The Messy Middle of Dreams || 6 Lessons on Staying on the Path When Progress Feels Impossible

I don't know about you, but I've spent way too many years thinking that if something felt hard, I must be on the wrong path. Turns out I was dead wrong — and this episode is me finally saying the quiet part out loud. I'm walking you through six lessons I've picked up from a decade of About Progress (plus a very embarrassing, very nerve-wracking turn in a community play) about what it actually feels like to be stuck in the middle of pursuing a dream. Spoiler: it's messy, it's uncomfortable, and it's exactly where you're supposed to be.

I get into the difference between stopping and quitting, why "small wins over time" beats the all-or-nothing trap every time, and the lesson that changed how I see this whole journey — that the purpose was never the arrival, it was always you. Settle in for this one; it might be the nudge you need to stay on your own path a little longer.

Complementary episodes: Value-Driven Living; Dream-Led Living; Stopping vs. Quitting;

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TRANSCRIPT

Monica Packer: Hi, this is Monica Packer, and you're listening to About Progress, where we are about progress made practical

There are moments when I'm working towards something, however big or small, where I wonder if I'm still on the right path. From advocating for my kids' special needs at school, to growing a garden, to working on this podcast. Over my life, I have faced innumerable times where it feels like what I'm doing doesn't matter, that nothing will change, that all the work I'm putting in will be for naught.

, Each month this year on the podcast, I've been sharing a special Remember When episode, where I've been going year by year starting with 2016 going up to our current year celebrating 10 years of About Progress. And each year I'm recounting on what happened in the world and in the podcast and my personal life for that [00:01:00] year.

And as I've been going through this, I have to tell you, there has not been a single year where I have not thought, "Wow, that was a really tough year." There's also not been a year where I didn't seriously consider quitting the podcast because it felt like maybe I was on the wrong path.

So that monthly series has been very illuminating for me to create. It's reminded me of some central lessons to making progress, including that it's so, so messy. Today, I want to talk about the messy middle of pursuing change, of going after a dream, or working towards a goal. We hear so much about dreaming big.

We hear stories about success. We very rarely hear stories about failure. But almost nobody talks about the part in between. The years where you're working or learning and questioning yourself and wondering if any of it is actually adding up.[00:02:00]

That's the messy middle. . Today I'm going to share some of my top lessons from the messy middle of pursuing dreams.

Of course, the 10-year anniversary of the podcast is coming up, but it's also coinciding with another culmination of a big dream I've been working on for a few years, the publication of my book, Sticky Habits, this September. Those aren't the only dreams I've had in my life, and you're gonna hear about others, But they are ones that have taught me a lot about what it means to pursue something bigger and greater than your current reality.

Most of us feel that when things get hard, we must be doing something wrong. But what I want you to know right out the gate is that the messy middle of progress isn't proof that you are failing at making progress. It's proof that you are growing. Whether your dream is to change a habit or change your entire life, this episode is about the transformation that is possible for us in that messy middle, [00:03:00] a transformation of becoming.

If in listening, you think of someone who is facing the hard part of the messy middle of progress send them this episode. I know it's going to help them. My six lessons on the messy middle of pursuing a dream are coming up after a quick break for our sponsors

Monica Packer: You are not bad at habits. You've just been using methods designed for men. My first book will be published this fall. It's called Sticky Habits: A Woman's Guide to Reclaim Happiness, Ditch Perfectionism, and Create Habits That Last. It's set to release September 8th, but you can pre-order the book right now for three special pre-order bonuses, from a listening companion guide that took me hours and hours to create to a free pass to my online course, Finding Me, and our exclusive virtual launch party on September 8th with some special guests, This book is not about doing more. It's about building habits that survive real life, creating [00:04:00] routines that flex instead of break, letting go of perfectionism that keeps you quitting, and learning how to keep promises to yourself.

and that's even on the hard days. In a world of self-help that too easily ignores the invisible labor women carry, that changes everything, because women must do habits differently. Sticky Habits will teach you how. Please pre-order the book now and check out the special pre-order bonuses again by going to stickyhabitsbook.com.

