Progress Is Easier to See Looking Back

Sometimes you don’t realise how much has changed until you turn around and look at where you started.

I had one of those moments recently. I was looking at the clinic early in the morning. The sun was coming up, the clouds looked beautiful, everything was quiet, and for a second I just stopped and looked around and thought, holy shit. Look what we’ve built.

When you’re in the middle of trying to build something, progress can feel painfully slow. There’s always another problem to solve, another goal you haven’t reached, another number you want to improve or another version of yourself you’re trying to become. Scott and I have put an enormous amount into By Design. So has our team, and so have the clients who have supported us, trusted us, referred their friends and family and continued to show up. But when you’re inside it every day, it’s incredibly easy to focus on what still needs improving rather than what has already changed.

I think personal growth can feel exactly the same. So can training, building strength and muscle, losing weight, progressing through your career or working towards pretty much any goal that takes a long time. When the changes are happening gradually, right in front of you, they can be incredibly difficult to see.

I started therapy about two years ago because I knew there were things I wanted to change about myself, but at the time I couldn’t necessarily name them. I could feel certain emotions and see some of my reactions. I knew there were patterns in the way I handled stress, pressure, relationships and problems that I wanted to understand better, but I couldn’t clearly see what was happening yet.

Two years later, I can. I can name things now that I couldn’t name then. I notice reactions earlier. I can recognise when I’m immediately trying to solve something instead of simply being present with it. I understand myself better. Am I finished? Absolutely not. But that’s almost the point.

When you’re actively working on yourself, it’s easy to focus on every moment where you still react the old way and completely miss the hundreds of moments where you’re responding differently. You notice the behaviour you still want to change rather than recognising all the behaviours that already have.

The same thing happens in rehabilitation. Someone might be frustrated because they’re still experiencing pain occasionally, while forgetting that three months ago they couldn’t sit through a workday. They might be disappointed that they’re not back to their old squat numbers, while forgetting that six weeks ago they were nervous about squatting at all. When your attention is constantly on the finish line, it’s easy to convince yourself that nothing is changing simply because you haven’t arrived yet.

In rehab, we often look at progress in two big buckets: pain relief and function. If your pain is becoming less intense, happening less often or being triggered by fewer things, awesome. That’s progress. But function matters just as much. Can you move more? Walk further? Squat deeper? Lift more? Work for longer? Do more before your symptoms appear? If your function is improving, that deserves to be recognised too, even if your pain hasn’t completely disappeared yet.

Because progress isn’t only reaching the finish line. Sometimes it’s needing less help, recovering faster, doing more before symptoms appear or doing something without thinking about it that used to take enormous effort. Sometimes the biggest sign of progress is that something which once occupied your thoughts every single day barely crosses your mind anymore.

And sometimes you don’t recognise any of that until you deliberately look backwards.

I think that’s why moments like that quiet morning at the clinic matter to me. For a few minutes, I wasn’t thinking about where the business needs to be next year, what needs improving this week or what problem needs solving next. I was just looking at something that, a few years earlier, existed mostly as an idea for the long term future, and recognising how much had happened between there and here.

There will always be another goal, another problem, another thing to build or another part of yourself you want to work on. That’s probably not going to change.

But every now and then, it’s worth turning around. I think they call that gratitude, and perhaps presence… :P

You might be much further from where you started than you think.

Feel Like Your Rehab Isn’t Progressing?

Sometimes progress is difficult to recognise when you’re living through it every day. If pain, injury or a lack of confidence in your body has left you feeling stuck, our physiotherapists can help you understand where you are now, what has already changed and what needs to happen next.

Book an appointment with By Design Physiotherapy & Strength in North Hobart and let’s work out your next step.