Things of value take time

As the year began about a month ago, most people thought about their new year’s resolutions and perhaps even wrote them down. I do not make new year’s resolutions anymore, I used to but now I try set goals and build habits that align with those goals. As Leo Babauta says

Resolutions are like wishful thinking, that fade away inevitably as the year’s newness wears off. Goals are great, but it’s hard to juggle 5-10 new goals when you have a lot of other things always going on. Instead, focus on one new habit at a time, and give it your full attention, until it becomes automatic.

Whether you wrote down new year’s resolutions, set some goals or are trying to develop new habits, one thing is certain, the start of a new year made you think about what you want to achieve over the year. Most of those achievements are very ambitious, which is great, as setting the bar high allows you to work harder beyond the average that one can achieve. The key thing to remember in all this is that things of great value take time to accomplish. Whether you are trying to learn a new skill, get fitter over the year, eat healthier meals, build a better relationship, start your own business, etc. Whatever your ambitious goal is, it will not just happen overnight, or even over just a few months. In fact it may seem like you are not making much progress in the early days, but those are indeed the times when you need to keep going, because it is in the early days where you set the foundations for everything going forward.

Society expects things to happen a lot quicker these days, “the curse of instant gratification”. In a world where we can share documents across the world in nanoseconds; receive instant notifications of anything that happens on our social media platforms or download an e-book online and read it off a device all without leaving one’s room. All these developments are great and have their place but one has to consider the impact such developments have on society’s expectations. One of these expectations is that of everything occurring almost instantaneously.

Things of great value require more than enthusiasm, they require long term commitment. I will borrow a few examples from the world of technology and engineering that highlight this.

1. HDTV technology was introduced in the late 1980s and made official in 1993 by the Digital HDTV Grand Alliance. Adoption reached 9% in 2007.
2. The smart-phone was introduced in 1998 by Nokia. It also reached 9% penetration in the US by 2007.
3. The car was invented in 1886 in Germany and reached 9% in the US by about 1915.
4. First hybrid car went into production in 1997. It has yet to reach 9% penetration. One estimate is that hybrids now make up 1% of cars.
5. Microcomputers based on a microprocessor were introduced in 1974. 10% household penetration was reached in 1984.
6. Cellular phones were first commercialised in 1973. Adoption reached 9% in the US in about 1994.
7. Social media was conceived also around 1995 but it was not until 2010 or so that it became common and highly profitable.
8. Controlled flight was invented in 1903. Air travel reached 9% penetration around 1950 (measured by share of transatlantic crossings).
9. The first general purpose credit card was introduced in 1950. The number of households in the US with at least one card was 16% in 1970.

All the things on that list are of great value to the world right now, some will add more value as time progresses. Yes those are difficult engineering and technical problems that had to be solved, but most ambitious goals are difficult in any case. What is important is that people did not stop because early adoption rates were low, or technological progress was slow at the time. They kept going, day by day, until the value was realised and that technology became mainstream.

So, back to your ambitions for the year. Will you stop and give up when the progress is going slow or there seems to be no progress at all in the early days? No, you must keep going and remember its going to take time. You are in it for the long term until you get to your destination. Keep the distractions away and remain focused; get someone to keep you accountable when you are losing your consistency and build habits around your ambitions so they become automatic.

The Germans have a word for it “Sitzfleisch”. “Staying Power”. Winning by sticking your ass to the seat and not leaving until it’s over. Knowing that life is a marathon and not a sprint is important. What is required of us is not some short-term focus on our ambitions but to see them through for the long-term.