“Mr Tortoise was over the line. After that, Mr Hare always reminded himself, ‘Don’t brag about your lightning pace, for Slow and Steady won the race!‘“ ~The Tortoise and the Hare (Aesop’s Fables)

I’m sure you’ve heard the popular quip – “slow and steady wins the race” and this statement couldn’t be any truer than in our present age where instant gratification rules the day.

Instant gratification is the desire to experience pleasure or fulfilment without delay or deferment. Basically, it’s when you want it; and you want it now. Instant gratification is the opposite of what we’ve been taught and try too hard to practice — delayed gratification.

Instant gratification is the need to get results NOW! This is the current bane of society and one reason for the recent increase in scams online. “50% ROI in 3 days”, “Get packs in 6 days” “Drink this tea and lose 90kg in 2 weeks”…But in real life…Delayed gratification is what works.

Life is more Mr tortoise than Mr Hare when it comes to getting good at anything or achieving desired results at something of note.

Question; What is the difference between an Artist like Da Vinci and the average artist on the street? Or Cristiano Ronaldo and any other footballer? Is it the tools?- Football, brush, paint and canvas or the consistent professional commitment to daily practice, mentors, trials and error, routines and the time it took to learn and do something.

If you answered the latter you are right. The difference between being a novice and being a master at any profession or craft is the consistent commitment to daily practice, failures, learning from them and the time that all these takes.

If you want to be a good writer, there is no magic pill other than writing consistently. Want to be a good dancer, no magic pill other than learning and practising how to dance consistently, want to earn with a skill online, you have to put in the practice of getting very good at that skill.

This goes for other facets of life… Practice is how we get good at anything. And this leads to habits. 

When we see experts in any field, especially when we see the results they have, we might think it is due to fancy new equipment or tool they have that we lack. This assumption overlooks the time it would have taken them to learn something new, become masters at it and achieve their goal. In truth, you could have those same tools and not still be as good. What they have that you don’t is hours, days, weeks and years of practice. 

But what do we do when we are just getting started?

“We want to cut corners and are looking for the shortcut. We want to make progress as soon as possible, perhaps because we feel behind in life and think we need to hurry to get ahead, or because we think we’ll be happier when we reach our goal.” – Megan Schowalter

Looking for shortcuts is not a good long term strategy to get better at anything or achieve a worthwhile result in life. The best “equipment” is what holds us back when it comes to practice

If you want to start a youtube channel, you might give excuses of needing a new phone, a fancier laptop than the one you have before you get started. But that’s all an excuse because all you really need is practice with what you already have.

There is no “equipment” that buys you a shortcut to the top that doesn’t take time.

And not just time on fantasising about what you will do but time spent

• learning more about the tools that you already have.
• Time to pick up a camera and practice shooting videos of yourself(even if you don’t publish).
• Time to use a pen and paper to write down ideas 
• Time to make bad videos so that the next time you could make a better video.
• Time for repeated failures, practice, and improvement.

Don’t get caught wasting time looking for a solution instead of taking time to practice. 

In the end, we lose energy and motivation looking for the right tools or answers.

Stop trying to go fast but rather look to go far. When you fixate on the end result, you are robbing yourselves of the fun and excitement of the practice.

Be like Mr tortoise, not Mr hare, “Slow and steady wins the race”

Or in the immortal words of Rick Ross “ I don’t want to move fast, I want to move correctly” Moving correctly takes TIME and practice. 

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