How do you make continual progress with your life, your goals, your purpose?
Progress requires planning, but inevitably relies on execution. And execution requires presence.
In order to make real progress with anything, you can’t be thinking five, or one hundred steps ahead.
The most important step is the next step that’s available.
When we get too far ahead of ourselves, we waste energy thinking about the alternatives, and get caught in the ‘what ifs’. It’s the place that causes hesitation, comparison, wasted energy, and progress suffers.
When we spend too long in this mindset it leads to fatigue, frustration and a feeling of being out of sync.
You can only execute at your best when you are in the moment and focused on the next step.
Does that mean you shouldn’t have a plan? Absolutely not. The plan is essential. But quality execution requires a state of flow.
In Jiu-jitsu, like a chess match, you can anticipate what might happen in any given situation, you should have a plan to achieve a certain result or submission, but you can never get too far ahead of yourself when it’s time to execute.
You have to deal with the move that is in front of you, and be ready to take the next step only as it presents itself.
When you are forcing things and trying to get a certain result you feel you ‘must’ achieve, you miss other opportunities, waste energy, use poor technique and the execution suffers.
We end up in these situations when we get distracted either by what others are doing, or have expectations of the way we think things are supposed to be.
When building a construction project. Everyone follows the design shown on the drawings. These are the plans. But the work; the execution, the pouring of cement, the moving of materials, the digging up of the ground; unfolds in real-time, and requires minute by minute focus on what is happening next.
As new feedback comes up, the plans can and do change and adjust. But if the people on site lose focus for a moment, get too far ahead of themselves or believe the plans must not change, things can get out of hand quickly.
Always have a plan, but know that when it comes time to execute you must be in the moment in order to make the next step the most effective step.
The difference between trying to force a result that will not happen rather than being in the moment and reacting as things change can be the difference between success and failure, between progression and stagnation.
What makes this much easier is when what you are doing is in tune with your own purpose, and your executing becomes a part of that process. Execution becomes simple. The next step is always there.
