Slow progress frustration is real. No matter what others tell you that you should be “grateful”, it still doesn’t make you feel any better. Even though slow progress is still progress that still doesn’t mean that you don’t feel frustrated with it. There are many ways in order to overcome the frustration.
I’ve been there before. There were years when I truly felt like I invested everything that I could at the stock market only to increase my net worth at the same rate as before. Even though I started at a higher net worth than the year before. Even though the stock market returned a monstrous 27% over the year.
All I can say is, I feel your frustration. You feel like you deserve more for the amount of effort that you put in. For the amount of input, there should be much more output! Right? It doesn’t always work like that. There’s never a direct one to one correlation with input and output.
Slow progress is frustrating. It feels like all that effort that you put in was for nothing. It makes you question what you’ve put in all that effort for. However, the one missing link between that line of thinking is that effort is always compounded. Whatever you input today is not lost forever.
There’s always next year with which you can build upon. There’s always the next day, a new week, or a new month that’s going to carry you forward faster than before. Maybe not with the speed as you were expecting. But still in a faster way than before, regardless.
9 Ways to Overcome the Slow Progress Frustration
One way to overcome the slow progress frustration is by aggressively SMASHING that social share button and posting to your favorite social media! If you’re frustrated, your friends are as well and you can make all of your guys’ lives better!
So with that said, let’s get into the article and the ways to overcome the frustration.
1) Manage Expectations About Slow Progress
The number one reason you feel frustrated about the slow progress is because of your expectations. You feel that if you give in 1 unit of input there should be at least 1 unit of output. That’s not how it works. There’s more nuances and intricate details between effort and result that makes the difference.
Don’t give something to another person expecting something in return or something back. Not expecting anything in return is a very good way to build relationships. The more you give, the more you get back. However, keeping score and making sure that you get one unit back for every unit you give out is a big no-no.
Expectations are what kills most people’s happiness. When I was in high school, I wanted to be a millionaire and make hundreds of thousands of dollars straight out of college. Oh, how little did I know. Then life smacked me down that no company wants to pay their employees millions of dollars from the start.
2) Give it Six More Months
When you feel frustrated about slow progress, now’s the time to give it a little more effort. Write down the date today somewhere where you can remember it. Then give yourself an additional six months and look back on your goal to see if you made it. Then evaluate and see if the progress you made was fast enough.
If it wasn’t, then consider changing your approach. If it was, then continuing to do what you’ve been doing is just fine. The one who stayed in the game is the one who’ve been able to soar to heights others are jealous of. That’s what I’m going to do. I already wrote down that my starting date was from May 1, 2022.
Then I will re-evaluate on November 1, 2022 and see if I’m on track to where I want to be by end of the year. The difference between your ideal self and your present self is just six months away. Whether it feels like it or not, six months is a very long time to get to where you want to be. Don’t waste it.
3) Take a Breather
If it truly feels like you really can’t take the slow progress, then take a breather. Sometimes, you just have to take a step back in order to move two steps forward. That’s what weekends, holidays, and PTOs are for, anyway. Take a breather for a couple of weeks, months, or however time you need before going back at it.
Remember that Reed Hastings backpacked across Africa with 10 dollars in his pocket before starting his business career. He took a step back and truly experienced what he needed to experience before making his big move that brought him billions.
Taking a breather to regroup and figure out what you want to do going forward is a good plan. Sometimes, that’e exactly what you need. Meditate, read a book, and do something mundane before you have that eureka moment that you’ve been waiting for.
Our brain works in mysterious ways. Our subconscious brain and mind can be much more powerful than the conscious.
4) Stop Thinking About Time
Your life is a really long marathon. People can’t conceptualize just how long a year actually is. Months go by quick but years and decades go by slow. If you’re in your 20’s, think about just how much you grew from when you were 10 – 19. If you’re in your 30’s, think about your 20’s – 30’s.
I’m willing to bet a LOT happened during that time. Stop thinking about time, which doesn’t matter, and start thinking about your results. Are you moving forward? Building something meaningful? Are there any mistakes you repeated from the past? Instead of measuring your life in time, measure your life in your results.
Slow progress only feels slow when you look over how much time passed before you put in the effort. Once you start thinking more about your effort and the results it produced, time doesn’t even feel like a factor. That’s when you’re in the zone and you can work from a state of flow.
5) Trust the Process
This one is a cliche for a reason. It works. The process is going to feel questionable at times. It feels like others are just telling you about the process because they want to make money off you. Maybe they do want to make money of you but that doesn’t mean that the process is wrong.
If there are success stories, then you know deep down that it’s more than possible. The process is mainstream for a reason. It produces results. Few people have the willpower and the energy to save and invest their paycheck for their financial freedom. Even fewer people want to do it over decades.
