Overcommitment to progress

# Chapter 283

It is far too easy to hurry. Especially when the job is hard. We are doing the extra hard jobs right now and Earl wants to hurry up and put paint on the metal. But it actually needs lots and lots more work. Did I mention it needs lots more work? But it is hard work and it is slow hard hot work and very not sexy. You just want it to be over, but hurrying the process and the steps that need accomplishing will just make you unhappy with the results in the end. So you can be unhappy on the front end at how difficult and challenging the work is, or you can be unhappy on the back end with results which you will be looking at and experiencing far far longer than anything on the front end.

Our eagerness to see results and progress lead us to make poor decisions and cut corners and do everything we can to hurry the process. I have done this far too many times, and I am sure you have as well. We are over-committed to seeing progress and under-committed to the process which will give us results we like a great deal more. My respect for body men who fix and paint cars has gone up astronomical amounts now that I have had a whole year of trying to emulate them and their work. But I am convinced that their greatest skill is patience. It takes patience to produce the results you really want and will enjoy and be proud of . . . choose your unhappy point and enjoy your satisfaction point.