I recently finished a new book by Mattaniah Harp: Rise: Fundamental Patterns of Servant Leaders, a collection of short meditations. I selected a sample of six and asked my Facebook group members, the Ambitious Accountability Ambassadors (“Ambacams”), to choose the focus of this blog post. The meditation with the most votes was:
Do not become frustrated with slow progress
I shared the chosen meditation directly with the author during a meeting of a community of entrepreneurs in Rochester, NY, and asked him for his spontaneous thoughts about it. He immediately acknowledged that the frustration is real and confessed to it being a challenge for him as well. He emphasized the importance of noticing your frustration trigger(s), and offered some suggestions for what to do when you feel it coming on. I’ll list some here, with my own interpretation in parentheses:
- Focus on the goal. (Remember why you are doing what you are doing. Visualize the achievement of your goal and how it will enable you to be of greater service to others. This can give you the push you need to power through.)
- Maybe you are approaching the end goal from the wrong direction. Shift your perspective. Do parts of that expected completion pattern in reverse order. (It may be the step you are on that is getting you stuck right now. Perhaps start at the end and work your way to the beginning, or take some other non-traditional path to completion. You’ll likely gain some insights along the way that you hadn’t noticed while you were narrowly focused on your determination to just get it done.)
- Go back and tackle something different. (Sometimes you need to take a break. You can step away and remain productive by addressing another, unrelated to-do that needs doing. Then, get back to your primary focus.)
- You need an outlet for your frustration. (Exercise, listen to an inspirational podcast, or find some other healthy way of working through the negative energy so you can come back refreshed and ready to work.)
As with anything, how you respond to slow progress depends on how you label it. Ideally, you are able to move from frustration to acceptance and ultimately, to gratitude. You are meant to GROW throughout your journey. It would be a shame to miss out on learning opportunities because you’re moving too fast.
“Trust the process.”
-Sean McDermott, Buffalo Bills Head Coach
Think about your top 3 most significant accomplishments in your career/life. For each, most likely there were many steps that needed to be thoughtfully considered and executed. Skipping or accelerating those steps would have compromised your success. Maybe you could have achieved similar results with faster progress but if so, would they have been appointed to the prestigious placement in your top 3? With that in mind, I will close by sharing Harp’s meditation that received the second highest number of votes from the Ambacams:
Do not entertain shortcuts to greater successes
Hard work always pays off. Just keep moving! The best is yet to come.
Originally published May 24, 2020 on www.kiddenprep.com