Therefore, many people question everything that they’ve been told about building wealth. It’s easier to be disciplined with saving and investing in the earlier years because it’s something new they’ve experienced. It’s something that they’re working towards.
However, when the reality smacks them that it’ll take longer than they realized, then they give up.
No. Trust the process.
6) Slow Progress is Better than Negative Progress
This will be your shining and guiding star. Slow progress will ALWAYS be better than negative progress. It feels so wrong when you actually end up at a lower point end of year than the start of the year. Imagine getting demoted at your job after putting in so much effort that you’ve ever put in to a job.
Unintentionally taking a step back is not a good feeling. I’ve been there before. There were months when I lost more money than the paychecks that I generated. There were times when I lost a lot of money gambling that almost made my yearly five figure bonus moot. I’ve been there before and experienced through it.
I’m the first to confirm that slow progress is better than the negative progress I experienced. I fell backwards even without meaning to nor wanting to. It wasn’t even that I felt like a failure. It felt like I was less than a failure. Lower than the lowest point I could be at.
I will much rather take progress that is slow over negative progress any day of the week.
7) Do Something About It
If you feel like slow progress is holding you back, then it’s time to finally do something about it. However, be careful. Don’t take on so much risk that you end up betting everything you built up for for the past decade. Or even a year. You’re not going to lose just that prior year’s worth of effort.
You’re going to lose the present year’s worth of effort as well. Why is that? Because you have to spend this year’s effort to just break even. Maybe even next year too. Be careful in taking on additional risk in order to get faster progress. Taking risk is great, too much risk is ruinous.
If you want to achieve faster progress, you have to take on additional risk to get there, by definition. Therefore, be selective in the amount of additional risk you want to take. There’s a reason why I don’t play around with options. Those financial instruments are too volatile for me to put my money behind it.
Be careful.
8) Measure Progress Over Years
Instead of looking at your progress over the past month, look at your progress over the past years. Measure your progress over years. Then you might even get to see that your progress isn’t as slow as you thought, after all. Since I graduated college, I grew my net worth by 10x in just 6 short years.
A 10x growth in 6 years is insane! Imagine if I grow another 10x in just 6 years. It’s astronomical growth that I can’t even imagine or think of. Although progress is easier when you’re starting at a lower point, I have full confidence that it’s a possible goal.
Zoom out your results over the past years. Your slow progress might just be the fastest progress you will ever experience in your entire life. I don’t know if I can 10x again in the next 6 years because I’m starting at such a high number already. However, I will continue to try and see if it’s possible.
9) Don’t Give Up
Slow progress is the reason most people give up. They thought they can reach their goals in just 2 years or less. Then when they see that they can’t get there in 2 years, they give up. That’s the worst thing that you can do. All that lost time and effort. It’s one thing to give up because you truly cannot get anywhere with a project.
it’s another thing to give up because you’re seeing slow progress. You’re giving up when others would literally chop off their left hand in order to get to where you are. Others could be having negative progress and therefore are envious of people who have positive progress. Giving up when you’re growing too slowly is the wrong move.
That’s literally giving up when things are going good. Giving up when things are going bad, cutting your losses, and moving on isn’t a bad solution. Giving up when you’re moving forward is a horrible solution. That’s the opposite way to think. Keep showing up, because showing up is half the battle.
Slow Progress Frustration is Real
Don’t let anyone tell you that your slow progress frustrations are invalid. They are valid. I’ve been there and experienced it myself. However, it’s what you do going forward that’s going to make the difference and bridge the gap between your ideal self and present self.
In 2021, I felt like my career stagnated. That I wasn’t moving forward as quickly as I know that I deserve. So what did I do? I found another job and got a 30% compensation increase. That’s 30% compensation increase, by the way. From a cash compensation standpoint, it was more like a 40% increase.
You need to do something about it if you truly feel like you’re not moving quickly as much as you would like. It’s about being strategic. You can’t just continue bothering HR and your boss that your salary isn’t commensurate with your value. That’s a surefire way to get fired.
Instead, I just got another offer. Very simple.
Now that you’ve identified the problem of slow progress, it’s time to resolve it. There are many wrong solutions to implement and there are the right solutions to implement. For me, I knew it was time to move on to another job because it was getting too frustrating. I knew that switching companies was the right move because it’s risk free.
if I have another job lined up, what’s my employer going to do to me? Fire me? Cool! I couldn’t care less. Life is all about solving problems. Slow progress is a problem that you have to resolve. Otherwise, you’re going to feel miserable that you’re giving up too much in exchange for what you’re getting.
9 Ways to Overcome the Slow Progress Frustration
- Manage expectations about slow progress
- Give it six more months
- Take a breather
- Stop thinking about time
- Trust the process
- Slow progress is better than negative progress
- Do something about it
- Measure progress over years
- Don’t give up
