Patient With The Outcome, Urgent With The Process

Good habits, practiced consistently, create each piece of a great life.

But the benefits of good habits are not immediately visible.

Instead, they’re really hard to see at first. Good habits often feel like they’re taking up your time and creating pointless pain because there’s no immediate gratification for them.

Reading books. Practicing meditation. Eating well.

These things all eventually create an amazing life by building wisdom, by calming the mind, and by nurturing the body.

But at first, they seem to suck. Take too much time. Feel boring. Taste less good.

That’s why to make progress in any aspect of your life, you must be patient with the outcome but urgent with the process.

Urgent with the process means not putting things off until tomorrow. Not indulging in bad habits by rationalizing it as just once. Not telling yourself you can make it up in the future.

But taking massive action now. Being consistent with practicing your good habits.

Even if there’s no immediate difference in outcome. Because that’s how good habits work.

They add up, day after day. Drip by drip.

Until one day, you look up and realize what a massive difference they’ve made.

Sometimes, there’s luck involved. Some people get great outcomes after just a few weeks, others have to wait a few years.

It’s good to measure whether your approach is making progress toward achieving your goal. Like weighing yourself on a scale or keeping daily track of your startup's key metrics. And it’s good to search for ways to improve that outcome and to achieve it faster. That data is required to optimize your approach.

But it’s not good to feel frustrated with the fact that you haven’t achieved it after X days like Y person. If you’re arbitrarily counting the days until you achieve the outcome, you’re going to run out of time and frustrate yourself along the way.

So, tackle the process with urgency. Practice the best habits and periodically evaluate your progress.

But be patient with the achievement yourself. If you live by your values, focus on the person you're becoming, and maintain the best habits, you will achieve the outcome in time.

You must have faith in the process working out in time, while executing it urgently.