That's linked for you in the show notes. I am so thrilled for this book to be out in the world. It is several years in the making, and I know it will change so much for you. Again, go to stickyhabitsbook.com to pre-order the book now

Monica Packer: Lesson number one I would like to share with you about the messy middle of pursuing dreams. Progress is hard We often think that making changes and leading towards something bigger than ourselves, a dream, an achievement, we think it should feel exciting. [00:05:00] Most of us expect to have good feelings when we are on the right track. We expect to feel certain. We expect to feel confident. We expect to have things just flow.

But the opposite is really the reality and what should be expected. Transformation in any way is often uncomfortable at best, and sometimes it's the opposite of fun and exciting. Sometimes it's really, really challenging. I often think of when I taught piano. Soon after we got married, I taught piano for several years to kids in my congregation, and one of my first students was named Katie.

She was this cute seven-year-old who was so excited about signing up for piano lessons, it's mostly because she watched her older brother take lessons, and she was just so eager to finally have a crack at it. It was a big dream of hers to be able to play the piano.

Her first lesson, she came in all bubbly and excited, over the moon. She sat down, and you could just feel the excitement [00:06:00] radiating off of her body, and she was thrilled with every moment of our lesson to be there and to be doing the thing. But by the third lesson,

there was a different vibe radiating off of her body. In fact, in the middle of the lesson, Katie slammed her little hands down on the keyboard and burst into tears. And I'm sitting here, this new piano teacher, not sure what I was supposed to do, not a mom yet, didn't really understand little kids that well, and I was worried, and I said, "Katie, what's the matter?"

And she looked up at the ceiling, and she sobbed, "It's not fun anymore." That's the feeling we get. That's what change looks like. Whether you're going for something really big and cool, like going back to school, or you're shifting organization around your house, and it's something you've been wanting to do forever, and you're finally doing the thing.

In the beginning, it feels kind of exciting and thrilling, like you're finally doing the thing. But soon thereafter, and maybe even out the [00:07:00] gate, you're going to feel opposite feelings. Change is hard because it's new. It's challenging. It's confronting patterns in yourself. It's confronting beliefs you have about yourself.

When you are pursuing something more than what life currently is or who you currently are, it's going to force you to face parts of yourself that aren't so pretty. You're also going to have to revisit parts of yourself and your life that you already thought you grew up and away from. But anything truly worth pursuing is going to be uncomfortable and at times even painful But it doesn't mean you're on the wrong path, and it doesn't mean you're doing it wrong.

We tend to think we are on the right path if we feel confident, if the path feels easy, if we're not doubting ourselves, if it all flows. But instead, and this is the honest truth, the right path usually feels uncertain at times, or often. It can feel repetitive or even boring. It [00:08:00] can feel frustrating and challenging.

It can feel disappointing. So I want you to know this. Progress doesn't remove discomfort. The discomfort teaches you how to keep moving with it. When you expect that discomfort, it's half the battle of making change. So the first lesson I have to share with you is progress is hard The second lesson is mistakes are an important part of the path.

One of the things we do as perfectionists is we often mistake the first sign of failure as us being the failure. Then we then boot ourselves off the path to progress at the first sign of failure. It is not a matter of if, it's a matter of when you will make mistakes. You will have to pivot. You will experience disappointments, and you will fail.[00:09:00]

Experiencing failure doesn't make you a failure. So instead, it's important to expect mistakes, and maybe not welcome them 'cause they're still not fun, but to expect them because that's actually how you learn. That is how you progress.

Monica Packer: I've recently had to relearn this lesson thanks to a small dream I worked on the past few months, being part of a community play.

Trying out for a play was on my do something list for years, and there were times where I signed up to audition to a local play, and then I would cancel last minute, or there were times I think I w- should, and then I would talk myself out of it. And this happened so many years, and I never really crossed it off my do something list that I finally didn't put it on my list this year.

