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Our families celebrated when we started crawling or walking.

Or when we went to college from school.

Perhaps that first job promotion.

We could see we were progressing. So could others.

However, such moments of external visible progress are rare.
And mostly out of our control.

How about the rest of the moments?
What if we measured our daily progress?
Why don’t we do it?

One of the reasons could be our internal craving for maximum progress, that we don’t feel satisfied with 1mm of progress each day.

But it is that 1mm compounded over a period of time that makes the miles shorter.

We may or may not get validation from others. 

However, documenting our progress is the sure shot way to internal validation – backed by evidence!

We are not alone.

It’s a belief. It may be true. 

Someone may be going through the same emotions, same struggles, and same riddles to solve in life.

Or perhaps that belief is false.

Maybe we all are alone.

Our problems since our childhood are different. So are the blessings we have been fortunate to have. So are the struggles we face today. 

There are no two same lines. So will none of us end up at the same point.

We are not alone. Or perhaps we are.

When we taste a little success of a product we built, we want to 10X it.
Or 100X.
And make a lot of money from it.

Except, that when we aim for quick money, we lose it quicker. 

Several reasons. 

Our self image hasn’t adjusted to it. 

We grew by luck or perhaps a great product – however, we never grew along with the process. 

More than anything else, we were hardly able to reflect – a superpower that comes after failure.

Growing your business and having more money is great.
It helps us make better choices. 

However, when we want everything right now, we end up trading the lessons of a lifetime for loss of a lifetime. 

The last thing we’d signed up for.

The fastest way is slow.

Of the entire childhood of waiting for summer vacations, having crushes, that little pocket money and having nothing to worry about, what do we reminisce about the most?

That when we were we, we were free.
That when we were authentic, life never brought in anything pathetic.
That when we lived in the now, we hardly wondered about the next “how”.

The best thing about childhood was that we didn’t have to do anything to be original. 

The better thing is, we can still do it.
We just have to take off all that we have acquired.

“I want to quit a “successful” career because I’m not happy doing it.
We’re not going to raise funding because it is not in the best interest of our customers.
We’ll give no-questions asked refund, and will comply with it 100% of the time.”

These are difficult choices. 

The choices on the other side seem easy.
They have the vote of the majority.

However, when we do what we think is right, we stand tall and upright even in the middle of a storm. 

When we listen to our heart instead of external chatter, we bring in love for our work instead of superficiality. 

Living by our values instead of just putting them up in the company’s intro is what differentiates the great from the good.

The world will, by default, question our difficult choices.

However, when we make choices that seem authentic to us, we stop questioning ourselves daily. 

And that’s priceless.

Most of us had a childhood of competing with others.

Get more marks than your competitor.
Higher rank.
Go to a better college than them.

These were (and unfortunately still are) the parameters that defined success for us as kids.

Except: Everyone is running their own race. 

We aren’t competing against anyone, but us.

Being alone in the race is super powerful, because now we get to focus and win our way. Not someone else’s. 

Maybe you figured a PM fit that worked.
Maybe you wanted to try things on this side of the world.
Or perhaps you were just happy doing it.

Whatever it is, that reason is important. 

Your “why” is important.
Your root cause matters.

The reasons hyped by the media, the Twitteratti, competitors, don’t matter as much.

When you know why you became an entrepreneur in the first place, the only story that matters is the one between your two ears.

Someone was kind to you for a long time.
Now, all of a sudden they’ve become rude.

This leaves you questioning.

How could they change? Why did they change? Did I do something wrong?
Somehow it has started affecting your self worth in that relationship. 

Here’s the truth: People don’t change. They just surface. Depending on their life circumstances or even the situations. 

When we accept people for where they are, we don’t do them a favour. We do one to ourselves. 

Focus is something we choose for our own selves.
For the life that we have chosen.
Our career. 

Focus makes us accountable. 

But there is another perk of that focus: The right kind of focus leads us to stop focusing on what others are doing wrong, and start looking for where they are going right. 

Owning your game does not allow you to question someone else’s. 

People are going to screw up.
They are going to lose it.

And the sad part is, they won’t even understand this despite us trying to explain this to them.

So, we have two options: 

1. Behave like the world is supposed to – get angry, and tell them where they went wrong.
   
2. The other one being, to accept that some things never change and the one who needs to change is us.

The second one is a more peaceful and more difficult option.
Not because it affects the work, rather because it is now a change in equation we have to make with ourselves. 

If we lose our temper because of where others screw up, we still have a long way to go.

The world is going to throw opportunities for us to lose our temper.
The biggest opportunity we have is to never pick that opportunity.