Patience is the final factor for long term personal growth

In this article I am going to discuss the final factor for long term personal growth which is patience. Personal growth is very similar to the weather. In the short term things can change rapidly, and you can experience a lot of ups and downs. In the long term, however, personal growth is more like a gradual climate change. Practicing patience can allow us to step over those rainy days to get lasting results.

If you want lasting solutions they won't be quick fixes. There will be rare instances where you can utilize a new strategy or technique to get dramatic improvements. Usually, however, long-term fixes will come through optimization. If you browse the current set of personal development material promoting a bunch of ways you can change your life instantly, you aren't there for the right reasons.

Many people hope that with the right technique they can make instant fixes in their life. Unfortunately, learning a new skill, concept or philosophy will never make significant life changes. Consistent application over a long period of time can. Expecting our lives to change in an instant will only lead to disappointment when the enthusiasm wears off. In my introduction to personal development, I mentioned how I never had an epiphany moment that changed my life. My life changed and is changing through many steps taken consistently.

A lot of times people give up when they don't immediately get the feedback they think they need. This often seems rational. Perhaps they are doing things wrong, so why waste time and effort if you might never produce a result.

Unfortunately, many of the things that are critical to our own personal development will not give any feedback to us until long after we have been applying them. I know many business owners that point out that their profits were flat-lining for a long time before they began to pick up. I have heard from many longtime bloggers who inform me that it can often take at least a year before you start to get any feedback that your blog is growing in readership.

So how to we reconcile these two seemingly opposite facts? The first fact is that we might be doing something wrong, in which case a result might never come. The second fact is that sometimes we are on the right track, but feedback won't come until a lot later.

To answer that question I am going to turn to a quote I am paraphrasing from Steve Pavlina. In it Steve says how 'time is going to pass anyways' so even if we don't succeed we can either spend our time doing nothing, or trying. Time will pass whether you are actively pursuing your growth or not. If I had to choose between doing nothing or doing something, I'd always pick the latter, regardless of the outcome.

Source: www.scotthyoung.com