Progress.

Xin Ping
Aug 2, 2020
3 min read

Updated: Jan 25, 2021

development towards an improved or more advanced condition.

Often, we crave very instantaneous gratification, overnight success and the 0.01% chance of striking a lottery to become billionaire the next day. We call this "counting on luck" or put it more bluntly "daydreaming" and "escaping from the reality".

We let ourselves to imagine all the achievements and shining rewards at the end of the tunnels but we stay blinded to the steps and hardwork behind digging a path out of this 'eternal' darkness in the tunnel. We were so focus on the WHAT, we forgot the HOW.

And that is progress. Everything takes time and growth is a slow progress. It takes time to build a building from scratch - although with technology and knowledge, we now can build it faster - all these still require going through a process from start to end. The same concept applies for growth within ourselves. In fact, this one is a lifelong progress and it really does not have a deadline attached.

The moment you stop growing , you are dying.

I believe many of you heard or read this somewhere. So allow yourself time to go through this process and don't let the deepest you slowly die off just because

"This is too hard..."

"I am simply not enough"

"There are so many others out there who are already so good at this, what is the point"

If by any chance you find that you are not seeing any progress, and feeling that you are wasting your time, try doing this. Make your progress visible and believe that the growth IS happening.

Usually progress within yourself can feel very invisible and on days where you can't exercise self-awareness, you can easily fall back on the negative loop of thoughts. So I suggest making progress on visible growth and that is exercising!

Exercise doesn't only contribute to your physical strength, it helps to calm your mind and improve your overall physique and psychic. And the magical thing about exercising is that, it is by far the quickest way for me to see a visible change in myself. Which is why there are so many before and after comparison by the 'fitspo' on social media. I know it can feel like riding on the trend and getting that dream body instead of advocating for normal body.

If you want to start today, I build a calendar of 4 months worth of exercise routine!

Feel free to check it out: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1BVhh1cf6tGur9b41om_ep--iRzFTT8G4XocuNP5cE_s/edit?usp=sharing

I don't go for the dream body, I go for wellness and exercise is part and parcel of it. Furthermore, I am empowered with the kind of progress I made after an exercise and I can see results after being consistent for 1 month. And that gives me confidence to start creating a change in my other aspects of life. Because change is possible, progress is happening and I am stronger.

Be the encouragement for yourself. Build system and implement ways to push yourself to keep going. Many people did not achieve success overnight, and you know it. And we human can very easily be blinded with the false-tell that "all these look so easy to them". Of course! That's because we don't see all their effort behind the scene and media always showcase only the beauty of it all since that's what attracts the attention.

The result for exercise might be visible in a relatively short time, it is not a die-hard expectation to be imposed on other growth. But one common thing is that growth is continuous and it has to be maintained and sustained. So the keyword here is consistency and habit. The habits don't just END when you achieve your goal, you can't just stop all your effort then and there. It has to be an ongoing process to refine and sustain the achievement if life-long fulfillment is your calling.

So if you need a little confident boost that all your curated system or plans to become a better person is working, start exercising and you will see that growth is always happening.