Embrace the process

I’ve been putting off looking at the photos I’ve been taking. I know. Weird. So, I asked myself, “why?”

My best guess is that I just want the results of the photos and the awesome. I just wanted to go to the pick up window. I have not desired to do the work or to work the process. The process? In this case it is learning Lightroom. Ugh. I want to take photos and have awesome photos… not, learn lightroom. I didn’t get into this photo thing to learn another app.

I want the results, not the process. :) Just bring me to the pickup window. Distribute the awesome photos, would you please? I took them after all.

I’m reminded of a phrase a friend of mine uses regularly, “rounds down range.” This summer I had a chance to put a few rounds down range on a few different weapons. In the short time I was on the range my comfort grew, my competence increased, my desire to keep doing it grew too. But those first shots? No. Those were unsettling even before the gun went off. It’d been years… a decade or more, since I’d fired a weapon.

I was one of the early Creatives at Apple, in the retail stores. It has been years but I used to run the pro apps all the time and teach others how to run them on a large public screen for hours a day. I can do this. I just have to get over myself. I just have to desire the process too (not just the results)

So, yesterday I opened the aforementioned app and opened my curiosity to it too. I checked my negative attitude. I just sat with it not wanting results but wanting to simply learn. I walked through all the controls I could see and just clicked things to see what happens. I surrendered to the process of learning and shifted to desiring to spend time in the process… not just at the pickup window. It’s been fun and worth it so far.

And then, this morning I took this shot. I didn’t really know why until I started writing this post. Then I knew. Ah. The pickup window. Don’t we all just want to go to the pickup window on our next thing? To be good right away. Just pay. Wait a bit. Enjoy. Ah. But the work and the process… remember?

So, if your phrase this season is “rounds down range” or “time on target” or “repetition and practice” or “do the work” or “trust the process” or “journey, not destination” I’m adding “embrace the process” to my lexicon (vs embrace the results) and pushing in on learning and doing the work between the ordering and the pick up windows.

What are you flipping process oriented (vs results oriented)?