Slow is smooth, smooth is fast
It can feel debilitating to be far from your professional or personal goals. Depending on how you view it, you might judge yourself for being "behind" in one self-defined dimension or another and start to feel "less than" your peers and others in the world around you. Before you know it, that judgment creeps into your own self-perception, and you begin to believe the story of your own lack of worth. You lose motivation, confidence, the drive to set new goals dissipates, and your sense of self-respect becomes clouded by cycles of doubt interspersed with imposter syndrome.
Eventually, you find yourself in a place where your daily life is driven by fight-or-flight responses, with your nervous system constantly on edge. The distance between where you are and where you once imagined yourself becomes overwhelming and grandiose in your own mind. You feel caught in a strange, foggy in-between space, disconnected from your dreams and unsure of what’s even realistic anymore. It’s as if you took a wrong turn, blinked, and ended up in another dimension, let alone map.
Accepting Our Cards
The thing is, where you are now may not have been where you expected to be, but learning to accept our current situation can be the first step toward reducing that perceived distance to our goals. It may even help us recognise, that our current situation is a result of our circumstances intersecting with choices, and no single fault of our own. I’ve realised that when I feel hopeless and far from my desired goals, the most powerful perspective shift we can undergo is by having clarity and practicing gratitude for my current life. It uncovers self compassion and meaning in our current situation.
Maybe things didn’t go as planned, or unexpected life events shifted our path in ways that we couldn’t have foreseen. Perhaps we made decisions that, in retrospect, we’d change, or maybe we faced obstacles that we weren’t equipped to handle at the time. But here’s a truth: wherever you are right now is not a failure, even if it feels like a detour from your aspirations. It’s a part of your story which forever expands our experiences and ability to resonate with other people’s experiences.
Acceptance doesn’t mean resignation. It’s not about giving up on our dreams; it’s acknowledging the reality of our present so that you can find a way forward with clarity, courage, and a deeper sense of peace.
Where We Wish We Were
We could all be a little further along in our careers, have a bigger and fuller family life, enjoy deeper friendships, or have more money. It seems to be human nature to dream of greener pastures, and experience a constant yearning for what we don’t have in a loop of perpetual dissatisfaction. We often focus on what’s missing, what’s lacking, or what we wish were different, and by doing so, we overlook the beauty and value of what is.
If we’re forever comparing ourselves to the version we think we "should" be or the lives we think we "should" have, we’ll never fully appreciate where we are right now. So many of us are wired to chase progress, to imagine ourselves as "better" versions in the future. But what if we paused, even for a moment, to recognise that we’re enough right here, right now?
That’s not to say that we can’t achieve our goals and desires in the future. We need to stop expecting to get there immediately, and enjoy the path that we’re on. We need to learn to trust the process.
Finding Clarity Through Self Compassion
One of the hardest, yet most rewarding, things we can do is to offer ourselves compassion, especially in moments of self-doubt. Compassion gives us the space to see our lives without the harsh judgments and unrealistic standards we thrust on ourselves. When we treat ourselves with compassion, we can observe our journey with understanding rather than criticism, and we allow ourselves to feel gratitude for the resilience that has carried us through every hardship, every misstep, and every success.
Start by acknowledging your achievements, no matter how small they may seem in the grand scheme of your goals. Every step forward, every day you show up, every little action you take toward building the life you want is worth celebrating. Show yourself compassion for the dreams you’re still working toward and the progress you’ve made, even if it’s not yet visible or recognised by the world. Progress, even if it moves the scale by a millimetre, is progress.
Allow yourself to move with intention, and appreciate where you are now as you collect priceless experiences which are uniquely yours. The path may be slow, but as the adage goes, “slow is smooth, smooth is fast”. Focus on being intentional, grateful and compassionate. You may create a life you cherish faster than you realise.
