Patience is something I am not always good at. I want to lose the 40 pounds now; save up $10k now; clear up my face of pimples now; have a perfectly clean house at all time; you get the idea. Having patience when driving is not a problem for me, but when it comes to bettering myself or my life, I get impatient when it takes forever to accomplish. I try to work on it almost daily, and many times I fail at it. Something I hear many successful people saying is growing as a person involves developing patience. To be a success, it usually doesn’t happen overnight, it takes time. Hard work, day after day, over a long period of time. The few who experience success overnight, are very few and far between. Rare. The majority of the time, it takes a long time to achieve lasting success in something.
Gary Vee talks about this a lot. He talks about how it’s the journey, not the destination, and he is so right about that. He talks about speed and patience. To have speed in keeping up with changes in society or the industry you are in and being quick to jump on trends, etc. But then to have patience when it takes a while to get to where you want to go. It’s the day to day grind, day after day.
A few posts back, I talked about starting small, and how small steps help to move the needle. Small steps also help to break the process into more achievable increments, so you don’t get overwhelmed. But the patience comes in, when you are grinding everyday at something, moving the needle slowly with small steps, and it takes a long time to see any results or get where you want.
The journey is really the single, biggest, and most profound part of achieving something. Starting, starting small, is easy so to say. Then finally achieving is exciting. But it’s the journey, the messy middle, that changes you, grows you, teaches you, and where all the lessons occur, especially patience. If you can stick with something through the messy middle, have patience and speed, you will eventually reach your desired result. I know this is true. But it is so hard, and I am willing to try this again, to get some results I so very much desire.
I have always been a goal oriented person, with very lofty goals. Currently, I am still the same, I set a lot of goals, often too high to achieve and I lose patience before I get there(that messy middle part requires patience, perseverance, and speed). My weight is a current goal. For 30 years of my life, I was 100 pounds or less (too small in my opinion), but for the past 13 years, I have been too over-weight. The weight gain happened several years ago, was caused from a back injury, and being pumped with steroids to help the pain.
Today, I am still left with the weight, and I am bound and determined to lose it the hard way, the right way, the slow and steady way…working out and eating right. No GLP-1 drugs, just old-fashioned watching what I eat, and working out. But in order to do that, I must have patience with myself and the process. It. Will. Take. Time. I can do this. If you are on a weight loss journey, you can do this too. We can do it together. Day by day, little by little. One day at a time.
If you want to join me on my journey, come check out my stories on Instagram for my daily progress. We can motivate one another, and cheer each other on through the journey; that messy middle that we hate going through. Day 1 starts today, for me. Don’t think about it too long, just start. Start with a little movement and good choices. Start tomorrow if you like, but start, no matter what.
A little food for thought, years ago, I heard a preacher on tv( I cannot remember his name, but he was a preacher in NYC in the 90s) say that “anything worthwhile takes time”. He spoke about his mother’s spaghetti sauce and how she would make it in the morning and let it simmer all day long. He said that letting it simmer and cook for several hours made it so much better. He said anyone can open a can of spaghetti sauce and warm it up, but true spaghetti sauce is best when simmered over a period of hours. Proving that anything lasting takes time.
This same thing goes with losing weight. If I lost all the weight in 1 month, I would probably look funny because I would have lost the weight too fast, thus losing muscle. But losing weight over a period of time, allows muscle to not be lost, but rather muscles built up. Toning occurs, making the body look so much better.
So if you want to join me on my weight loss journey, comment below, and then follow my journey on Instagram Stories and join in. I would love to hear your stories and journeys as well.
Remember, patience is training yourself to expect results slowly, but to work fast or be fast at tackling your goals.
