The Habit of Making Progress

How long does it take for a tree to grow? That's an interesting question, because there are a thousand answers. You can say it takes a tree ten years, you can say that a tree grows a little every day. It can take a lifetime, or two, or three lifetimes! But, when you watch a tree, when you look at it in your yard or through your window you can't see very much change unless you look for specific markers of change. You don't see change unless something dramatic happens, like it gets hit by lightning.

Our personal growth is like this, too. In our fitness journey, or, indeed, through the process of life, we grow and change and continue that change daily. That change is also generally imperceptible unless we look for markers of the progress or unless something drastic happens. 

Today, I hope we can take a meaningful look at that change, how we perceive and judge that change, and how we can appreciate the process more than the markers of change. 

A big selling point in the fitness industry (or really in marketing in general) is results. What do you become through a program? What end result is this product promising? 6 pack abs or a smaller shirt size, or doing 85 pullups, or a BRAND NEW CAR!!!! 

Well, maybe not the car. 

The point is that those who sell products are really generally trying to sell the image of the result of buying said product. You can become different (while promising you that said change is better, and therefore you will be happier). What you are receiving, along with your product, is an assurance, a mental image, of how you will be in the future. 

I believe that this is pretty much unavoidable in sales and marketing. It's neither good nor bad. But it's probably beneficial to be aware of this aspect of desire and fulfillment. 

All life is driven by change and change is inevitable, so we should pursue positive change, right? It's noble to pursue lofty goals and personal growth. That's what we're told. I believe there's a way to be, to conceive of that change, that makes the process easier to attain and more fulfilling in the doing.

What is the result of being driven by results?

I think the first and most obvious point is that we're generally unsatisfied until we achieve that result. If you're looking for 6 pack abs, our mind constructs an image of what that SHOULD be. And our mind compares how we perceive ourselves to be in relation to that preconception. If those, inevitably, don't line up, we are setting ourselves up for failure. 

If we are looking for an image of ourselves with abs, we miss all the little changes and successes on the way. Even if we don't, it can be easy to miss those changes. Perhaps, through our process of getting 6 pack abs, we become stronger and more capable of other physical abilities, or we gain fortitude or patience. But since our goal is ABS, we can miss those other, smaller, changes that we weren't training for explicitly. 

Let's change our focus. 

Each spring, when the weather warms and the sun is out for longer, and the rain falls, new growth begins again. Imperceptibly, buds form, and then leaves, and then flowers. 

Suddenly, that tree is in bloom! We noticed some changes, yeah, but one day it seems to have transformed completely!

The tree doesn't care for a particular stage of that transformation. In fact, it probably doesn't feel like being in full bloom is an end point at all. Those flowers will fall, and then the leaves, and then it will be bare and covered with snow. 

And then it starts again.

In our lives, we, too go through cycles. 

We might have six pack abs one day. And then in a few years we might gain weight, lose our hair, get a new car. And a few years later we might have 6 pack abs again. We might be able to pick out milestones, but all of that is looking at a freeze frame, a thumbnail, along the way. 

So with that in mind how do we progress?

I would argue that we should stop looking at a wellness journey, a fitness journey, as if we're looking for an end point. 

Each day we show up on the mat or at the doors of the gym, we can grow in that practice. 

How did you feel doing the exercises?

How did it help you see yourself? Did you learn how you approach challenges?

Maybe you felt strong that day, maybe you didn't. 

Maybe you were punishing yourself for eating too much cake. 

Maybe you were present and enjoying your body as it moves. 

Sometimes we come to movement from injury and need to rehabilitate. 

Sometimes we come to movement through pleasure and it's a hobby or game. 

But just like the tree there is imperceptible growth every day. 

This is the habit of movement, and a way of approaching it as a continual transformation instead of a means to an end. 

Certainly we might end up with six pack abs, and that should be celebrated, but we can know that, no matter how beautiful those abs are, just like the flowers in spring, they are the mark of the process of change and impermanent.

I am certainly not saying that it's wrong to have goals! But if we can keep the goal secondary to the process, we might be able to enjoy focusing on each step of the way, instead of focusing on an imagined point in the nebulous future that will, inevitably, never arrive in the way we've think it should be. 

Learn to enjoy that little growth we see every day. 

Have a great day growing, my friend!