Progress doesn't look clean. It looks like awareness arriving a few seconds earlier than it used to. Catching yourself mid-word. Circling back after and saying what you were too heated to say in the moment. Not pretty. Not fast. Not linear. But progress.
PaulLinehan.co
If you're looking for progress to show up clean and obvious, you'll wait your whole life. Most of us grew up thinking change meant big, sweeping turns. Like flipping a switch. But real progress is quieter. It's catching yourself a little sooner than last time. It's noticing the same old patterns, but with just enough space to maybe do something different. Doesn't feel heroic. Doesn't look impressive. But it's the only kind that sticks.
We buy into this idea that change should be dramatic because that's what sells. Movies, self-help books, even the stories we tell each other - big breakthroughs, quick fixes, overnight turnarounds. It's comforting to think you'll wake up one morning and just be better. The truth is, most of the time you're just a little less reactive, a little less stuck in your own bullshit. That's progress, even if nobody else sees it.
There's a hidden cost to believing in clean, fast progress. You start to feel like you're failing if you don't see clear results. You miss all the small wins because you're looking for fireworks. That wears you down. Makes you think you're broken or falling behind. You start hiding the mess instead of learning from it. You can lose years waiting for a feeling that never comes.
Here's what shifts when you see it for what it is: you stop beating yourself up for not being perfect. You start giving yourself credit for the little shifts. You notice you're not as quick to snap at your kids. You pause before letting an old grudge run your mouth. You go back and fix something you messed up, because now you can see it. None of it is pretty. None of it is fast. But that's how you know it's real.
This isn't about lowering the bar. It's about being honest. If you're a man in your forties or fifties, maybe you're used to hiding your slow progress because it doesn't feel like enough. But the truth? The guys who make it through midlife with their sanity intact are the ones who learn to see the messy bits as proof they're actually moving. The ones who only chase clean lines usually end up stuck, angry, or numb.
So next time you catch yourself mid-screwup, or you notice you're circling back to fix something you would've ignored before, don't shrug it off. That's progress. Ugly, slow, and real. The kind that lasts.