It is the things we do every day, not necessarily the things we measure, that we excel at. Frequency matters, but so does duration. If you have had the same job for several years, you have unquestionably improved in that role. If you have ever helped onboard a new employee, you know they may be working at half your speed, if they’re lucky. It may take them weeks, months, years, or in some very special circumstances, even decades to match your proficiency.
The interesting thing is that you likely never noticed those gradual improvements accumulating. You simply continued to show up, work your 8–12-hour shifts, and gain experience. Then, every so often, an opportunity arose where those accumulated hours revealed the fruits of your labor.
Most of us have probably experienced this from both sides of the equation. Whether it was coaching an athlete, tutoring a struggling student, training a new employee, taking a cooking class, or learning a new language, the same pattern emerges. What seems to matter most is two things: consistency and duration. That is where the magic happens. That is where progress begins.
The trouble is that progress can be painfully slow. And because it is slow, staying consistent is difficult. You have to trust the process. While that can be challenging, the process itself is often remarkably simple.
Here is an example from my own life.
I have always been an athlete in some respect. The only sport in which I have any real demonstrable skill is hockey. That is no surprise—I have been skating and playing since I was four years old. I now have 24 years of accumulated experience in the sport.
I am not exactly a diehard. I hardly watch hockey anymore, and nowadays I only skate once or twice a week. I have never followed a particularly serious training program. I simply showed up to practices, games, and pickup leagues to have fun. Despite my commitment fading over the years because of other responsibilities, hockey is probably the activity at which I excel most. At my current level of commitment, I am unlikely to improve much further—in fact, I am probably getting a little worse each year—but everything I have gained came from consistently showing up and putting in the time.
Lifting weights provides another example.
Strength training has been important to me ever since I was 13 years old. Between the ages of 13 and 18, I got stronger, just as most teenage boys do. I often worked out five days a week, and those five years were incredibly rewarding. I grew from a 5’5″, 130-pound 13-year-old into a 5’10”, 185-pound 18-year-old. Nothing extraordinary, but once again the formula worked. I showed up, did the work, stayed consistent, and I grew.
Interestingly, I never measured much of anything. I was busy with cross-country, hockey, track and field, school, and video games. Time passed, and I improved. Looking back, it almost felt like magic.
To my dismay, in college I eventually stopped getting bigger and stronger. I was still training regularly, but my progress slowed dramatically. I was no longer gaining muscle. The number on the scale stalled, and so did the weight on the bar. Meanwhile, I watched friends continue to make progress. I would run into an old high school classmate who seemed to have gained 30 pounds overnight. Social media provided an endless stream of people who were bigger, stronger, and leaner. I became discouraged. Had my time-tested formula finally stopped working?
Eventually, I realized the equation had never changed.
Doing + Duration = Development.
The only variable I was underestimating was duration.
Time and time again, when we look at the areas in which we excel, they are usually the things we have spent the most time doing. Sure, progress had slowed, but that was not the problem. The formula had not failed me. My expectations had become unrealistic.
It took me five years to gain 55 pounds as a growing teenager. Why did I expect to build the physique of a 220-pound bodybuilder in six months? It took me 15 years before I considered myself a good hockey player. It took me three years to feel comfortable practicing as a physician assistant, and that was after spending two intense years in graduate school buried in textbooks.
These realizations have had a profound impact on me over the past two years.
I competed in my first powerlifting competition in the fall of 2025. I trained consistently for a full year beforehand. I wasn’t measuring my progress from month to month. I simply trusted the process and believed that if I continued to show up and work hard, I would eventually set personal records in the squat, bench press, and deadlift.
That is exactly what happened.
After years of feeling like I was spinning my wheels, it became clear that the formula still worked. I competed again in the spring of 2026, and once again I set personal records.
I am not breaking records. I am not winning local meets. I am not going to become the next Instagram sensation.
But I will continue trusting the process and gratefully accepting my five- to twenty-pound personal records each year. If I spend the next ten years doing this, I am confident I will reach a respectable level of proficiency in the sport.
All I have to do is show up, get the reps in, and give the process enough time to work.
This principle applies to finances as well.
Most of us are not going to become wealthy because we hit it big on a scratch ticket, found the next penny stock, or bought the perfect cryptocurrency at exactly the right time. Most of us will build wealth by consistently contributing to retirement accounts, paying down our mortgage, eliminating debt, and working steadily over the course of decades.
The day-to-day fluctuations in the stock market matter far less than consistently investing over many years. The latest financial trend matters far less than building sustainable habits.
The process can always be refined, and I will continue looking for ways to improve it. But I never want to forget the simple, time-tested formula that seems to apply to almost every meaningful pursuit in life:
Show up. Do the work. Give it time.
