Stop with the Quick-Fix Mentality

It’s hard to be happy in life when we can’t get everything we want right now! I want to feel better now. I want to be successful now. I want my relationships to be better now. I want everything right now, is that too much to ask? Or maybe it’s hard to be happy in life because we do want everything right now. The remedy for this situation is to stop with the quick-fix mentality.

This is sort of a rehashing of my previous article, “Stop Trying to Get Immediate Results” where I discuss the concept of needing to have everything we’ve ever desired dropped into our lap at this very moment, and how life doesn’t work that way. 

Instead, we need to learn to play the long game when it comes to our expectancies and the reality of when we can see certain things come to fruition. 

As they say, Rome wasn’t built in a day.

Now, I do believe things can happen almost instantaneously. There are multitudes of people around the world who have experienced miracles of some shape or form that seem to transcend our concept of space and time. 

Intense prayer, meditation, or yoga can seem to unlock certain doorways to the quantum realm. My personal belief is this is the doorway to the mystery of God, which allows the individual access to certain states resulting in what seems to be an instantaneous change or results.

However, most people are unaware of how to access these states; or the techniques used to access these states.

The other caveat is that sometimes, intense prayer, meditation, or yoga can open the doorway, but that particular individual may have been involved in training their mind and body in those processes for a long time.

Still, there are instances where the desired changes or results may seem to happen supernaturally.

Life Takes Time

Regardless of whether someone is able to realize something they desire quickly or not, that individual still has to function through normal space-time just as everyone else does. And just because you might receive instant results on one level, it doesn’t mean you’ll get them on every level.

Sadhguru talks about this quite often. He relays how around the age of 25 life seemed to explode in him. Everything he knew or thought he knew was upended by several events that occurred during that time.

He says he felt so full of ecstasy and love for life that he thought he could change the entire world, around 5 - 6 billion people, within two years.

Four decades later, he’s only been able to reach about one billion people, and who can say how many of those stuck around to learn what he has to teach? 

What does this matter? It just goes to show that even though he had some intense, immediate changes, seemingly for the better, it’s still taken time for him to relay the message. Forty years' worth of time!

Jesus had the same experience. The gospels are full of stories about Jesus performing miracles that brought about instantaneous results, yet 2,000 years later, and with the message still going strong, many people doubt or don’t believe at all.

While it’s always nice to get immediate results, life takes time. We need to change the quick-fix mentality for many things and be prepared to be in it for the long haul.

I’m not saying we don’t go into whatever it is we're after with the expectation that this or that can change quickly. I’m saying go into it with that mindset, but if it doesn’t pan out the way you hoped, don’t lose heart.

Have You Given Up Before You’ve Even Begun?

I used to do this all the time. I wanted my situation to change right now. I wished, hoped, and prayed my life would be different, but it was always with a mindset of I’m going to wish and expect a change now. I’m going to hope and expect a change now.

For most of my life, I was on the rollercoaster ride of needing and wanting change, but since it wasn’t happening in a way where I could see instant results, I would falter and go back to my normal way of thinking.

I didn’t have the mentality to stay focused and play the long game. As a result, I often gave up before I even began. 

There wasn’t even a chance of me getting better because I would pluck out any saplings starting to grow so I could examine their roots and see why nothing was happening.

You can’t grow a tree if you keep plucking it out of the ground to see how well it’s growing. The same thing goes with your life. 

Many times you will not see the initial growth taking place. Just like a seed, it’s done in the dark, through constant struggle, until one day you see a tiny speck of life sprouting. But if you pull that sprout up, you’ve ruined it and must start again.

Trust the process. Work toward whatever goal you have consistently, and you’ll start to see results. When you do start to see results, don’t stop working!

Failure springs up all along the way in life. But, how many endeavors crumble because of our own self-induced failure? The moment we start to see SOME results, we quit. I did it! I made it!

No, you didn’t!

You started to see some results, but you haven’t pushed all the way through the barrier to the other side. If you quit too soon it will only be a short amount of time until you find yourself back where you started.

The quick fix got you! You didn’t plan to be in the game for the long haul, and now all your hard work is slowly being wasted. 

Eventually, that same feeling of pressure will be ringing your neck, trying to drag you under because you didn’t keep pushing to truly overcome.

You thought you’d made it out of whatever darkness you were fighting through, but you didn’t break free and learn how to run in the light.

How do I know this? 

Because I’ve done this so many times in my own life.

I could have beaten depression several times during that long battle for freedom. The problem was, that I would find a little bit of respite, I would feel a little better, and then I would stop working on getting better.

My problem was that I hadn’t built the habit or the mindset to truly be free.

I did the bare minimum. I made some inroads to freedom and then sat down on the side of the road while darkness slowly crept up on me.

Before I knew it, I was right back where I’d started. 

How to Find Freedom

It wasn’t until I committed to getting better that I actually started to get better. I had to climb the mountain step by step. I had to do the work every day.

The funny thing is, if I had just done the work and stuck with it, I could have kicked depression much sooner than I did. The only reason it took me so long was because I would find that sense of freedom and then stop working. 

I did this over and over again. 

I didn’t understand that by stopping the work, I was undermining my freedom.

Part of the reason was I had the wrong mentality. As much as I wanted to be free of depression, there was a part of me that thought I could never be free of it. 

Because no matter how hard I tried, I always ended up back in that dark, barren land. 

Had someone told me otherwise, maybe things would have been different. From my point of view, everything I knew centered around the fact that depression can be a life-long battle, which it can. But, does it have to be?

Apparently, that isn’t the case. 

If I had continued to push through with the understanding that I could overcome depression, I think I could have done it several times, and much sooner than I eventually did. 

So, how do you find freedom? Not just from depression, but from any form of mental challenge?

Don’t give up! Keep fighting.

Every day 

Wake up 

And fight again

Here are a few things you can do to help you on your journey

• Eat Healthy

  • Many unwanted conditions we experience are a result of unhealthy eating habits

• Workout

  • This helps harden your mind and makes you more mentally tough as well as strengthens your body

• Meditate

  • Get more in tune with your mind and body.

• Become conscious of your unconscious thoughts

  • Allows you to catch the thoughts you don’t want to have and to replace them with thoughts you do want to have.

No matter what, keep pushing forward. Give yourself the grace to fail. Give yourself the time to overcome. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and most things in life that are worthwhile take time.

Any successful person, or someone who has accomplished great things or performed amazing feats will all tell you it took time. It took hard work. It took consistency. It took dedication.

Most overnight successes have at least ten years of work in the background that nobody knows about. 

Don’t sell yourself short. You have what it takes, so take the time to do it right. 

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Much love to you all.

Josiah

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