Fola Daniel Adelesi: The Power of Little Progress

If you under rate your little progress because of the big and significant progress you are expecting, you may never get to that big progress. I see too many people neglecting the fact that they are making little or what you can call appreciable progress and because of that they eventually lose out on the expected big change.

You can only make the big progress when you recognize the small one. There is no way the big progress will come without starting from the small ones that most people don’t appreciate in any way.

Have you ever seen a child that just gets up and starts walking in one day? That’s not possible. Maybe at three months you start helping the child to sit down. The first thing you want to ensure is that the child can sit, first with the aid of some props and later without being aided. So many people will give you some advice on how the child will be able to sit on her own. Before then you would have also struggled with making sure the child’s head becomes stable instead of dangling when you carry her.

From being able to sit you start throwing things in front of the baby with the expectation that the baby will reach out for it. You want to see the baby make the first moves to lift herself. That gradually leads to crawling. After the crawling you start thinking of helping the baby to stand and gradually take the first step and then the second. Eventually when the baby starts walking, you first have to support the child before the baby eventually takes all the steps alone.

That progress can be little but every little progress eventually counts for the ability of the child to run around and play as he or she wants. We should also bring this to our personal and business life. If we do not appreciate the little progress we are making then we will not get to the point to the really significant progress.

I can also tell you that some parents, because of their anxiety, have tried too many things to get their children to walk faster. Rather than getting the children to walk faster, they got them into trouble and eventually delayed their walking progress.

Many of us are the ones killing the little progress we are making because of the anxiety to really make big progress. You have to be encouraged by the little progress that you are making. It is very significant for your success and that is what tells you that the big progress you are expecting can eventually happen.

I remember the first day I planted corn in the soil beside our walk way at home. I threw a few seeds inside and poured water on the soil after that. I waited a few days and started seeing little flowers sprout from the spot where I had planted the seeds. I was so excited. I started jumping all over the place. It was just the flower without the seed, but the more important thing for me was that it was an appreciable progress and I loved it.

You can build on the progress that you have no matter how little to get to the big progress that you have made. Maybe you have started out in a career line as a receptionist and without a degree to get a bigger or better job. I think you can make progress by still brushing yourself up and taking some courses. When you see an opening for communications after some years, you can apply for it. I have seen people transit from being ‘receptionists’ to ‘front desk’ executives and then handle communications proper within an organisation or move to other significant departments.

There is nothing that says you have to be where you are right now for the rest of your life. And there is nothing that says your progress will only continue this way. Take a look at the air plane. When the plane is about to take off, the air hostesses will spend the first few minutes taking you through the safety talk. After that the pilot starts moving slowly. He or she might try to turn or move towards the runway. All the movement at that time will be slow until she gets to the runway and when she hits the runway, the speed automatically changes. And we both know that the plane starts to fly before the end of the runway.

So your progress may seem slow today, but the important thing is that you are first of all making progress and that the progress is consistent. Very soon, you will hit your run way of life and before you know it, you will be flying. However, that will only happen if you appreciate the power of little progress and ride on that to greatness.

Photo Credit: Dreamstime| Bryan Creely