exactly where you're meant to be right now - instead of always thinking you've got to be something, someone, or somewhere else different?
Would you be checking and rechecking your notifications 10 times a day, flip-flopping on a million ideas trying to figure out which one to do next, throwing so much spaghetti at the wall just trying to find the thing that makes it all stick....
Or would you just simply and confidently be making a plan, and following through. Without rushing, without stress, without being pulled in a million directions, without changing your mind every other day because you're worrying that what you're doing isn't going to work...
Just a steady commitment to tuning in to what your soul and body already knows, and going about everything with the sense of peace and joy that comes from knowing it is all as it is meant to be!
You Have Enough Time
What if the delays you think you keep running into, are actually just the universe feeding and watering the growing roots? Nurturing you to become unshakeable, instead of letting you shoot up now only to wilt just as fast.
Take the time to deepen into what you really want, and how you really want to live.
Even if your time of foundation-building seems to take longer than you thought it would, or longer than it appears to for other people, remember that this is your journey and no one else's. Your soul and the universe, together, creating something perfect for you.
And then you will find a different sense of time - instead of feeling like things are always too slow, and there is never enough time, you will have more and more experiences that seem to warp time!
Like when you get into flow and time passes in a flash, or when things seem to slow down or just line themselves up. And suddenly something that seemed impossible is now happening with ease.
This is what happens when you live from that inner place of knowing, instead of outer, external comparison.
When the time is right, it can feel like suddenly everything that seem so far off, has arrived on your doorstep all at once.
But the difference is, you're ready for it now, because you grew your roots first.