If you ever had to learn how to swim, you know what it means to trust the process.
You’re thrown into a pool with those inflatable armbands and you’re trying your best to keep your head above the water.
Though you won’t magically learn how to swim, you believe in the teacher’s experience and guidance to get you the result you desire. You trust the process that the teacher laid out for you.
That’s why having a coach or teacher is always helpful to help you achieve skills faster.
But you won’t always have access to a teacher or coach.
Instead, you have to become your own best guide. And that’s challenging. Especially once your mind starts to play some of its tricks when you don’t see results fast enough.
You start to become impatient.
And you begin to doubt yourself when you no longer experience visible progress.
How can you overcome this?
In this article, you’ll learn what’s holding you back and how you can build more trust in the process with 3 simple tips.
Let’s dive in!
What it Means to Trust the Process
When you trust the process, you put consistent effort into your practice without giving too much credit to short-term results.
In today’s world, mastery in a skill is becoming rare.
We expect results tomorrow. And when we don’t see the results quick enough, we think that what we do doesn’t work and we move on. Never committing to anything long enough to make it work.
Of course, there are more elements to success but consistency is an important one. And trusting the process is one way to start focusing on your process, not the outcome.
So why don’t more people focus on the process?
Well, most of us expect that success looks something like this:
Even though we know that success isn’t a linear line, we still expect that it looks this way once we’re in the trenches. And because reality isn’t going to meet that expectation, we feel that the thing doesn’t work when we don’t see results fast enough.
It’s a destructive way to think.
It’s contrary to trusting the process. Instead, it’s a result-oriented mindset. And when you value the results more than the process, you experience more emotional highs and lows.
Let’s have a look to understand why that’s an issue.
When something exceeds your expectation, you feel amazing. You think you own the world.
You feel awesome, right?
Well, guess what happens when you experience a setback?
You feel upset or even frustrated. This saps your motivation and makes it much more challenging to take consistent action.
Imagine feeling down every time you experience a setback? That’s quite a rollercoaster of emotions.
The first couple of times you might overcome this and improve your motivation.The first couple of times you might regain motivation. But every time you hit another setback, it becomes more difficult to get back on track.
When you trust the process, you might still experience those emotional swings. You’re human after all. But when you understand that this is part of the process, you experience these swings in a much milder way.
After all, success is very chaotic and looks more like this:
Successes and failures will happen. And if you allow every success and failure along the way to control how you feel about your effort, it’s quite a bumpy ride.
When you start trusting the process, you no longer let the results validate your feelings.
Here are 3 tips that help you to start trusting the process.
#1 Do What Makes You Slightly Uncomfortable
If there’s a secret to success, it’s that the stuff that scares you the most is often the most valuable thing you could do.
An example of this is the skill of public speaking. It’s one of those skills that’s great to have in any situation. And it’s one of the skills I’m working on myself.
Is there something in your life right now that you avoid like a pest? But that you know that if you would own that skill, it would improve the quality of your life?
Then you should start doing it.
The reason is simple:
Regardless of whether you get the desired result, you get the valuable experience of taking action despite fear. Think about what happens when you just do it.
Take public speaking for example. When you do it for the first time, how would you feel after you’ve done it?
I think it would be fair to say that you tell yourself that you won’t do this ever again.
Imagine doing it 10 more times regardless. It still scares you to death and might leave you feeling fearful. But you do it anyway.
You’ll notice that the 10th time is already a bit more relaxed than your first time.
Needless to say, when you go through this process 50 times, your comfort zone has expended a bit. Though you may still experience nervousness, you begin to have more trust in the process.
After the 100th time, you may still feel the same nervousness before a speaking gig. However, you’ve expanded your comfort zone a lot and you know that you’re going to be fine.
That’s how to build confidence.
Here’s one tip though: if you’re scared of public speaking, don’t start with 5.000 people in the crowd. Instead, start slow with 2 or 3 people.
Then slowly build up your trust in the process.
Look for the limits of your comfort zone and extend into what feels slightly uncomfortable. It’s a great way to grow your confidence and is worth the temporary discomfort.
And it’s this type of confidence that flows over to every other area in your life.
#2 Appreciate Both Your Success and Failures
Most people celebrate their successes but become frustrated with their failures. And if that’s you, you might find yourself procrastinating more often than you should.
Here’s why:
We’re all wired to avoid potential failure more than we desire the possible outcome. And when you become frustrated with failure, you wire your brain to avoid it even more.
What happens next is that every time you face a challenge, your brain starts to evaluate what to do. It wants to be very sure that you succeed because otherwise, you’ll experience that frustration again.
Of course, you’re seldom ‘very sure’ about success. Especially not when you’re pushing yourself outside your comfort zone, as discussed in the first tip.
And that prevents you from achieving more success in your life.
Look, failing isn’t fun but it’s a necessary part of the process and inevitable for achieving more success.
If you want to trust the process, you must understand the bigger picture. Failures are important stepping stones for growth and set you up for future success.
Though success is the goal, failures allow us to grow faster. Failure provides the necessary feedback so that you can achieve your success faster.
Once you realize this, your life changes.
When you begin to trust the process and let go of your emotional attachment to the outcome, you enjoy a much stabler experience. Though you will still experience failures, the negative emotions that come along with it won’t drag you into the abyss any longer.
#3 Stay Consistent with Your Craft
Here’s a great metaphor that explains one of the importance of trusting the process.
The image illustrates the truth to success in life. Often, we won’t see any of the fruits of our labor until it suddenly falls together.
Maybe you’ve noticed this in a recent skill you learned.
A great skill I’m learning right now is the handstand. I’ve been doing it for the past 2 years of which the last 7 months consistently.
And it’s quite a bumpy process.
Often I practice for weeks without seeing any progress. And thinking about those who mastered it within weeks or months, doesn’t encourage me much either.
But I’ve learned to trust the process and keep going after it. Because although you won’t always see success right away, you’re making progress if you stay consistent.
Recently, I started to hit the 20-second handstand more consistently. And I also notice that suddenly, I seem to have much more control.
Of course, this is the fruit of months of practice and staying consistent, even when I saw no progress at all.
That’s why consistency is so important for success.
Yet, it’s this simple principle that’s incredibly difficult to stick to.
So how can you become more consistent?
First and foremost, by showing up. No matter what happens, you must show up and practice your craft if you desire success in it. Especially when you have a day that you don’t feel like it.
A great way to teach yourself to stay more consistent is by setting small goals and achieving those.
Here’s one to kick-start your day: make up your bed.
Then think about what else you could do in the morning to get ahead. What’s a small goal that’s in line with what you want to achieve?
Is it public speaking? Then why not record something simple on your phone?
If you want to learn to write better, then write a short-form blog post. Bonus points if you upload this to a blog. This could be a simple concept like you sharing a new idea every day. Why care if anyone reads it? It’s a great way to become more consistent.
Consistency is like a muscle and you can develop it in any skill.
Believe in the Process
A final thing we need to address is negative people and nay-sayers. You know, those people that tell you it’s stupid or that you’re wasting your time.
How does one have the audacity to tell you what’s right for you?
It’s often the same people that have given up on their dreams and are full of resentment.
Please don’t let anyone else’s insecurities hold you back from achieving your dreams. The only person that knows what’s right for you is you. And if you enjoy what you do, why not stick to it?
When you stay consistent and trust the process, you will achieve success.
If you want to stay motivated throughout the process and get positive reminders to keep you focused on your craft, sign up for the email newsletter!