The relationship between success & time

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What’s on the agenda:

• Verse: working from rest

• Lesson: things of worth take time

A verse I’m thinking about

Is Sunday the first day of the week or the last day of the week?

I think a lot of us work for, or towards, the weekend. “Hump Day” points to the concept that we are “halfway there”. In application, the weekend is often our reward for a week of hard work, but I want to look at something interesting here in Genesis.

On the seventh day, God rested.

But if you know the story of creation, God created man on the sixth day.

That creates a very different rhythm of rest for us.

Man rested on the first day.

While God rested after His work, we worked from rest. 

Are you working from rest or towards rest?

It’s a subtle difference, but I think we are supposed to work from a place of rest and fulfillment rather than burning gas and refueling before we burn out.

I like the weekly rhythm of this, using Sunday as a Sabbath, we go to church and usually relax the rest of the day, to reset and prepare for work in the week, but I think this applies on a broader scale too. We should be working from rest, not towards it.

Make sure you’re taking time to disconnect, enjoy life, and working from a place of peace, not working for it.

A lesson I’ve learned:
The relationship between success & duration

If your life depended on it, could you lose ten pounds in 24 hours?

Maybe…

To do it, you’d probably take some hardcore laxatives, consume very little, if any food, and spend a bunch of time in the sauna trying to shed water weight. It would be a grueling and painful process with only a small possibility of success.

But let me ask you another question, could you lose ten pounds in 24 weeks (half a year)?

Definitely - and it would be a lot easier.

No starvation, no laxatives, no chance of passing out in the sauna - you could almost guarantee success with only a few minor adjustments in life.

Big Goals Take Big Amounts of Time

The bigger the goal, the longer it will take to accomplish it, but the more time you give yourself, the more likely you are to get there.

Yet, instead of giving ourselves time, we compress it and up the intensity.

As a result instead of wins, we…

Fail (I didn’t make it)

Burnout (I can’t make it)

Lose faith (I can never make it)

I have been thinking about this a lot lately. I have some pretty big goals and ambitions, but I often catch myself adding intensity and checking for short-term results. It’s like throwing money into stock marketing and checking my portfolio every day hoping to see the results I’m looking for.

But I’ve learned that big wins aren’t a battle of intensity, they’re a battle of consistency and that, if I’m willing to extend my horizon, success is inevitable.

I can’t run a three-hour marathon, but I can certainly finish a marathon.

Extend your timeline & embrace the certainty of duration

This week’s lesson isn’t for the person who needs motivation to get started. If that’s you, just start. Put in the effort and build momentum. This letter is for the person already working hard, striving to succeed, but is caught racing against an invisible clock.

It’s for the person who is working hard but falling short of their expectations of themselves. The person benchmarking against people on social media, or that believe the “I should already be…”’s.

My question to you today is “Would extending your timeline make achieving your goal inevitable?”

The answer is probably yes.

If so, quit looking for quick results on on big project and give yourself more time. Make achieving your goal inevitable rather than stressful.

Break it down into tiny daily habits and rhythms.

Chip away at it day after day.

Make time to have fun.

Pick up the pace if you have the ability.

But most of all: set durations that align with the size of your goal.

Rome wasn’t built in a day. It was built brick by brick, one day at a time. If you stay consistent with your big goals, I guarantee they’ll become a reality in time.