[00:10:00] But thanks to my hobby year, the challenge I've been embarking on and exploring hobbies, a new one every month, I accidentally signed up for the community play. And when I didn't just make it, but I also got assigned a part that was extremely intimidating because it's this, this dead woman who's screaming and singing and even dancing around a stage with a big song.

I have to tell you, I didn't feel excited anymore. I felt scared. I felt terrified. Not only was it challenging and hard, like I already said with the first lesson, I wasn't great all the time. I made a lot of mistakes. My voice would crack, or I would h- feel insecure coming into something.

I wouldn't give off a good performance. Even while we were rehearsing, I would stumble. I would, uh, mess up my ankles or something else like that. I made mistakes constantly. And I had to face this inner perfectionist that then thought, "Well, mistakes means this was a mistake, so guess we're never doing that again."

Instead, I had to remind myself [00:11:00] that not only are you allowed to make mistakes, mistakes are part of getting better. When I made space to make mistakes as I was rehearsing, then I got better and better in my part. Now, this all came to a head the first night. I was so nervous. I almost threw up at the end of my song.

At the end of my song, I almost threw up, and I can't physically throw up. I'm not someone that can, and believe me, I know this the hard way because I have really hard pregnancies where I am sick the whole time and wish I could throw up. That all went fine, and I felt okay about the performance. But then my sweet friend who was in the audience sent me the recording, and I watched it, and it wasn't great.

The ways I had rehearsed my big song, it didn't go according to that plan. I didn't sound as good as I wanted to. I didn't act as well as I wanted to. I could hear the parts of my voice that didn't go so well. I could see the ways I was nervous and, [00:12:00] and, and stumbling around, and it sent me in a bit, bit of a tailspin for a day and a half.

And I was lucky that the smoke here caused a performance to cancel the next, after the first night because I had another night to regroup. I had to come into that second performance, the delayed performance, by telling myself that just because I didn't perform perfectly didn't mean that I wasn't gonna perform better, and that just because I felt insecure didn't mean I was bad at it, and just because I was scared, it didn't mean I didn't belong on the stage.

And because of that, the next night went better, and then the next o- night went better, and some parts of it went, went worse, and that's okay. But more than that, I stayed. I stayed in the play, and I enjoyed it, and it was the time of my life by the end. So the lesson here, again, was that mistakes are part of the path, and when you make space for that, then you'll be able to stay on the path better and longer 'cause that really is the game you're playing is the [00:13:00] longest game

now before I go through the remaining of the lessons, I wanna do a quick pause here and talk about what do you do if you don't know if you're on the right path? Like, what if you are forcing a square peg in a round hole? What if all the hard you're facing and the mistakes you're facing are actually showing you that you shouldn't be on the path, and it's time to s- to quit?

Now, this is what I'm gonna say. I wish there was an A plus B equals C equation that I could give to you to know when it's safe to stop something and to step off that particular path of a dream that you're working towards. I don't have that equation, but what I do have is this guidance. There's a difference between stopping and quitting.

Stopping feels like a choice. Quitting feels like a reaction. The amount of times I have wanted to quit this podcast, I can't even count. The amount of times I wanted to quit helping out with my kids or working on my garden or that play I just talked about or my do [00:14:00] something list or even just the basics of keeping my house in order, the amount of times I've wanted to quit I could never name.

But there is the choice to stop. And if the path is costing you in really important ways in your life, it's... If it's costing you your priorities and your values or your health, mental or physical or emotional, then it's okay to know it's time to stop. And one tip that I've had with that is I set a stopping deadline.

If there's something I'm really disappointed by or burnt out over or just done with, don't-- not fun anymore, don't wanna do it, instead of quitting, I set a stopping date, and if I still feel that way while I'm there, then I can make that choice. And I've done that with the podcast. My date in twenty twenty-four was December thirty-first of that year, and that entire year I felt like I was on a sinking ship.

