We now live in a world where most of our desires can be fulfilled by the click of a button. You can find love on an app, watch any show at your pleasing and even email someone within 2.5 seconds.
As a result, many people’s brains have become dependent upon quick hit neurochemicals such as dopamine. Hence, they have lost the ability to be patient; they want it all right now.
They want to create one piece of content, go viral, and to be called an “overnight success.”
However, even today, an ancient fact still emerges; success often comes to those who are willing to be patient and embrace the tension of the in-between.
As Seth Godin once wrote,
“Extraordinary benefits accrue to the tiny minority of people who are able to push just a tiny bit longer than most.”
This article will explain how to reap the benefits of patience.
Here we go.
If You Can Get Through the Dip You’ll Achieve Extraordinary Results
“If you can get through the Dip, if you can keep going when the system is expecting you to stop, you will achieve extraordinary results.” -Seth Godin
In his book, The Dip, Seth Godin proposes a simple idea: that for any pursuit worth doing, there’s probably a Dip where it’s easier to quit than to keep going. But if you can get through the Dip and come up the other side, then you’ll find yourself in places very few people have been.
This phenomenon happens because anyone can start something; anyone can post a single blog post, launch a business or get a gym membership.
However, very few people can become a master of something. Very few people have the patience to show up day after day in order truly learn their craft.
Wrote Hal Elrod,
“Repetition can be boring or tedious — which is why so few people ever master anything.”
If you want to become a master at something, you need to be willing to push through the Dip; you need to be willing to keep going when everyone else expects to quit.
And frankly, it doesn’t even matter how fast you’re going as long as you just keep moving, because success is sneaky; it’ll often come all at once.
As Napoleon Hill once wrote,
“When riches begin to come they come so quickly, in such great abundance, that one wonders where they have been hiding during all those lean years.”
You Can Become Your Hero’s
“Rather than consuming your hero’s work as a spectator, you should see it as a tennis ball being sent over the net toward you. Your job now is to respond by sending something back even better.” -Benjamin P. Hardy
Often, the difference between you and your hero’s is simply a matter of time.
When you look through the NY Times bestselling authors, world-class athletes, or whoever you look up to, you only see where they are, but miss where they began.
And I’ll tell you that behind all their fame and achievements is a mass of humbling beginnings, countless hours of work and a mixture of failures.
Hence why Jon Acuff once wrote,
“Don’t compare your beginning to someone else’s middle.”
Indeed, you need not worry about where anyone else. You don’t need to worry about what anyone else is doing. You just need to stay on your own path and take one step after the other.
Do the work. Study and learn. Show up day after day and one day you’ll be standing alongside your hero’s marveling at how far you’ve come.
In Conclusion
As the world moves faster and faster, the fundamentals are never changing.
Success and achieving anything you want in life is a matter of patience. It requires you to show up day after day in order to transform who you are and what you know.
In any pursuit worth doing, there will probably a Dip. Your ability and willingness to push through that Dip determines whether you’ll achieve mediocre or extraordinary results.
The difference between you and your hero’s is simply a matter of time. If you stop consuming your hero’s work as a spectator and instead become a competitor, you’ll quickly find yourself playing at their level.