The funny thing about progress is that once it starts working, you often stop noticing it.
Something that would have been difficult six months ago becomes something you just do. You make a different decision, handle a frustrating situation a little better, or catch an old habit halfway through.
Then you get on the scale the next morning and wonder whether anything is changing.
One of my favorite books is Andy Andrews’ The Noticer. Its central character, Jones, notices things other people miss and helps them see their circumstances with a little more perspective.
He’s almost overly optimistic for my taste. But I love that skill. Looking closely enough to see something worthwhile that the person living through it has overlooked.
I use it regularly with clients. This morning gave me a perfect example.
A blown tire and a batch of cookies
A woman I personally train blew a tire over the weekend. It disrupted her plans, forced us to move a session, and left her upset.
Her familiar script started running: retreat and eat.
But listen to what actually happened.
After dealing with the tow, she walked home instead of accepting a ride. She declined socializing because she knew she was in a bad mood. Then she made cookies to ease the emotions.
She ate one.
While she was chewing, she caught herself: What am I doing?
She finished the cookie, put the rest in a container, and took them to work the next day.
As she told me about it, her attention was on the aggravation. The tire. The disrupted plans. The familiar pull toward food when she was upset.
Fair enough. Nobody blows a tire and thinks, “Excellent. An opportunity for personal development.”
But I had been listening to a whole series of changes.
She changed the script herself
I pointed out that she chose to walk in a situation where she wouldn’t have before.
Then she noticed an old eating habit while it was happening and changed what happened next.
No coach standing beside her. No message asking me what to do. No outside input.
She recognized what she was doing, made a decision, and followed through.
That matters.
The cookie itself was fine. Baking something you enjoy and eating it can absolutely fit into a healthy life. What caught my attention was her recognizing the familiar connection between being upset and eating, then deciding how she wanted to proceed.
She finished the cookie. She could enjoy it and still make a different choice about the rest of the batch.
Her thinking and behavior had changed enough for her to interrupt a familiar pattern on an annoying day.
And she hadn’t counted any of that as progress until I pointed it out.
Give yourself an accurate accounting
After 15 years of coaching, I pay close attention to these moments.
Weight, measurements, food logs, and training numbers help me make decisions. I also want to know what happens when the plan runs into ordinary adult bullshit.
Can you adjust? Can you notice what you’re doing? Can you make another choice after you’ve already started down a familiar path?
Those are useful skills. They deserve a place in the assessment.
If your standard for improvement requires never getting upset, never wanting comfort food, and never slipping into an old habit, you’re going to overlook a lot of meaningful change.
You can still get upset and handle it better than you used to. You can begin an old routine and interrupt it sooner. You can have a disrupted day and make several decisions worth repeating.
The next time you’re reviewing a difficult day, ask yourself:
What did I do differently than I would have six months ago?
Be specific. Give yourself the same honest attention you give everything you think you screwed up.
To my client, it was just an annoying day.
To me, who partly gets paid to notice things, it was progress that no scale can capture.