The road to success is never smooth

Hitting setbacks and bad patches are all part of the learning process, and it will make you better in the long run

Photo by Hayley Murray on Unsplash

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The good and bad thing about progress is that it’s never linear. Whether it’s sports, acting, writing, or any skill you want to perfect, you’ll have days when you’re on top of the world and others when you want to quit.

People start out improvising for vastly different reasons, but chances are, if you’ve been doing it for a while, you will have had moments where you wonder if you’re making any progress.

After all, we witness every little moment of our careers, and we tend to forget the triumphs quickly but remember the setbacks for a long time.

As the Olympics is underway (at the time of writing), it’s been front and centre of my mind. It showcases the best of the best across different disciplines; all of them have the same thing in common: the consistency of training and competing, which fed into their overall development.

There’s a quote I came across from a former Olympic athlete, Alexi Pappas, who was a long-distance runner (5k and 10k), which is president for those going through the motions with anything. It’s not just improv but could be your job, hobby, life, or any creative project.

In an interview, she mentions the rule of thirds, which her Olympic coach told her after a challenging workout: not all sessions will be great, and that’s ok.

“When you’re chasing a dream or doing anything hard, you’re meant to feel good a third of the time, ok a third of the time, and crappy a third of the time. And if the ratio is roughly in that range, you’re doing fine.”

Not every workout, session, or practice is supposed to be amazing, nor should they all be terrible or ok. It’s human to focus on the last session or show you’ve done and think you’re amazing or terrible, but really, it’s the bigger picture that’s important.

You will experience failures, moments where you could have done better, and shows that you just wanted to end so you could get off stage as quickly as possible. These are all rites of passage for creatives and are experiences that will hold you in good stead, even when it doesn’t feel that way. 

It’s safe to assume that every Olympian has experienced setbacks and failures, where things were bad or they were just not progressing as fast as they would like. Yet, they continue to compete on the world stage.

People only care about your characters, not the plot

This is important in improv - or in life - because you have to see the bigger picture. 

Success is a way of validating your approach while setbacks give you lessons to help you grow.

In many ways, we don’t progress as fast as we would like, but we certainly grow in ways that aren’t immediately obvious.

To bring it back to Pappas’ quote, let’s say you’re experiencing moments where everything feels great. That could be a sign that you need to change things up a little and push yourself out of your comfort zone.

If you’re constantly going through a rough patch, it could be a case of simplifying things and going back to basics, taking the pressure away, and just playing. And if things are only ok, maybe a short break can help you take a step back and gain perspective.

All of this depends on your circumstances, but it’s worth remembering that you’re in it for the long term. The next time you feel things aren’t going well, think about the bigger picture and the progress you’ve already made. Chances are you’re much further than you think.