Is There a Pill I Can Take To Get Better?

Our expectations for progress, not success, help us avoid frustration

Photo by Cyrus Crossan on Unsplash

I recently started taking a vitamin. I was told that I would not notice any changes in my health until three months later.

So I took the pill every day, without really thinking about it.

I actually noticed some effects after about 90 days.

The pill was working, just like I was told.

But imagine if I was not told about the three-month period before I would notice the results.

I would have looked every single day for some change in my health.

I would have despaired if I did not notice a change. I probably would have wondered if the pill even worked after the second day. I would have looked in the mirror every five minutes to see if I noticed any changes, and I would have checked to see if I felt any different. I probably would have stopped taking the pill after a week or two. Or at least I would have neglected to be consistent about taking the pill.

. . .

How to Tell If Something Is Wrong

One of my own barriers to being consistent — in anything — is that I often have this thought:

I keep doing the same thing, over and over, but I don’t see results.

Is something wrong?

For example, year one of building a law practice isn’t the most fun. And often, year five might not be, either.

But does that mean I should stop doing what has allowed my law practice to grow? Does it mean that something is wrong?

I recently told someone that I was taking a stretching course that teaches you how to do the middle splits. He asked if I could do them yet, practically challenging me to get down on the floor and show him.

I told him, “No, not yet.”

After I answered, I had an internal crisis. Why couldn’t I do the splits yet? It had been six months since I started. Should I stop the course?

Of course not. But I did doubt myself for a moment. I answered myself out loud, though, and told him that even though I felt better than ever, I was still a long way from being able to do the middle splits.

Is something wrong because I had been working for a six months without much progress?

The answer is that it depends on my expectations about not only how long it will take to reach the goal, but also about how long it will take to see progress.

It’s Not About the Pill

I wish someone told me I might not see the effects of certain activities until an amount of time passed — like one year, or five years, or twenty years.

Like playing the piano, or guitar.

Like working out.

Like practicing martial arts.

Like reading certain books.

Like mastering a profession, or skill.

Like being married, or having kids.

Like being able to live the lifestyle I want.

Like pursuing a cause that I’m passionate about.

It is hard to do work consistently and not see progress — unless you know in advance how long it will take to see progress.

The One Thing That You Need to Know

There is one thing that we need to have in order to set our expectations about progress: perspective.

We need someone else’s perspective. We don’t know how long progress will take, so we need someone else to give us an idea.

When I took the pill, a physician told me it would take about three months to see progress.

We need someone else to tell us how hard something is. Or we need to figure out how hard it is by looking at how hard it is for someone else.

We need perspective from outside ourselves that allows us to learn what it takes to see progress.

In my middle split course, I need to know how long it takes to see progress with the splits.

I learned that it can take a few years for people at my age.

Two years — just to see progress.

But as soon as I know that, my own perspective changes. I stop looking for the small changes on a daily basis — and I just start focusing on doing the work. I focus on being consistent. I focus on doing what it takes today to have the results in two years. And in six years. And in ten.

And when I take the vitamin that my doctor suggested, not only do I see progress, I see the end result. It worked. I followed the advice. I consistently acted.

And here’s what I learned:

It is not enough to take the pill. We need the proper expectations about the pill.

Those expectations make a crazy difference.

. . .

Learn the one lesson that has changed my life more than any other (and stay in touch about the book).