And I waited till then to make that decision, and the decision then was to keep going. But now I still have another target in mind, and I have my B's and [00:15:00] C's plans of other dreams I can pursue outside of this podcast and this work and dreams I'm excited by because the ultimate point of all of this isn't just me achieving a dream.

It's so much more than that, and that's something I'm gonna talk about in a moment. So if you're in that place of wondering, "Wait, what about, like, if I even know if this is the right path?" There's some guidance on how to know if it's costing you in the ways that really matter and, um, setting a stopping deadline would help.

So that's it for the two and a half lessons to start with. I have a couple more, and I'm gonna share those after a break for our sponsors

Monica Packer: This is a really huge moment for About Progress. Not only are we celebrating 10 years of the podcast this November, It's also right around the same time that my first book is getting published, Sticky Habits.

To celebrate both of these milestones, I am hosting a free event on August 31st, one week prior to the [00:16:00] publication of my book. It's called About Progress Live, and it's a live podcast recording. From podcast to page, we are gonna celebrate 10 years of progress. We're gonna do behind the scenes of the podcast, behind the scenes of the book, lessons I've learned, , funny stories along the way, And I don't wanna celebrate this alone.

So you can register for this event. It's free at no cost to you, but you do need to register as seats are limited. Go to aboutprogress.com/live, L-I-V-E, and that will take you to register for About Progress Live. Again, seats are very limited. It's in Utah in Salt Lake on August 31st , in the evening. We have a fantastic host who's gonna emcee the night, Julie Rose, who is a very accomplished talk show host, and I'm so pleased she's gonna be there, and I'd love to have you there for the live podcast recording.

Again, About Progress Live. Register at aboutprogress.com/live

Monica Packer: These next [00:17:00] few are gonna go a little bit faster of a pace than the first two I shared. Lesson number three is let values push and dreams pull you in your pursuit for more. It's good to want more

i've talked about this over the years, especially with the More for Moms conference last year and now coming up this year, and yes, it's coming again in September. It is good to want more.

I really know that this is a human desire. It is an innate part of us being human, this push we have for more, to want more, to pursue more, to do better, to get better, and it's good and wise, especially when done within those boundaries of what matters to us and our health. The way that I like to look at this, though, is that when we're trying to, to, uh, balance that out, values push.

So values, meaning what matters to us, who we are, our priorities. Values push and dreams pull. Dreams are a bit emotional. Values are directional. [00:18:00] Dreams inspire us, but values sustain us. Dreams pull, values push. You need both. You need both, and you need to balance both. So an example here is I've had a dream to write a book, and this has been a dream for a long time, but in most more recent years, I've been working towards that dream.

But my value behind that work is helping women. In doing the work towards the dream, I was getting pulled b- towards that outcome of finishing a book and publishing it. I was gonna do that through self-publishing or traditional publishing. No matter what, that was the dream, okay? But the value of helping women is what sustained that work and pushed it.

And even if the outcome hadn't been realized, even if the dream turned out differently, the value would have remained. The value of helping women would have remained. So it's good to want more. It's our [00:19:00] natural inclination, so I want everyone to dream and dream and dream. Allow those dreams to pull you and inspire you and, and, and, and reach for more, and at the same time, let what matters ground you as you go and help direct how those dreams pan out.

So the third lesson is to let values push and dreams pull as you search for more.

Your fourth lesson is The process to change is small wins built over time. Perfectionists believe in a whole host of lies. They believe in the lie of overnight success. They believe in the lie of all. They believe that their outcomes prove their value, their innate sense of self.

They believe in the lie of arrival. But the biggest lie of all is the process. Perfectionists believe that the only way to change is the all of the all or nothing model. If you want to grow, you have to do everything perfectly. You have to hustle. There are no [00:20:00] excuses. There's no room for missteps or failures.

Anything less than perfect is failing. I believed this, and it cost me. I believed this as an overachieving perfectionist, and it cost me my mental and physical health, thanks to eating disorders and mental health issues. It cost me again when I still believed this model for 10 years as an underachieving perfectionist.

