![\"Depressed](\"https:\/\/personalexcellence.co\/files\/man-tunnel-depressed.jpg\")
<\/p>\n(Image<\/a>)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cHi Celes, I often feel depressed and regretful about my lack of progress in life. Honestly I am angry and bitter about it. This creates a lot of anxiety for me and I think it\u2019s a big source of my procrastination. What can I do about this?\u201d \u2014 M<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Have you ever felt depressed about your lack of progress in life? Do you wish that you could be doing more and achieving more?<\/p>\n If so, I totally understand. In my last update<\/a>, I shared that I stepped away from my blog for the past few years to raise my baby and support my family through a series of challenges. During this time, my career came to a stop, and for a while I felt like I was making no progress in life.<\/p>\n But progress comes in many ways. Just because you feel like you haven\u2019t made progress doesn\u2019t mean that it\u2019s true. If you have been feeling discouraged by a lack of progress lately, here are 5 things I want to share with you.<\/strong><\/p>\n Firstly, define \u201cprogress.\u201d What is progress to you? Is it to achieve huge success in your career? Earn lots of money? Buy a nice house? Travel around the world? Pursue your passion? Or something else?<\/p>\n Looking up the word \u201cprogress,\u201d it means forward movement toward a destination.[1<\/a>]<\/sup> Perhaps you have a vision of where you want to be by age 30 or 40 or 50, such as to be at the peak of your career, earn lots of money, buy a nice house, and start a family.<\/p>\n Conventional society tells us to set big goals and pursue them relentlessly. While such big goal setting is important \u2014 I do it myself and teach it in my courses \u2014 there are times when it needs to take a back seat as other life areas (e.g., family and health) require our attention.<\/p>\n While it may look like you\u2019re not progressing during these times, you are<\/span> progressing, just in a different way.<\/strong> For example:<\/p>\n In my 2024 update<\/a>, I shared that I had to step back from my work for the past five years to support my family through a series of deep challenges. These included my mother-in-law\u2019s illness and later passing<\/a>, my husband\u2019s health issues, raising my baby without help, and uprooting my life and moving my family overseas from Singapore to the UK, in the midst of a pandemic.<\/p>\n While my career came to a stop, I made progress in other ways.<\/p>\n Very importantly, I saw all these as a temporary hiatus to work on pressing life issues for the time being, with the end goal of returning to my passion \u2014 to grow and help you achieve your highest potential.<\/p>\n For you, what have you been working on? Family? Health? Relationships? Mental Health? There are many types of progress in life beyond career and financial growth.<\/strong> While society tends to focus on these two things, there are other things (e.g., family, health, relationships) that are just as important to live a meaningful life. The progress that you make in other areas is progress too, so remember that.<\/p>\n There are many areas that are important in our life, beyond career and money. Read: The Life Wheel<\/a> (Image: Personal Excellence<\/a>)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n (From: Your Plans vs. Universe\u2019s Plans For You<\/a>)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Many people expect to progress in life without major setbacks. Set a goal and get from Point A to Point B without issue. Celebrate. Rinse and repeat.<\/p>\n But life isn\u2019t always a straight line. In life, there are ups and downs, setbacks and difficulties. The downs can be difficulties with a goal, or unexpected life obstacles such as illness, a painful breakup, or death and loss<\/a>.<\/p>\n In case you think that everyone is having a great life, remember that what you see in the media and social media is often heavily filtered. Many people face difficulties, just that they don\u2019t show it. In my 2024 update<\/a> I shared that I have been working through family challenges and health issues caused by toxic dental work. Some of these issues are ongoing and it can be a struggle managing motherhood without help, working through my husband\u2019s issues, and now returning to work in a highly challenging online environment (see Point #4).<\/p>\n Many celebrities face life challenges too, though most may not be sympathetic to their situations due to their immense success and wealth.