Learning to Love the Process
It's all about the journey
I’ve been pondering a lot lately on how I view successes and failures in my life. With so many goals I’m working toward right now, it’s easy to get caught up in whether or not I achieve those exact goals and outcomes I desire, when in reality, I’m starting to think that this might not be the best way of thinking about it. Instead, I need to focus more on the process of getting there rather than whatever “there” actually is.
It’s important to have a goal in mind, as that is the driving force behind whatever it is I do. But it’s also important to allow that goal or outcome to shift overtime as I start really working towards it.
I have a whiteboard in my office where I wrote my ultimate goal I have for myself at the moment. It reads, “I will get One Million podcast downloads.” It’s a lofty goal, and frankly, I have no idea how I will actually get there. However, reading that every single day and actually saying it out loud has helped shift my subconscious mind in a way that aligns everything I do toward that goal.
I’m starting to think of what my life will look like once I’ve actually achieved this. In this future state, the way I do work for my podcast is much different than how I go about everything now. Since I started my podcast, it has always been more of an afterthought; it’s something I work on when I have time. In this future state, it’s something I give myself dedicated time for every day or week to make sure I get done what needs to get done. This is something that I need to start doing right now in order to be able to comfortably do that in my future state. I also know that in the future it won’t just be me working on the podcast, I’ll have a team of people helping me. So I’m now also looking into ways to offload some of the tasks that need to get done in order to free my time up to think more about the bigger picture.
What I’m essentially doing is tricking my mind into thinking I’ve already achieved this goal and then working backwards from there. And to be honest, after having done this for the past month it feels like I really have. I’ve given myself a dedicated block of time each morning to work on podcast-related tasks and it feels way less hectic trying to get it all done.
This same type of thinking can be applied to any goal or outcome that we desire. The reason is because it allows us to focus on the process of getting there, which is more important than the thing itself. By getting attached to the process and not getting attached to the outcome, it means that we can never truly fail. Not that failure is a bad thing by any means, but I now see it in a very different light. All failure means is that the process needs to be tweaked, rather than giving up altogether. It’s not the end state. Getting attached to the process also allows us to stay more open to different possibilities that may end up being even greater than what we originally had in mind.
Small steps over a long period of time will always be better than large steps here and there. It’s the same idea as compounding interest. Think of your process like compounding interest. You don’t need to have big inputs, but rather small inputs over a long period of time, and trust that that is how you will achieve your dreams. But it always comes back to the process.
Song of the Week
I’m still on a Khruangbin kick since the last newsletter, so here is another song that makes me feel some type of way by them:
Feel Good - Maribou State and Khruangbin
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Cam Leids is an entrepreneur and a psychonaut through and through. He’s the host of The TripSitting Podcast and the founder of Conscious Retreats, a company that helps people find the best retreat center for their psychedelic journeys. He loves all things psychedelics-related, from the mental health and spiritual aspects to the downright crazy and nonsensical trips. Check him out on Instagram or check out his other posts that he writes for Shroomtown.