The path to success is not always visible. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t there.
There are two types of phenomena in the universe: things you see and things you don’t see. Many of us focus on what’s visible in life because it’s easy to measure and compare.
How much you weigh, how much you make, how many hours you work…but these things don’t tell the whole story of who you, where you’re going, or how far you’ve made it down the path to success. To answer those questions, we have to look deeper.
I learned to look deeper when I started sparring in Tae Kwon Do. My instructor always stressed the importance of staying on the move. Shuffling around not only made it harder for my opponent to hit me, it made it easier to disguise how I was going to hit my opponent.
But my instructor had a friend named Lorenzo who practiced a different style of martial arts. When Lorenzo sparred, he didn’t move at all. No shuffling, no bouncing. He didn’t even put his hands up. He just stood there like he was at a cocktail party.
I said to him, “You sure take a lot of chances.”
“What do you mean?” he replied with a flinty stare.
“Well, you never move. You just stand there.” Lorenzo answered me by raising his hand and making a fist–not to punch me, but to show me how he was squeezing his fingers from pinky to thumb in a gentle, rippling motion.
He finished his point: “I’m always moving.”
Cue the gong, please.
To my amazement, when I watched Lorenzo spar after that, he really was always moving–he just didn’t move the way I had been trained to see movement. His path to success was invisible to me. The lesson?
Just because you see something, doesn’t mean it is something. And just because you see nothing, doesn’t mean nothing is there.
So, what was the secret to Lorenzo and his invisible skill? Practice. Quiet, unseen practice. Day after day, year after year. He was living proof that invisible work leads to invisible skills.
I adapted Lorenzo’s work ethic early on. The reward? Even after decades of throwing punches, I keep discovering new ways to throw a better punch. I’m sure the same is true for you. Compare how you drive today to how you drove when you first got your license. Or how you manage your friendships today compared to high school. Or how you do your job today compared to the day you were hired.
Where rookies struggle, experts execute. Where experts execute, masters make it look easy.
The path to success is simple: effort, experimentation, and experience lead to efficiency, competence, and confidence. But walking that path takes time. And progress is largely invisible. And that can be a bummer.
As human beings, we seem hard-wired to celebrate what we can see and ignore what we can’t see. We pay attention to the external events in our lives—the big mistakes, the big wins— and dismiss the smaller, internal events. It’s entertaining to hear a story about someone telling off their boss, but no one wants to hear how you exercised patience by stopping at a yellow traffic light instead of running it.
It’s understandable—external events are not only more fun to talk about, they’re easier to measure. Think about it— a change of mind is the most powerful event in our lives and yet it is completely invisible.
But if there’s one thing we should all understand, is that without invisible, unmentionable, and imperceptible efforts, there will never be any visible, noteworthy, and perceptible achievements. Therefore, if you’re writing a book, you shouldn’t be happy when you write 10 pages in a day, but feel like a loser when you only write 10 words. If you’re working out, you shouldn’t be happy when you exercise for an hour, but feel like a loser when you can only take a 10-minute walk after dinner.
In everything you do, believe that even the tiniest step forward on the path to success is worth celebrating… even if it’s not worth talking about.
Setting goals is exciting. Reaching goals is exciting. Working towards goals is not exciting. Which is why lots of people set goals and never achieve them. We must be mature about the mechanics of success and keep in mind that the path to success is not built on excitement…it’s built on effort.
You’ve heard of kung fu? Well, you may be interested to learn that the words “kung fu” don’t translate to mean “martial arts”. Kung fu translates to mean “effort” and “time”. That’s right! The secret to being a master of kung fu is simply kung and fu. Same goes for everything else.
But what about all of those overnight success stories we hear about? The pop star who explodes on to the scene, the new app you simply must have?
Nope. Overnight success stories are almost always untrue. You don’t see the struggles, the doubts, the rejection letters, the slammed doors, the restructuring, the revamping… you only see something when it finally works.
For example, Angry Birds has been downloaded a billion times. But did you know the company that created Angry Birds designed 51 other games before they hit it big?
Failures are lessons on the invisible path to success.
Sure, sometimes you get lucky. You can win the lottery or stumble into an opportunity… but even if you catch a break, it’s who you are at that moment that will make the difference between success and failure. You can get the shot you always dreamed of, but if you’re not ready for it, if you haven’t been preparing invisibly beforehand, you’ll end up back where you started.
To be clear, when I talk about success, I’m not just talking about how others perceive you…I’m talking about how you perceive yourself. If you wait for others to celebrate your personal, private achievements, you’ll always feel like a loser. That’s why you need to celebrate yourself. If you’re doing the work, slap yourself on the back. Give yourself credit for your internal victories.
Sure, you’ll always have days when you accomplish more than other days, but never mistake a lack of progress as making no progress. Compare yourself to yourself, not to others.
It’s also crucial to realize that the invisible path to success is not the only path you can take in life. Running in the opposite direction is the invisible path of doom. Where success is built on effort, doom is built on neglect. Those little things you know you should do but don’t, day after day, year after year, will grow into big things over time.
Not paying attention to a loved one, giving away too much control of your company, eating the wrong foods, trusting the wrong people, taking on too much debt, not flossing… yep! Even flossing. Make no mistake—healthy habits are a must on the invisible path to success.