<\/p>\n The media and social media tend to present an idealized image of people\u2019s lives, which gives the impression that everyone\u2019s life is perfect. The truth is that many people are going through obstacles, whether in health, relationships, family, money, or career. Know that you are not alone and we are all going through this together. \u2764\ufe0f<\/p>\n (Image<\/a>)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Many people think that goals can happen right away<\/a> and become disappointed when they don\u2019t. The reality is that goals take time. Depending on the goal, it can take weeks, months, or even years.<\/strong><\/p>\n Evan Spiegel launched Snapchat in 2011 as a niche app for disappearing messages. It initially struggled to gain traction, due to intense competition from other established platforms like Facebook and Instagram. Spiegel and his team kept innovating, introducing new features like Stories and augmented reality lenses, before reaching mainstream success. Today, Snapchat is one of the top 10 social platforms with millions of users.[10<\/a>][11<\/a>][12<\/a>]<\/sup><\/p>\n Snapchat\u2019s daily active users over time (2014-2024) (Image<\/a>)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Jack Ma faced many rejections over and over before founding Alibaba, an e-commerce company.<\/p>\n In 1999, Ma started Alibaba and faced significant struggle as people were skeptical about online shopping then and the internet infrastructure in China was not developed. It took persistence to overcome these struggles, and today, Alibaba is a global corporation with over US$130 billion in annual revenue.[13<\/a>][14<\/a>][15<\/a>][16<\/a>][17<\/a>]<\/sup><\/p>\n (Image<\/a>)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n A seed<\/a> takes time to grow into a tree. A goal takes time as you work through its obstacles. Think of it as a journey. Break your goal down into small milestones, and then tackle them one by one.<\/p>\n E.g., if your goal is to create a successful podcast, rather than feel discouraged that your listener count isn\u2019t skyrocketing, set milestones to get there. Such as getting your first 100 listeners, then 200 listeners, then 500 listeners, and so on.<\/p>\n Example: Milestones for a podcast goal (Image: Personal Excellence<\/a>)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Know that there\u2019s an incubation period<\/a><\/strong> for our goals \u2014 a period of time between taking action and seeing results<\/strong>. While it may seem like nothing is happening, something is<\/em> happening. You just need to be patient while you work toward your goal.<\/p>\n If you can\u2019t reach a milestone after some time, understand why. Do a review to see what\u2019s working, what\u2019s not working, and what to do differently. Then, try again. Keep improving your plan and it\u2019s a matter of time before you see results.<\/p>\n (Image<\/a>)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n If you have been facing too many setbacks, you feel burnt out, or you keep repeating the same mistakes, then you are likely hitting a wall.<\/p>\n Hitting a wall<\/strong> is a situation where you can\u2019t progress no matter how hard you try. It can happen for various reasons, such as lacking the knowledge or skills to advance, having an ineffective strategy, not having a clear goal, or perfectionism<\/a>. Stop to figure out what the issue is and address it.<\/p>\n After my daughter started school at 4.5 years old, I slowly resumed work while juggling my mom duties. While I was eager to reconnect with you guys and had so much to share, I faced a rut despite spending hours writing each week.<\/p>\n After digging into it, I realized that I was feeling disconnected from blogging as a platform<\/strong>. I started making websites in 1998<\/a> and PE in 2008, and the online space has changed so much \u2014 and not necessarily in a good way.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve written about these issues over the years:<\/p>\n Having been online since the 1990s, I feel that the internet has become sterile, negative, and over-commercialized, compared to the past when it was a space for authentic conversations and positive learning.<\/strong><\/p>\n Feeling disconnected from the online world (Image<\/a>)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n There is also a huge backlog of work from my time away. Tons of content to update. Things to change in my business due to changes in the online space. New tax laws and regulations to learn as I have moved to a different country. And juggling of endless mom duties without family help, and a conflict between these duties and what I need to do to build a successful blog\/business.