How to do the things that take a long time
10 things I've learned as an impatient, ambitious person
We all want things. Some things, like a cup of coffee, are easy. Others, like a promotion, or getting into shape, or getting a book published, can take months or years. We’ve been trained by social media to expect immediate and recurring rewards. Post something, get instant positive reinforcement. Post frequently, get more. See advertisements for how to grow your platform, or your career, or your hair. See before-after pictures with JUST 3 MONTHS LATER flashing over them. Watch montages of couch-potatoes turning into supermodels and wonder what you’re doing wrong.
Stop.
Some things just take time. A wedding begins a marriage. Writing is a lifelong passion, not a single book launch event. Your career spans decades. Think about it. If you’re 30, by the time you’re 60, you could have lived your entire life twice.
Breathe.
Most people, when they get this far, think about marathons. How to train for one, how to leverage life lessons and endurance from the process. To be fair, writing a novel, especially your first, feels like an endurance event. But a writing career, which usually means 1-2 books a year, can’t be an endless sequence of marathons.
I did an endurance event once. Biked 100 miles around Lake Tahoe. I signed up because of a poster that said I could train for a century ride in less than 6 months. The poster was right. But 14 years later my knees still hurt and I no longer own a bike. I’m not running a fucking marathon.
Most advertising works on a simple principle. Convincing you that “If you do X, [good consequences] will happen faster than you think. But if you don’t [bad consequences] are inevitable.” They’ve done such a great job of selling you this that you never question the premise. You only ask: “How much faster? Which good consequences will work for me?” Not: “Really? Do I even need those good consequences?”
I’m going to put two controversial ideas out there.
Some good consequences (like a slow-cooked dhal or a slow burn romance) take a long, long time. If they happened any faster, you wouldn’t want them as much.
Many bad consequences aren’t inevitable. And even if they are, you’ll probably survive them.
What can you do to prepare yourself better for the things that take time? Here are 10 things I’ve learned over the last 40 years of living. When I’m 80, I’ll probably look back at this and think I was really foolish and arrogant to think I knew so much. So take it with a pinch of salt.
Cultivate honesty with yourself – hope was the last evil in Pandora’s box.
Recency bias means that the setback of the moment feels like an irrecoverable disaster. Someone else got promoted? It must mean you’re an abject failure. (I’ve been there). Or, maybe you’re one of those who is stewing with professional jealousy or frustration, and you fixate on their weaknesses—how did that person get a book deal when they write like a thirteen-year-old? (I’ve been there too).
It gets harder when you’re from a marginalized group. How much of your struggle is you personally versus the system conspiring against people like you? And it gets even harder when the stakes are high–for a long time I didn’t buy a blood pressure monitor or a glucose monitor because I didn’t want to know. If I knew, it would become real. Once you buy a weighing scale, apply for a promotion, or submit your query to agents, once the rejection comes in, you’ll confirm failure. Until then, there’s hope.
And that’s the problem. Hope prevents you from seeing clearly that there is a problem and that you need to take steps to fix it. A long career (and life) will have slumps. They’re unavoidable, but the key is recognizing early when you’re falling into one, and finding the fastest path out.
This, below, is a Wheel of Life. It’s one way to cultivate honesty (not the only one). I do it once every few months to see how satisfied I am with the things that matter to me. It took me a few iterations to be honest enough with myself that I wanted fame, given all the stigma around women wanting to be seen.
You can have as many dimensions as you want in your wheel, and as many concentric circles as you want. Inner circles are a low score and outer circles are a high score, so if you’re doing well enough on all fronts you have an actual wheel.
Take one step at a time. Don’t try to fix everything all at once.
Once you do a true honesty exercise, you can get overwhelmed. You can’t fix everything all at once. Pick one section to address for one month. Then do the exercise again. See if what you tried moved the needle in that one dimension. Note that progress in one dimension may mean sacrificing in some other dimension. That’s okay. The goal is to have a wheel, not the biggest wheel.
Be honest when you check your progress. For instance, I never look at my previous Wheel of Life when I do my next one. That way I won’t anchor on the past. Over time, I can see the progression with some detachment.
Do it sustainably or don’t do it at all.
A manager once told me the title of this section, and it stuck. If I can’t make something a habit, any wins are going to be temporary. Which really came into effect when I had to shed some pandemic pounds.
So here’s the thing. I’m not giving up potatoes. I don’t care how many doctors tell me to cut the salt in my diet, but have you tried the fries at Nando’s?
This means really getting over the mentality of “Do X and [good consequences] happen quickly.” If you get promoted quickly and then burn out and have to take a year off, you just blew through your raise. If you lose a lot of weight but then injure yourself with a ridiculous exercise plan or diet, you’ll gain it all back.
Create a plan of action you can sustain, not until you achieve a particular goal, but until it becomes a way of life. My grandmother is in her nineties. She still eats potatoes. She’s fine. Even if potatoes end up killing me, they’re worth it.
Experiment and pivot when necessary. Rules aren’t set in stone.
I thought that getting older would mean my problematic skin would even out. Acne is not a teenage problem. Can I shout that from the rooftops? ACNE IS NOT A TEENAGE PROBLEM! After getting over this betrayal by the universe, I tried every facial and medication and skin care regime possible. Because it’s my face. There’s no giving up.
Eventually, I found what did work. And it’s not any one answer. It’s about attunement. Every day is a new skin day. I have to really think about what’s going on today. “Does it feel dry? Is a breakout imminent? What did I eat? What will I eat? I tried x serum yesterday and it seems not to be an issue, I’ll try it again today. Moisturizer y used to work but no longer does; let me try another.”
One of my friends taught me that no lesson plan survives first contact with the student body. No rule or framework matters as much as being aware of the situation at hand and responding appropriately in the moment. Let go of the rules, get closer to ground truth.
Focus on what you can give the world, not what the world can give you.
A lot of important, worthwhile things take time. You can’t really see a tree grow from a sapling if you’re staring at it. You have to step away and come back. You may think your book is ready to be published now, but it takes 2-3 years for a book to launch. (And 5 years from now you’ll cringe that it got published). You may think you’re ready for promotion but there isn’t upward room right now. What do you do in the meantime?
Answer your emails. Send your friends postcards. No, seriously, every time I find myself waiting for a positive reply from an agent or editor, I go and give one to someone else instead. Find ways to make yourself useful during the wait–offer praise and gratitude, help others get what they want, and pay it forward. It also helps you enjoy the wait a whole lot more.
To make this all a bit more real—SURPRISE CURVEBALL!—the remaining 5 things will only come next week.
Writing tip: Structure should always mirror and enhance content, so I’m going to make you wait and digest these 5 things. Slow isn’t always a bad thing.
Life tip: You’ll survive waiting a week. It’s not a catastrophe when things don’t go according to plan.