Tiny little bits of progress
A brief thought on incremental improvement as I recover from Rose City Comic Con
“The secret of all improvement in feats like this is gradual progress from one stage to another, the severity of the test only being increased by degrees that are hardly noticeable.”
-Alexander Zass (Russian strongman, wrestler, and circus performer)
Too often we chase progress in great degrees: large jumps from one iteration to another, with little attention paid to detail.
Incremental progress, though less glamorous initially, provides much better and more meaningful results in the long run.
Focusing on small, consistent improvements forces us to turn up to volume and notice little things that we would commonly miss.
It’s this attention to minutiae that deepens our practice and yields fulfillment not in the form of huge results, but in the journey of understanding.
Forward progress is rarely grand, nor is it consistent. It is only by listening to the small things over and over again that we improve.