Years of nothing. Then everything in a month.
It’s midmorning. I’m out walking. It’s been my usual routine for months now. Wake, meditate, write proposals, work on building my newest business, take a break. But I’m getting discouraged. I thought things would have improved by now. Suddenly I receive a phone call. I’ve landed a substantial contract.
Then – still thinking about this good news and not yet back from my walk – a text comes through to say a significant deposit has been made into my bank account from the monthly earnings of one of my platforms. A week later, subscribers to my newsletter spike and one of them approaches me to collaborate on a new research study. I can’t believe it. Then maybe again, I can.
After a long drought, it flooded.
Over the past decade I have studied others closely, trying to understand their stories and the journeys which have brought them to where they are. I’ve asked myself, what is it that makes some people successful and others not? And then I’ve tried to mimic it.
What I have come to learn – and at last started to experience in my own life – is that good things tend to follow good things, but they usually take a while to begin arriving. I don’t mean it in a hollow kind of wishful thinking way, as though if I just wave my magic wand for long enough then suddenly good things will begin falling from the sky.
I mean it in the way of a build-up. A preparation period in which the foundation for success is laid down through ordinary and often rather ‘unsuccessful’ means first, before becoming ready to potentially explode exponentially.
It’s the part that no one talks about. The part that is difficult, when nothing is working out and it would be easier to give up on a dream than it is to keep working relentlessly for a reward that never seems to be coming. It reminds me of the hero’s journey in a narrative, the moment before things turn around.
On the surface, there would appear no harm in quitting. In fact, it might even make sense to. Except for that niggling feeling of being destined for something more. Of sensing there’s a purpose behind it all, a greater meaning, if only things would just line up.
I take hope from this, because I’ve been defeated more times than I can remember. From failed careers and business ideas to failed relationships, not to mention the numerous projects I have started, not completed or otherwise left to dwindle. I like to think they are the preparation period – the very things that have led me to where I want to be.
The first book I wrote took me years to complete. I started it with high hopes before realising what it actually took to write an entire book. But I kept at it. When I eventually finished it and began submissions, I could not get a single publisher who was even remotely interested. It was a flop. But I learnt a lot from that experience.
Because there’s resilience that’s built from failure which isn’t found when things go right the first time. There’s courage grown from dusting off and trying again. Knowledge is gained from discovering what doesn’t work. And mastery is typically only achieved through the mind-numbing monotonous work that many will never see.
Good things don’t usually happen out of nowhere. They often happen after years – sometimes decades – of persistently working towards something. In my experience, faith in the unknown grows largest, paradoxically, through the goals, ambitions and desires which involve the most uncertainty.
Success is a culmination. A tipping point. A threshold reached where the effort, persistence and tenacity finally begin to pay off, and things at last, come into alignment. Once that happens, momentum shifts. An opportunity arises, and that opportunity leads to a chance meeting. That chance meeting leads to a new deal and suddenly a company is born.
It isn’t easy to believe in something no one else can see. It’s even less easy to convince others of its validity. I had so many times where I got it wrong. Not for my ability to make something work or not, but for questioning my own sense of belief in what was possible and trying instead to fit in places, roles and existences I didn’t belong in.
I’ve learnt to trust myself more. To know that just because I cannot explain how something will work out, doesn’t mean it won’t work out at all. The world was built from dreamers who saw things others didn’t. I remind myself of this when it’s been a long time between downpours.
Good things that last aren’t the result of a one-off chance event. They are the accumulation of the compounding effects we create by our daily actions, habits and choices. I think growth begets growth if we can be in the moment enough to seize it. But the ability to do so often only comes about by staying committed through the times of nothing.
What little things have you been doing each day that are leading you to your breakthrough moment? You never know, the rains might be just about to fall.
I write from lived experience, not as a clinician or expert. What I share is what I’ve noticed and what has helped me, not advice for everyone. [Why I write this way]
Read next:
Knowing You Have What You Want Is Not About Stuff, It’s a State of Mind | How Do You Step into the Person You Are Becoming?