Slow And Steady Wins The Race

Let’s go back to the timeless example of the tortoise and the hare. If you’re not familiar with the story, a tortoise and a hare decide to race each other. Clearly the hare is much faster than the tortoise, and he was confident he’d win. However, the hare was overconfident and decided to take a nap during the race, allowing the tortoise to slowly catch up and eventually beat him.

The punchline to this story is “Slow and steady wins the race.

Let me dissect this story in a few ways. First is the pre-judgment. Everyone assumes that the hare would win because he is so much faster, but that’s not what the race was about. It’s important to understand how there are many qualities at play when it comes to generating outcomes, not just the obvious ones. It would have been a shame if the tortoise had ruled himself out before the race even started.

Second is the idea of how much something is valued. The hare didn't take the competition seriously, and fell asleep because he thought it was so easy. However the tortoise, who had to work hard for every step, was more motivated and committed because of the investment he had to make.

Then thinking beyond the story, and relating it back to you, what race are you running? I can guarantee it’s different from the race everyone else is running, so it’s impossible to judge your progress next to someone else’s. What you need to do is focus on the effort, the pursuit of the goal that you deem worthy, and trust that your ways of making progress are enough and worthwhile.