Transformations: The Before, After, and Between
The last is usually the most important
My definition of success may vary slightly or vastly from yours.
However, it is common knowledge that everyone wants to succeed. At least to the best of my knowledge.
One of the life lessons that I find very important is that every good thing takes time. It opens up to me the significance of progress in our journeys.
Speaking of progress, a number of areas in our lives showcase it more clearly, whereas others are less conspicuous.
A perfect example of the former is a person’s fitness journey.
You must be living under a rock if you have not heard or seen an individual talking about their fitness or weight loss transformation online.
As a matter of fact, you don’t even have to be online to see them.
They are in ads all around us.
It’s always nice to see such transformations. Inasmuch as they show you what’s possible, it is easy for us to miss out on what happened between the before and the after images we normally see.
The fitness industry uses the word ‘transformation’ a lot, and I’ll not be surprised if you were thinking that I was heading in that direction.
Transformations happen in all areas of our lives all the time.
A shift from a place of poverty to a place of wealth is a transformation. From ignorance on a topic to expertise in it is a transformation. From living an aimless life to living with focus and precision is also a transformation.
The list goes on and on.
In all these changes that we love to see the results of, the most important aspect to me is the between.
The period that bridges the before and after gap.
This interim is literally what makes or breaks the deal. I believe it is so crucial for us to be particular about the actions we take within this period.
Each one of us has a different path and purpose. Because of that, the length of this time frame may not be the same for everyone.
It could be shorter for some and longer for others.
Nonetheless, it is paramount to be intentional in these times. Someday we will eventually launch out from our between into our envisioned after. Even the possibility of that depends on what we make of our interim phase.
Now here is where it gets funny.
Although we may not exactly be where we want to be in life, I’m convinced that our ability to maintain our envisioned after depends on the groundwork we did in our between: the process period.
That is when we get the chance to learn, grow, prepare, invest and develop ourselves. It’s the season that helps us reach the point where we are potent enough to not lose whatever results we acquire in the future.
I don’t mean to say that we stop doing these things when we get there.
We don’t.
You can never stop learning if you want to keep improving.
But our gleanings during the between phase set a solid foundation we can easily build upon as time goes.
So my question to you today is, how serious are you taking your between moments?