There is something magical behind these three stages: repetition, iteration, and progress. Most of us want to progress in our life, but rarely want to deal with the boring parts – repetition and iteration. But they are all intertwined. We can’t have progress if we don’t repeatedly work on what we want to make progress on. A project rarely moves forward without constant iteration.
It’s the process and the journey that makes us grow, rarely the end goal.
- A chef rarely cooks the perfect dish the first time.
- A runner rarely achieves a personal best on the first run.
- A footballer rarely accomplishes a perfect pass, shot, or trick on the first try.
- A computer scientist rarely solves a difficult set of problems on the first try.
- A barista rarely gets a perfect latte, cappuccino, or espresso on the first try.
- A photographer rarely gets the perfect picture the first time.
You get the gist.
They all take time, repetition, and iteration. That’s what progress is about – the hours spent reading, studying, practicing, and executing.
What repetition, iteration, and progress can teach us is that everything worthwhile takes more time than we think. In this case, we invest our time and energy trying to make progress on something or some field we value highly. Similar to investing in the stock market, there is no quick rich, but there is quick poor, so be patient and trust the process while you put in the hours to make advances.
If it were easy, everyone would do it.
Richard Chan 