When I thought all was the only model and I was no longer willing to play that game, and I didn't play anymore, I still was playing the perfectionistic game. I just didn't know it because it still cost me. It cost me my health, it cost me my fulfillment, it cost me relationships, and it cost me a life that felt like my own.

The problem with all is it often leads to nothing. So instead of falling for the lie that all is the way, believe in the true process of change, that small wins build over time. So to get to where you really wanna go, to those dreams that are pulling you, instead of going for all, you do something. Let's say you wanna read books again.

You'd love to read a book a [00:21:00] week. How do you get there? Instead of reading hours a day initially, right, right away, you do something. You read in five-minute increments at a time wherever you can. Let's say you have the dream of running a marathon. You don't just get right out into that big training program.

Maybe you start by running a 5K first, like as a race. Maybe you work up to the 5K. Maybe you begin with a one-mile jog. This book was mostly written by doing something. Every day I told myself, "You just need to write something, and it can be total slop." And I gave myself a time limit of 20 minutes as the minimum of writing total slop a day, and that is how this book was written.

And luckily, I can tell you it's not slop anymore. But it took a lot of doing something, doing something, doing something, doing something. This book was only written that way. The truth is, the process of small wins building over time [00:22:00] is the only way we change, but it's not sexy to sell. And believe me, as someone who has tried to sell it with different courses or programs that haven't sold that well, it's hard to sell because it's not Beautiful.

It doesn't sound as easy. It's not as alluring as overnight success, but it's the truth. So if you deeply desire a dream to change, then you need to believe in and practice the process, and that process is small wins build over time, and that's the fourth lesson.

Monica Packer: The fifth lesson I have to share with you in 10 years of podcasting and also of this book coming out, the purpose of your dreams, the ways that you want to change and transform, the purpose is you.

One of the lies of perfectionists is that we believe in the lie of [00:23:00] arrival, that we'll get to this point where everything will be done and complete, that we will have made it, that things will be better on the other side. It's kind of that when-then game. Like, when I get to that point, then I will feel this way.

The truth is, is there is no arrival. Both good and bad. If you make a failure, it's not permanent. If you achieve a major success, also not permanent. Nothing is static. You will never get to a point where you are done with work and trying and doing and becoming. Now, old Monica would have been really depressed by that because I was burnt out or I was on the sidelines and it just felt like too much to surmount.

But the truth is, is when you remember that the purpose is not arrival, the purpose is you, you, one, know that the sky truly is the limit, that there is no limit to grow and change. And also, all along, the point isn't where you end up, it's who you become along the way. The whole purpose to growing and changing is [00:24:00] not the outcomes.

It's not the arrival because it doesn't exist anyway. It's who we become along the way. That's what this all is for. Knowing that not only helps me get on the path, it helps me stay on the path. Because as you've heard me say in the past, the transformation lies in the process, not the outcome. And when the transformation is the point all along, you're gonna be able to stick it out in the way that growth requires of you.

So the lesson is the purpose is you. That's the fifth lesson. The sixth and final lesson I wanna share with you is everything is building towards something. I often think of progress towards dreams and change as like driving a car. While you're driving on a freeway, you have to make adjustments. You don't always just stay perfectly in the middle of your lane without having to ever, you know, tweak your, your steering wheel and where it's going or go faster or slower.

Sometimes you also have to change lanes. Sometimes you have to [00:25:00] pull over. Sometimes you have to refuel or rest. Other times you may take the wrong exit or have to go on all these curvy, bumpy - roads off the main track. The thing that I often tell my clients is that as long as you are pointed the right direction and you are trying, then you are doing it right.

As long as you are letting the dream pull you, and you know the whole point is you growing and becoming and learning, that failure's part of it. As long as you're pointed in the right direction and trying, you are doing it right. I had wanted to write a book for many years, my whole life, in fact, but the Sticky Habits book

When I finally decided to do it, I also dreaded the work that would go into it. I was really worried about it. But once I actually sat down and I started writing in those 20 minute increments, I found it to be a lot less hard than I thought. And when I puzzled over that, I'm like, w- I, I always hear about how hard writing books is.

