Why you should embrace the process and not the outcome.

Somewhere in between East Prawle & Start Point.

Let me tell you about the biggest anti-climax of my life, well at least in the top 5 of anti-climax’s. This summer I walked 630miles in 36 days a huge achievement only made better by the fact that I raised £5500 for Woman’s Trust in the process.

It was one of the hardest things I have ever done. I had to push through so much physical and mental pain to achieve the goal I set myself and there are many many lessons in that experience but the biggest one was this; Embracing the process is where you find the joy not the outcome.

As I walked that last two miles along one of Dorset’s finest nudist beaches I felt nothing. When I got to the big blue statue that marks the end of the South West Coast Path with my Mum and her friend being far more enthusiastic than me all I could think was; Is this it?

All of that for this? A feeling of emptiness.

Many people go through this when they achieve their goals, especially big ones that take huge amounts of effort. They are so set on how they will feel once they get to the end point they forget to look for joy in the process and ultimately find nothing of great significance in the result.

It’s backwards because you will spend much more time in the process than in the achievement.

Take fitness for example. If you want to BE fitter you will need to start enjoying GETTING fit because you will spend a lot more time getting fit than you will being fit. You can’t have one without the other and the goal will be far easier to achieve if you enjoy the process.

Which takes me back to the walk, I wish I had enjoyed it more. There were certainly elements I did enjoy but ultimately my clearest memories of it are me feeling very frustrated with myself and my body because of the various pitfalls I faced. I had become so attached to the end goal and the very precise way I was going to get there a lot of the joy of doing something so remarkable was removed.

The process is very much what life is made up of and what I have discovered largely through the work I do in The Woman & The Wolf is that all of my fulfilment and love for what I do comes from the individual work with each client and the process of working on my business.

Yes I set goals, yes I create a strategy and yes I do mark those wins as they come in but all the good stuff is usually in the small moments.

Like a client posting an image that I took of them for the first time or coming away from a shoot feeling like I have made a difference to someone’s confidence. Or it might be learning a new skill that makes my work better or easier.

Sometimes, it might even be a difficult conversation or walking away from a potential client who isn’t a good fit and feeling good about that decision making. It’s also very much in the showing up, the writing of blog posts, being social, networking, building relationships. I genuinely enjoy all of those things which ultimately makes building my business a whole lot easier and gives my daily work a lot more meaning.

Having our focus too heavily set on the end result can also be massively detrimental to our self worth. This is because we define ourselves by the end result of what we are doing and if that doesn’t happen we berate and belittle ourselves for it.

This can also lead to bad decision making. We will keep pushing through with something that actually we don’t want or is bad for us because we will be ‘less than’ if we don’t complete whatever it is we set out to do. We forget that actually there is nothing wrong with changing our minds or failing and that can then be a blocker for future endeavors as we hold our lack of ‘achievement’ as a measuring stick for our self worth.

The ultimate example of this is dating and relationships. Previous ‘failures’ in relationships (romantic or platonic) is the hand brake for most human beings on the planet when it comes to putting yourself out there. Our inherent need for connection with other human beings matched up against the societal pressure of ‘you are less than if you are alone’ is the reason so much pressure is put on the end result.

People become terrified of reaching out and building connection because if it doesn’t work out it hurts and it’s a huge failure on your part. Instead the healthier happier way would be to enjoy the process of getting to know another human and being ok with letting go and walking away if it’s not right.

In fact, that right there is the reason so many people stay in unhappy relationships sometimes even abusive ones. The individual places more value on the end result than the process. Meaning they stay and suffer rather than let go and try again.

So what am I trying to say exactly.

Many things all at once. This is a subject I could talk about for hours largely because it’s where I believe we can find the best kind of happiness and for me that is important. Life is far too short to be measuring our value and happiness on something that may or may not even happen.

And with that I will take you back to the walk one last time. One of the happiest moments of that painful process was an evening where I walked the 3.5miles from East Prawle to Start Point. It was one of those perfect evenings for beautiful light, the temperature was perfect and every single step I took was filled with various species of butterflies. I was already late to finish that day, I wasn’t even sure I would still have the light for the last mile and I also knew a massive storm was on it’s way for the following day. So much to worry about and I was still in so much pain. But just for that 2hrs I put all my focus into where I was and what was around me and I what I found was joy.