There are seasons in life when you know you are making progress, but you cannot feel it yet. You know you are making excellent decisions, delaying gratification, cutting expenses and investing, but you can’t see the results. It can be frustrating.

You are more disciplined than ever. You work 10X than before. Yet, somehow, life still looks almost the same.

I got this inspiration from Nigeria’s latest inflation figures. It says inflation fell from 15.91% in June to 15.43% in July. We can rejoice in that.

However, the situation is more complex than that. The annual rate of food inflation climbed to 20.31%, with the monthly food inflation rate jumping from 3.75% in June to 5.56% in July.

While one area of the economy is getting better, another is still making everyday life difficult.

And perhaps that is how progress often works. It can be happening before it becomes noticeable.

It is easy to expect improvement to arrive with a dramatic announcement.

The business finally becomes profitable. The money finally becomes enough. But real progress is often much quieter.

One way you know things are getting better is simply that they are no longer getting worse at the same speed. That may not feel like much. But it matters.

And this applies to almost everything.

You can be financially better than you were a year ago and still feel financially stretched. You can be making better decisions and still deal with the consequences of your old ones.

Our problem is that we judge by how we feel. And feelings are temporary.

That you are having a difficult time doesn’t mean nothing has changed. It has, you just haven’t seen it.

I will use a tree as an example. A tree does not look dramatically different every morning because it grew overnight.

Neither does a life.

Now, I am not saying you should blindly endure everything. Like putting everything in auto mode with the assumption that it is going well.

No, that is not the discussion here. If something is not working, we should be honest enough to change it.

If a strategy keeps failing, examine it. Ask questions when your sacrifices are not producing anything..

However, when evidence shows progress, we shouldn’t abandon it just because the results aren’t, yet what we want.

Not every good thing arrives quickly enough to satisfy us.

Look again. See you tomorrow.

Oluboba Ayodeji