Full article at: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/gemsessions-progress-rarely-linear-justin-ochoa

If you were to draw a graph of what the majority of people think it takes to be successful, it would look like a diagonal line going slightly uphill from left to right.

Now, if you were to draw a graph of what it truly looks like, it would look like a bunch of jagged lines going up and down in different spikes, from left to right.

What’s funny is that the second version, reality, looks like an active heart beat while the first graph looks like a flatliner. To be successful, you need those peaks and valleys. That’s what keeps your entrepreneurship “heart” beating.

I believe that success and progress is rarely linear. Whether we’re talking about gym results or business, it makes no difference.

If it were linear, everyone would be equally successful. It would be easy to get strong, ripped, rich, famous, successful or whatever your goal is. There are all kinds of ups and downs along the way, which make up the journey towards whatever you’re chasing.

You have to love that journey more than you love the actual destination. You have to love the process of getting to success more than the actual success itself.

The journey makes things really hard just to weed out the people who don’t deserve that prize at the end.

So next time you hit a rough patch in your journey, remember that success is rarely linear and that you’ll appreciate your wins so much more because of all the lessons you learned from the losses along the way. Keep that “heartbeat” going...