Exercising Patience During Silent Progress

Growth and improvement occur in all forms. However, not all of them are visible to our senses or measurable through tangible metrics. You can’t put a finger on it and say, “it’s moving.”

Like a seed planted in the soil, waiting to germinate. With every passing moment, it is growing, getting closer to becoming a tree, but the progress is silent. 

That analogy can be applied to various facets of human life. 

When you are working at your job, you get an appraisal at the end of the year. The effort you put in every day contributes to that success. But again, like the seed, it’s invisible. For the majority of the days throughout the year, it won’t feel like you are going somewhere.

During those moments, you need to exercise patience. If you don’t, then whatever work you’ve put in so far will go to waste. Think about pulling the seed out of the ground to check if it has germinated. Not only will it never grow, but it will also die after a while.

In this article, let’s look at the mindset you need to develop and the thought pipelines you must establish to successfully exercise patience during phases of silent progress.

Reiterating the plan to yourself

My long-term goal in life is to become an independent content creator. Over the past few years, I’ve inched a lot closer to that goal in many ways. For instance, I’ve built the discipline needed to create content consistently. Learned the ins and outs of videography and more.

However, the elephant in the room still remains: the work.

To become a successful YouTuber, I must create good videos that people like to watch. And to get good, I must put in the volume. Repetition is the only way to callous the mind and improve skills in any realm of human endeavour, including content creation.

When the anxiety shoots up, because it’s been years and I am still grinding with a tall, unforgiving mountain to climb, I must recall the grand strategy.

It’s supposed to take this long because I started with nothing but a dream. It took me years to create an environment where growth is possible, and then put in the work that leads to the aforementioned growth.

And this type of progress happens slowly.

The daily pain of the grind can lead to self-doubt and depression. I’ve dealt with both of them, and in those dark, lonely moments, I simply look at how far I’ve come. This reinforces the belief that I still have what it takes, as long as I keep pushing, and I am.

It’s supposed to be difficult

The second aspect of being patient when things appear to be still when you are working your ass off is to acknowledge the price of chasing your dream. Suffering and hardship are crucial to shaping your character.

And hard feels shitty. You feel exhausted most of the time because of the magnitude of the tasks. You feel isolated and alone because you literally are by yourself on this path. 

That’s what hard feels like. It’s not a pleasurable experience. Growth means change, and change is difficult. 

In these situations, I tell myself that this is the price of chasing your dream. Staying in the uncomfortable is what you must be okay with if you want to have a shot at greatness in any form, not just in terms of career or money.

Every night I lie on the bed, my body aches. My eyes hurt from staring at the screen too long. Sometimes I experience pain in my neck and lower back.

All good. It’s just part of the process. Like pleasure, pain, too, is temporary.

Creating an off-switch

The practical problem of being anxious is that it messes with your adrenal glands, leading to a late-night adrenaline spike. This affects your sleep schedule because your heart is practically pounding out of your chest.

And it is all psychological. The lack of calmness emanates from the absence of immediate results, something that modern technology has made us accustomed to. 

Hence, I worked hard to figure out a mental solution. The inner dialogue should take the mind on a path that leads to a place of truth and calm. So, I started listing out the facts:

• I’ve done everything I was supposed to today.

• The results of these actions, at least the mercantile ones, will arrive sometime in the future, and I have zero control over that timeline.

• Currently, I should rest and recover, so I can do it all over again tomorrow.

That and some soothing music to calm the nerves will do the trick. I practiced this mental exercise a few times with a moderate level of success. Like everything, this will also take practice, especially because I’ve been living on the edge for many years now.

Work is the reward

An extension of the off switch is how I perceive the efforts I put in every day. A few months ago, I created ‘the Championship Formula,’ which is a set of statements that keep my mind in the right direction, especially during tough moments.

One of the points mentioned there is, ‘work is the path, you are the destination.’

If you expand that statement, it evolves the perception around the everyday grind. Rather than seeing the work you put in as the effort that goes to waste, look at it as the individual bricks you lay to build your castle.

Somewhere else on the internet, I’ve heard ‘every rejection is a brick in my palace,’ which also fits the situation perfectly.

But, I don’t want to see my content creation efforts as ‘rejection,’ despite the fact that the majority of them won’t garner any attention whatsoever.

Rather, I prefer to look at them as the prize. The true reward of a hard day is a complete to-do list. Interestingly, I look at the to-do list as my ‘daily wins’ list because it mentions the opportunities that I managed to capitalize on in a given day.

The best part is that I get the reward as soon as I complete a particular task. The moment I post an article or a video, that’s when I win.

Drawing from my past experiences

When I started bodybuilding for the first time, it took me about eight months before I started seeing any tangible results. Similarly, my content writing skills were nowhere four years ago compared to today.

Right now, I have visible abs and can write a 2000 word article within three damn hours (without the final editing, of course).

It took me thousands of hours of consistent practice and endless sacrifices to get to this level and reap the rewards. In practice, that translates to years.

I must adopt the same approach toward videography. Just like I granted myself a dynamic timescale to level up in the world of calisthenics and content writing, the suit must be followed for my upcoming YouTube career.

Again, as disheartening as it may sound, it could take me years before I get even close to making my first dollar. I probably have to make five hundred more videos for that.

When I was younger, I was a lot more anxious and impatient. However, currently, I possess the mental tools to deal with the situation. I know how to reward myself after wrapping up a task and how to calm my mind down after a tough day.

Additionally, I can draw on my past achievements in various fields to keep reinforcing self-belief, which is pivotal for continuing down this path.

Next steps: Prepared for hell

For all I know, this volume and complexity of work will continue forever. There is no finish line in life, and if not this, there will be something else. Frankly, I can’t thank my younger self enough for making all those sacrifices to get to the position I am in today.

I am fortunate to be in a position where I can simply focus on creating content and working toward my dream. Most of the individuals, my past self included, live in quite desperation, where they die a bit each day.

That’s not the case for me at present. 

This perspective gives me unlimited energy to push through tough days that are jam-packed with deep work sessions from start to finish. 

Yes, it’s tough and often is excruciating.

But what else am I supposed to do?

Until next time,

Tara