Faith in the Process

A crucial tenet on the path to sustainable excellence

My first job out of school was at a white-shoe consulting firm. We’d be tasked with solving big and thorny problems for clients. In just about every project, we’d reach the three-week mark and still have no idea where our work was going. As a new analyst, this was terrifying. Some of these engagements were only supposed to last ten weeks. However, the seasoned partners and engagement managers wouldn’t worry nearly as much. Sure enough, without fail, a breakthrough insight or conclusion always followed those periods of being lost.

After I’d been at the firm for over a year, though I still didn’t enjoy the “holy crap we’ve got nothing yet” moments, I didn’t freak out about them nearly as much either.

Fast forward a decade when I am first becoming a professional writer. Guess what? In just about every big project there came a point during which I had no idea where the story (or worse yet, book) was going. It, too, felt terrifying, perhaps even more so than at the consulting firm; this time around, I had no partner overseeing my work and taking ultimate responsibility. And yet, I found that if I just stuck to my process, eventually the path forward would emerge, seemingly on its own.