Know this: Time is either working for you or against you. That’s not a choice. It’s happening right now as you read this. Take a close look at every minute of your day and ask if it is being spent wisely.
If you want to go far on the path to success, pursue all the little actions you can take every day that will pay off in the long-term.
Getting enough sleep. Sitting up straight. Taking a deep breath. Saying no to another commitment. These are all pennies that add up to fortunes.
There’s a big difference between being alive and living. You can be alive and never leave your bed. Living means moving towards something. But even when we know what we need to do to reach our goals, sometimes we don’t do it!
Let’s figure out how to avoid the four biggest roadblocks we face on the invisible path to success.
Roadblock #1: NOT KNOWING WHAT TO DO. You don’t want to waste time doing the wrong things, so you stop from doing anything. But how long are you willing to wait for that perfect plan to appear? Spoiler alert: it ain’t comin’! Time spent waiting for a perfect plan is wasted time.
Here’s the solution when you don’t know exactly what to do–do something! Anything! There is no right or wrong answer. The first reward for doing something is you build a habit of working. The second reward is that you’ll figure out the perfect plan as you go.
Action takes you places. Standing still doesn’t take you anywhere. Go to the gym. Send the email. Sign up for the class. Ask the question. Show up. The path to success requires action, not perfection.
Roadblock #2: FEAR. The fear of making a mistake. The fear of being criticized. Of losing. Of failing. But guess what? Not trying is the greatest mistake. Failure and criticism are part of the process. Accept it.
Fact: even your best decision on your best day followed by your best effort doesn’t mean you’re going to win. That’s just life. So, take your best shot and leave the rest to fate.
Don’t let fear make excuses for you:
- “The time isn’t right.”
- “I don’t have the money.”
- “I don’t know anyone.”
- “I don’t know how.”
- “I’m not ready.”
- “The market is bad.”
Life is never ideal! Conditions are never perfect. The path to success requires that you work with what you have. Starting is the most difficult part…and the most important. Remember this— there are people who started with less than you, who accomplished more than you.
Roadblock #3: COMFORT. Change—for better or worse—is stressful. Being frozen, on the other hand, can be comforting. Frozen is known. Frozen is secure. The fear of the unknown is greater than the pain and disappointment you’re already living with—even when what you’re living with is horrible.
Staying in a bad relationship. Staying in a job you complain about day after day. Staying in debt. Be careful! You’re becoming a master of disappointment. You know the part you’re supposed to play. Your identity is set.
But thinking like that is a mistake! It denies the greatest survival capability we possess as human beings—the ability to adapt. Unfortunately, the same ability to adapt to new circumstances keeps us from changing our current circumstances. We grow comfortable. We lower our standards and expectations. We get used to living with what we don’t want. We accept less.
Break the spell!
If you really want to move forward on the path to success, you’ve got to welcome the stress of change. If you can’t handle it, you might as well give up now. Give up and do your friends a favor–stop complaining about what you’ve got and make yourself comfortable.
Roadblock #4: LOSING MOTIVATION. You start a diet and hop on a scale every day to see the results. You don’t see any difference. So, you get discouraged and quit, jumping off the path to success. If that sounds familiar, I bet this will, too…
You run into someone you haven’t seen for a while and the first thing they say is, “Wow! You look great!” Suddenly, you’re motivated again. If that’s happened to you, never forget the lesson: Just because you can’t see your progress doesn’t mean you’re not making progress.
Don’t fall into the trap of expecting BIG results when you start down the path to success. Remind yourself that every big success is built on a million and one small successes. Give yourself time. Even if you only accomplish one little thing in a day, that still puts you farther down the path of success than the day before. Let your success build momentum and carry you forward. Rome wasn’t built in a day… and neither is your future.
So…you got up today. You’re working hard and following the same old routine. But are you making any progress?
Are you in the business of busyness? Are you huffing and puffing, bouncing all over the place, thinking you’re getting ahead on the path to success, but really going nowhere? Do you distract and overwhelm yourself in work so you’ll have an excuse to neglect all the little things you know you should be doing instead?
Do you feel lost on the path to success?
WAIT! Before you give up, take a deeper look. Is it possible you’re successfully chipping away at your goals, but just not very good at measuring your progress? Is it possible you’ve been on an invisible path to success all this time and just didn’t know it?
Think about it—are you the same person you were one month ago? One year ago? Five years ago? Success is not a stream of loud, breakthrough events.
Success is one, loud breakthrough event preceded by thousands of quiet, routine steps forward.
Be careful how you judge yourself. And others. When I judged Lorenzo for not moving, I was wrong. But Lorenzo didn’t care what I thought, because he knew how to measure his own progress. Be sure to give yourself credit for every step you take on the path to success. Even if no one else sees it.
Strive to be a master of effort and time…a master of kung fu. Strive to keep moving. It doesn’t matter if you’re racing down the path to success at 100mph or 1mph. So long as you’re heading in the right direction, you’ll eventually get where you want to go.
Be patient. Enjoy the scenery. Feel the wind on your face.
Just keep your eyes on the road, hands on the wheel, foot on the gas, and you’ll go far on the invisible path to success.
This article is a summary of the Fight for a Happy Life podcast, “The Invisible Path to Success.” Listen to the full episode here.
