one week i’d be on top of the fucking world,
waking up with hope,
feeling strong.
the next?
my alarm’s the drill sergeant of hell,
a full day of misery ahead,
kill me.
i was stuck in a cycle:
make progress → lose all faith → recover → repeat
it was so draining, i made less progress each cycle.
thankfully it all ended once i learned about:
waves
life is constant change, constant motion.
life is energy — and energy moves in waves.
waves in progress
when we progress in something we measure values and try to change them.
improve your sleep by increasing hours asleep.
improve your spending by reducing how much you spend.
if you’re anything like me (or a closeted autist) —
you could record these numbers daily and graph them.
progress is not a straight line.
if the line goes up — it’ll have parts going down.
if the line goes down — it’ll have parts goin up.
this concept seems obvious — but is invisible from the inside.
let me explain:
wave windows
progress only exists in comparison.
compare unfairly — and you turn strength into weakness.
often we’re making amazing progress —
but a slight dip got us demotivated.
what happens if we zoom in on a wave going up,
so much that we only see the dip moving down?
as you can see, the amount of data you view changes everything.
since we have a tendency to get impatient —
it’s easy to stay zoomed in, constantly judging the progress.
either because we’re too excited to spot progress —
or too demotivated to bear the dips.
it’s important to keep a clear head when judging progress.
it could change everything…
changing the waves
the direction of your progress line is determined by two factors:
the way life unfolds. (energy moving in waves)
our judgment of it. (measuring values)
you're not a god, you can't control life — only how you see it.
that's where your focus needs to be — the controllable half that decides your fate.
zoom in for detail — and you miss the bigger picture.
zoom out for context — and you can't see what's happening now.
together though, they got you covered.
covering as much ground as possible is crucial,
but even then we still have our mental filters.
we give importance to certain things over others:
frame negatively — and you give dips in progress more weight.
frame positively — and you give rises in progress more weight.
this change in framing actually affects our progress.
negative framing makes every dip worse — every rise weaker.
positive framing protects against dips and makes rises much stronger.
now you know what moves waves.
time to surf.
riding the wave
if you want to progress efficiently, you have to manage your perspective.
it all boils down to just three things.
collect and judge your progress zoomed in & zoomed out.
frame things positively.
act.
if you’re having a bad day —
a dip in progress got you feeling some type of way.
zoom out for a second.
you might be killin it g — you just forgot how to look.
and don’t compare your progress line to somebody else’s.
progress isn’t linear at all.
you can definitely make more progress in the next 2 years —
than your idol has done in their whole career.
it’s not about the shape of the wave —
it’s how you ride it.
riding it out