One man’s small step is another man’s giant leap

Progress is relative.

Sometimes it feels like we’re growing so slowly that we’re actually moving backwards. It’s the most frustrating feeling.

Why can’t healing be efficient and immediate? Why does everything feel so damn glacial? B

ut keep in mind, according to the second law of thermodynamics, all matter requires moving towards increasing entropy or increasing chaos. To move backwards in time would be to violate that law.

No matter how slow we are progressing time will keep on moving forward only.

And besides, even if we do relapse in our journey, that’s not the worst thing that could happen.

First of all, taking a step or two backwards is necessary to take a giant leap forward. Once we accept that as part of the journey, we can be more forgiving towards ourselves.

Second, it’s only through stepping back do we learn that we can step back. Which gives us permission to be imperfect and honor the tempo and rhythm of which we’re a natural part.

Third, relapses aren’t a shameful strike against us. They merely suggest that we let up in our efforts too soon. We weren’t firmly set in our new orbit yet, and probably just cut our engines a little early, before we got beyond the pull of gravity.

Fourth, stepping back is better than doing more with what’s not working. Taking a beat, taking a breath and trying to figure out a new approach is a smarter use of your energy than trying to force growth against its will.

Point being, whether we’re actually going backwards, or simply perceive that we’re going backwards, shouldn’t be our focus. What matters is taking a committed, decisive path. Doing so allows ourselves to get clear, immediate data from our actions.

What also matters is enjoying our progress for whatever it is. Taking chances and trying things that might not work. And the last thing that matters is not chastising ourselves for what we think we should be doing but aren’t.

Because the reality of physics is, there’s no right or wrong, good or bad, win or lose, positive or negative. There’s only what happened. There are no success or failure, there’s only the consequences of our experiments.

I remember a friend of mine was entering a rehabilitation program for depression, and he said the counselor at the outpatient clinic told him quite candidly, look, you’re going to have to do unpleasant things, every single day, for six straight months, and some of them might not even help.

And I thought, wow, could that sound any more bleak and unsatisfying? Sure hope they don’t include that mantra on the brochure.

But if we’re not willing to enter into a growth stage of our lives without that emptying of expectation, then we might not make it out alive.

Progress is relative. We have to keep moving so we can see the results of our efforts. If we don’t have a bias towards action, then there won’t be enough data.

I’ve worked as the head writer for several startups before, and several of my bosses told me that I shipped work too often. They said the frequency of our publishing was too fast, and that we needed to pull back, lest our content would cannibalize itself.

And my response was twofold.

First of all, we don’t have to worry about cannibalizing ourselves, because the market will do that for us. The sheer volume of content being published by competitors an hourly basis will dwarf our output no matter what. Youtube users alone are uploading seven hundred thousand hours of new videos a day. Clearly anytime we create anything, we compete with everything.

That’s the reality of the digital age. The sooner we accept that our brand is but a drop in pixelated ocean, the more realistic our expectations will be, the lower our anxiety will get, and the better our overall wellbeing will become.

Secondly, the only path to seeing real progress is to practice often. We haven’t written enough to know what kinds of writers we are yet, so the big win is in the doing. If we can exponentially increase our activity level, then it will be impossible not to yield results.

They may not be as positive or useful as we’d like, but the more we try, the more feedback we obtain, and the better we become.

It’s just so ironic to me, because the companies that are most adamant about growing their brand credibility and increasing their domain authority are the same ones trying to put unnecessary limits on their team’s output.

But those are two competing ideologies. We’re playing a volume game. This is about the long tail. Those who win are those who courageously ensconce themselves in their chosen craft and put out as much work as they possibly can.

Besides, why walk away from something when it’s available to you? Screw people’s misperceptions about our level of output. We should ship as much work as our heart desires.

It is not possible to put out too much material. There’s no such thing as being too prolific. The only ones who deliver such criticisms have never created anything in their lives. They don’t understand how making things works. It’s not like we’re doing this because we want to, it’s because we need to.

Ink is in our blood and we’re can’t not create.

Just another reminder, progress is relative. One man’s small step is another man’s giant leap.

We need greater reverence for the basic laws of physics. Remembering that only when we keep moving do we see the results from our efforts. Only when we have a bias towards action do we access the data we need to spiral up to the next level.

It may look like we’re going too slowly, and it may feel like we’re moving in the wrong direction, but remember, growth isn’t about right or wrong.

This is about accepting what happens, and responding to what happens with forgiveness and gratitude and creativity.

What if stepping back was better than doing more with what’s not working?