When asked how to be patient with your own growth, Joe reframes: trying to be patient isn’t patience. The better word is gentleness, and the most powerful form of gentleness is gratitude for the transformation already happening.
The hack is simple: daily, acknowledge what you’ve done. The little wins, the moments you noticed a pattern, the habits you didn’t do even if you do them tomorrow. This isn’t cheerleading—it doesn’t have to be “yay!” It can be a quiet “thank you for showing up again today.” Growth is easier when we feel good about what we’re doing. “I did 100 push-ups, hell yes” makes you want to do push-ups tomorrow. “I did 100 push-ups, I need to do more” makes push-ups miserable.
This is the opposite of the self-improvement trap where we focus on the gap between where we are and where we should be. Gratitude focuses on what’s already changing, which paradoxically accelerates the change.
“The biggest hack in all of this is to regularly, daily, give yourself gratitude for the transformation that’s been happening.”
Related Concepts
- Gentleness accelerates growth
- Gratitude reveals abundance already present
- Self-attack after epiphany slows transformation
- Felt gratitude, not performed gratitude