Instant change is a myth and a dangerous one at that. We are brought up on a culture that demands immediate gratification and sudden wealth. The flip-side of this belief is often a deep-seated, nagging frustration that our effort does not yield immediate results.
Six Sigma, the rigorous process methodology pioneered by Motorola and GE, teaches us otherwise. Quality is a long process, a deep apprenticeship, a journey that is never truly finished. So let go of the goal and focus on the process. Forget the destination and look at your footsteps, one humble step after another. Keeping think inputs not outputs. As surely as night follows day, the first will deliver the second.
If you are struggling with motivation, remember the words that my Master Black Belt taught me back in 2001. "Don't try and boil the ocean, James", he told me. Or in the words of Tony Robbins, "chunk it down". Our culture is reared on the myth of instant change and instant achievement, because it focuses purely on the end, not the means. It only takes note when, as if by magic, a Google comes out of nowhere and earns billions in its IPO. You weren't looking in the mid-nineties when Larry Page and Sergey Brin were slaving away in their dorm rooms. Today, at this very moment, the entrepreneurs and billionaires of tomorrow are building their dreams.
The key secret that Yamazumi thinking gives you is to look deeper, to look at the causes not the effects. The roots make the oak tree. Six Sigma proves that inputs drive outputs. Doctors or professors do not simply "arrive" in their vocations fully fledged; they undergo years of arduous and rigorous training.
So day by day, keep the little victories coming. One hour of study achieved. One blog post written. Patience is not sexy, glamorous or appealing to our minds, for we are culturally conditioned to dream of the perfect and the instance. This week your mission is to set aside the myth of instant change. Over time the small accumulations of effort and power will build momentum and eventually the tree will blossom. Winter becomes Spring. Good things sometimes take time.
James Rozel
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