Do you trust the process?
If you are an adult in the modern world, working on any type of project, business, or creative endeavor, sooner or later you will reach a bottleneck, impasse, or roadblock. It can be external like no clients are calling you back. Or your collaborating partner is out sick. It can also be internal. You are depressed. You are fighting anxiety around a project. Or you may just be too tired to do another thing that day.
This may be the moment when you encounter a guru, who will remind you to trust the process.
Many credit the foundations of this saying back to Sam Hinkie, the Philadelphia 76er’s general manager back in 2013 who used to create a “process” to bring top players to his roster.
If you're a church gurlie like me, rare in the Christian faith during the 70s and 80s, “trust the process” has a more spiritual foundation.
In the New Testament, I was taught about having faith and trust in God during rough times. And I didn’t even need a lot of faith, to be honest.
For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you." (Matthew 17:20-21).
The business world has also co-opted the idea of trusting the process.
It doesn’t matter if you are religious, corporate, or a sports fan. Trusting the process really means belief in your journey and the vision you set out for yourself. It requires you to reckon with the most important people in your life - your past, present, and future selves.
Trusting the process means you made an agreement with your past self that what you are trying to accomplish matters to you. You are working with your present self who is facing all the false starts,halts, and delays, and promising to your future self that it will all work out in the end.
Now, the question is: Does it all work out in the end? I guess it depends on what the “it” is we’re referring to. I can say that if I look back at past problems, they are indeed in the past. I somehow figured out how to graduate from grad school. I somehow wrote a book. I managed to create work that resonates with folks. I trusted, and I was right. Does that mean everything I did was successful? If that were the case, my administrative assistant would be writing this newsletter.
But I do subscribe to the idea that this collection of workflow, patience, prayer, perseverance, and luck does somehow help us get through most of the hurdles in our lives.
So if you are at a crossroads, a dead end, or the road has been washed away, I am hoping that I can impart some words that have served me in my life and career. “Trust the process.”
As always thank you so much for taking the time to read this newsletter. I hope you left with a little something to carry you through the week. You can always follow me on Instagram, my website, and NOW Etsy!