Progress- The Emotionally Discouraging Roller Coaster Everyone is Riding  

Everyone at one time or another has tried to work on something- whether it was to better themselves, perfect a skill, or work on a goal. The best part of working on these things is seeing the progress that you make throughout the journey. Seeing all of those little reassurances that what you’re doing is in fact, working.

You work and work and work until you finally reach the end destination. The one thing you have been striving for from the beginning. During all of the long hours and all of the progress you have made: you finally have your achievement. The trophy you receive for all of the hard work, time and energy you spent on the task at hand. You made it. Congratulations!

Progress, unfortunately, isn’t quite so linear as start to finish. People are always quick to say “wow you’re so lucky!” like it was just handed to you, or insinuate how easy the transformation or task was. Internally, these comments and suggestions feel like a sucker punch to the gut because little do they know, the pain, sweat and tears behind your achievement.

People don’t know how you spent your time behind the scenes. It’s like they’re watching a movie and starting it at the very end-where the couple finally gets together and lives happily ever after- but what about all of the scenes that led up to that final moment? They missed the entire point of the movie: it’s not that easy to just live happily ever after.

They didn’t see the relapsing, replanning or failures you went through. They weren’t in your head when you had all of those thoughts about giving up and the negative self-talk saying you couldn’t do it when something got more difficult than planned.

That’s because progress is really a roller coaster, and not always the fun “I’m excited to ride it!”, kind. Some days you show up, give it your all and it works out. Those days are the best. You have the most progress you’ve ever seen and feel like what you’re doing is really working.

The next day when you show up, it’s not quite what you had planned. The progress that day doesn’t match the same upward progression from the day before. In fact, it looks like things are taking a turn and declining. That’s when the negative self-talk kicks in, “What’s wrong with me?”, “That was an awful attempt.”, “Maybe I can’t do this.”, “Yesterday must have been a fluke.”

At this point the self-talk can take over and cause you to contemplate quitting. This is where your roller coaster flat lines. You aren’t getting any better or any worse, you’re just, giving up. You stop trying and take a break.

This is where the pain, sweat and tears kick in. You beat yourself up for quitting but miss the excitement of all the progress you made. You go back and forth between the pros and cons and finally come to the conclusion- you’re getting back on the roller coaster.

Now this is an over simplification of an analogy. It’s not like failure is simple and easy to overcome. Sometimes it takes more than a mere few days to recover from. It can take days, months or even years to work up the courage to get back on the roller coaster. The fact is though, you do it. The flat line begins to rise up and you start seeing that upward progression again. Yay!

Unfortunately, hard times are still ahead. Just because you flatlined and have overcome the one hurdle doesn’t mean things are going to be easier from here on out. You will see more failures, more hard days and more feelings of, “I can’t”.

So, what made me write about progression? Well, something my husband said to me. Something he says to me quite often when I’m hard on myself and in the negative self-talk stage.

Last night I decided to go for a run on my treadmill, like I do almost every night. I put on my shoes, grabbed my headphones and fired up my fitness watch. After 4 kilometers I decided to break and call it a night. I stretch and take some time for meditation to bring my heart rate back down.

Eventually, I do the inevitable. I check my watch to see my progress. How well did I do on that run? Was I faster than my previous run? The same? Or…and I cringe at the thought, was I slower?

Looking at my watch my stomach drops. My average pace/kilometer was much slower than the run I did a few days prior. Was it because I took a few days of rest? Did I wreck all my progress? My anxiety kicks. I convince myself I never should have rested. I never should have taken two days off. I lost everything- everything I have been working for.

Defeated I go upstairs and sink into the couch. My husband, noticing my sullen body language, asks what’s wrong. I show him my watch and explain what the numbers he’s looking at means: I failed myself.

He looks at me confused and says “Isn’t going for the run better than not?” I reply, “Yeah, I guess…”, then it’s what he says next that really resonated with me:

“Progress isn’t linear. You can’t make every run your best run because every day is different. You fuel your body differently. You run at different times. Your mood will affect your run. Unfortunately, not every day can be your best day, and that’s okay! What’s important is that you showed up, did the run, and that alone will help your progress for tomorrow. Don’t get hung up on numbers but go by how you feel while you run. Did it feel easier? Did you turn up the speed? Let all of that fuel that spark to keep going, not just the numbers on your watch.”

I sat with that for a little while and although I still really wanted my numbers to reflect the hard work I was putting in, he was right. It’s not all about seeing positive progress every single day, it’s about showing up even when you have no motivation or see no progress at all. You keep going.

This can be applied to anything, not just working out or running. When it comes to mental health it can be a bit harder to gauge whether or not we are getting better or advancing in the right direction because it’s not about the numbers, it’s about the feelings. Sometimes just getting out of bed and making your way to the couch is progress.

The truth is, only we know the struggles behind our achievements. We have to remember all of the blood, sweat and tears we put in to bettering ourselves, no matter what the end goal is. That makes reaching our goals that much more rewarding.

Believe in yourself and you will manifest true success. Consistency and your mindset matter. Don’t feel back for relapsing into negative behaviours, it’s unfortunately part of the process. Focus on making a plan to get out of the hard times and continue your work forward.

When things get hard, remember the roller coaster- it goes up, it goes down, it flatlines, but it’s all about the journey as we ride it that matters. Not every day is going to be a success, but we have only one direction to keep moving, forward.