And by the way, it is difficult. Like, the editing about killed me. It was the editing the book that was the hardest part. [00:26:00] But the writing, since it was so much easier than I thought it would be once I finally did it, I wondered why. And then I remembered it was the 10 years of work prior. 10 years of experimenting on progress outside of perfectionism.

10 years of trying out all these habit methods. 10 years of researching and studying and learning and app-- an application. 10 years of failure. 10 years of learning how to talk and teach and tell stories. 10 years of coaching women and being able to learn from them and gain stories and experiences from them.

It all added up to something. And by the way, a lot of that included the failure piece I said. Sticky Habits the book initially was a course. And guess what? The course didn't do so well. It didn't sell well. But the content was something I believed in. I believed in it so deeply. And at times, when I looked at my course [00:27:00] and I'm like, "Why is this course not selling the way it should?

What am I doing wrong? How am I wrong?" But I was able to stick with it. All of that work gradually built up to something, something else, but something. My years as a teacher. I'm not a teacher in middle school anymore, but it all added up to this. Everything you are doing will matter somehow, some way. So remember, everything is building towards something The six lessons.

Again, are progress is hard. Mistakes are part of the path to progress

Let your values push and your dreams pull as you search for more. The process to change as small wins build over time, the purpose is you, and everything is building towards something. What I want you to know is if you are wondering whether or not you are doing it wrong, whether or not you are on the right path, you are very likely doing it [00:28:00] right and you're on the right path because the uncertainty, the boredom, the pivots, the waiting, the frustration, the mistakes, the frustrations, the invisible progress you can't really see, that is what growth feels like.

You're doing it right. Your dreams from healing a relationship to going back to school, they all matter, but they matter because you matter. So borrow from these lessons, get on the path, stay on the path, and just keep going. Just like heading somewhere in the car, it's often not until you look back that you see how far you've come, and I know that is certainly coming for you

Monica Packer: I hope this episode gave you the hug and kick in the pants you need to grow. I'll now share the progress pointers. These are the notes I take so you don't have to, and those on my newsletter get [00:29:00] them in an expanded graphic form. You can sign up at aboutprogress.com/newsletter. These are just the six lessons.

Number one, progress is hard. Number two, mistakes are part of the path to progress. Number three , let values push and dreams pull as you search for more. Four, the process to change is small wins build over time. Number five, the purpose is you. And number six, everything is building towards something.

Your do something challenge this week is to think on a lesson you have learned while in pursuit of pr- of progress in your life, and I'd love to hear about it. You can email me at [email protected]. I have a couple requests for you before our usual send-off. I would love to have podcast memories from you.

What do you remember about the show over the past 10 years? What's something that stuck out to you, a lesson you learned, a guest, something that has changed for you because of being part of this community? Please record a voice memo on your phone and email it to me at [email protected], or send me an email and I'll read on your [00:30:00] behalf.

I'm really wanting to plan an episode where we hear from our community on why this podcast has mattered for you in honor of our upcoming 10-year anniversary, and I need to hear from you. So please do that. Again, record a voice memo or send me an email, and again, send it all to aboutprogress.com.

Another request I have for you, share this podcast with a friend. The number one way we've always grown is organic shares. If you like this episode, share it with someone who needs it, and then pre-order the book. It is really important right now as we lead up to the book launch, um, and there's fantastic pre-order bonuses for you.

Please check it out at stickyhabitsbook.com. And the fourth and final request is join the Supporters Club. This is what makes my work possible. I have ridden so many waves with ads, having them, not having them, getting some money, not getting any money, and the Supporters Club has made my work here, uh, sustainable.

Otherwise, we literally wouldn't be able to have the show. It keeps the lights on. So you can check that out by going to aboutprogress.com/support. Thank you for [00:31:00] being here. Thank you for supporting the show in those free and also financial ways. Whatever way you can truly helps. I so appreciate you and for being here and listening.

Now, go and do something with what you learned today