<\/p>\n There is no easy fix and it\u2019s about understanding the issues and working on them step by step.<\/strong><\/p>\n One big step I have taken is to go back to the basics. To focusing on connecting with you. <\/strong>Just you. Just like when I first started<\/a>.<\/p>\n In the past months, I did major restructuring of my business, cut out redundant costs, and simplified my website backend to return to my core focus of writing. I have been updating many past articles at PE, and just finished a big update of 30DLBL. I\u2019ve also reopened blog comments (as a trial) and will see how it works out \u2014 I miss connecting with you guys. \ud83c\udf3a<\/p>\n Whether it\u2019s AI, bots, or spam, my end goal is to support you in your growth. All these are just noises and I need to find ways to push them away. And I feel excited to return to writing and connecting with you all. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n If you have been facing a lack of progress for a while, stop to examine what\u2019s going on. Ask yourself, \u201cWhat\u2019s blocking me? What\u2019s preventing me from move forward?\u201d Identify the issue(s) and work on addressing it.<\/p>\n Some ideas to break the wall:<\/p>\n Some of these issues may be deep-seated or complex, and take time to fix. That\u2019s okay. It is progress to start somewhere. Know that slow progress in addressing deeper issues will still lead to bigger changes than trying to tackle your goal at a low level and making no progress.<\/strong><\/p>\n I know it can feel depressing when you have a big goal and don\u2019t see progress day after day. Ideally, we want to set big goals and take big actions to achieve big results.<\/p>\n But there are times when taking big action simply isn\u2019t possible, due to life circumstances. Perhaps you\u2019re a parent to young kids, you\u2019re dealing with health issues, you\u2019re a caregiver to another, or your day job takes up significant time and energy. In these situations, it\u2019s better to focus on one small thing a day.<\/p>\n Meaning, if you want to lose weight, make one good food choice a day. If you want to work on your blog, work on one thing in your plan, whether it\u2019s editing your website or writing a new post. If you want to create a video channel, consider short-form videos on Tiktok or YouTube Shorts.<\/p>\n Do the small things and do them well.<\/strong> If you think it\u2019s a waste of time, it\u2019s not \u2014 the little changes you make add up to create huge changes in the long run<\/a>. It all starts with what you do today. Some days you may be overwhelmed and not want to do anything, and that\u2019s okay.<\/p>\n The more important thing is what you do on most days than not.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n
1) Redefine the meaning of progress<\/h2>\n
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My lack of progress in career (From life challenges)<\/h3>\n
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![\"Life](\"https:\/\/personalexcellence.co\/files\/life-wheel2.png\")
<\/p>\n2) Recognize that life isn\u2019t a straight line<\/h2>\n
![\"Your](\"https:\/\/personalexcellence.co\/files\/infographic-your-plans-vs-universe-plans-800x582.png\")
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3) Goals take time (Set milestones)<\/h2>\n
![\"Seedling\"](\"https:\/\/personalexcellence.co\/files\/seedling2.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Graph:](\"https:\/\/personalexcellence.co\/files\/graph-snapchat-daily-active-users.png\")
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![\"Big](\"https:\/\/personalexcellence.co\/files\/tree2.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Milestones](\"https:\/\/personalexcellence.co\/files\/goal-milestones-podcast.png\")
<\/p>\n4) Understand what\u2019s causing the lack of progress<\/h2>\n
![\"Wall\"](\"https:\/\/personalexcellence.co\/files\/wall.jpg\")
<\/p>\nMy lack of progress in writing (Feeling disconnected from blogging)<\/h3>\n
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![\"Man](\"https:\/\/personalexcellence.co\/files\/man-alone-beach.jpg\")
<\/p>\nTo You<\/h3>\n
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5) Take baby steps. As long as you\u2019re taking steps forward, it\u2019s progress.<\/h2>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/personalexcellence.co\/files\/infographic-emotional-journey-of-creating-anything-great-800x441.png\")
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