Why It Feels Like You'll Never Get There (And Why That Feeling Is Actually a Good Sign)

For four years I chased excitement.

Each new idea arrived with a certainty that this was the one. The one that would finally work, finally move the needle, finally pull us out of the financial worry that had become the quiet background noise of our life. I would dive in, full of energy, convinced that this time was different.

And then nothing.

Months later I would look up and realise that once again I had nothing to show for it. So I would pivot. Find the next thing. Feel the excitement rise again. And repeat.

The hardest moment came when I looked around and noticed that many of the people I had started alongside were now achieving the results I had been chasing. They were making it work. I was still at zero.

That could only mean one thing. The problem was not the ideas. The problem was me.

That realisation took me somewhere dark for a while. Despair. Sadness. A long season of introspection that I would not wish on anyone, but that I now believe was necessary. Because it was only in that stillness that I could finally see the pattern that had been holding me back all along.

I reached out to some people I respected in this space and told them I was four years in with nothing to show for it and was thinking of walking away. Their responses surprised me. One said it took him six years. Another said eight. One told me he still didn't have the results he wanted, after eight years, but he hadn't stopped.

That was both encouraging and sobering. I was not an outlier. This was just the road.

So I made a decision. Whatever I did next, I would choose something I could sustain. Something I would keep doing even if it took two more years. Even if it took five. I would stop pivoting and start building.

That is why I am here. That is why this post exists.

And that is why I drew you a map.

Below you will find the full map: the five stages of the journey, the reset trap that catches most people before they ever reach the breakthrough, the inner shift that changes everything, and a simple question to help you work out exactly where you are right now. There is also a downloadable version you can keep.

If you are in the valley, this is the map you needed four years ago. It is the one nobody gave me.

The Outer Journey

These are the five stages of the entrepreneurial journey. This journey does not belong to entrepreneurs only though, it applies to everything that we do in life. It could be learning to cook, improving our health, going to the gym, or starting a blog. This is our journey, and the process it takes to get there:

Stage 1 — The Launch

Everything feels possible. Energy is high. You've found the thing. Results feel just around the corner. This stage feels like success even before anything has happened.

Stage 2 — The Grind

The work continues but the results aren't matching the effort. The excitement fades. Doubt begins to whisper. You wonder if you chose the right thing.

Stage 3 — The Valley

Nothing seems to be working. The gap between effort and results feels insurmountable. This is the most dangerous stage, not because failure is close, but because giving up feels completely reasonable. Most people leave here. Some pivot to something new and re-enter Stage 1, never knowing they were about to turn the corner. That was me.

Stage 4 — The Invisible Climb

The work is compounding but you cannot see it yet. The curve is beginning to turn. Seeds planted months ago are quietly taking root. To the outside world, and often to you, nothing looks different. But something has shifted underneath.

Stage 5 — The Breakthrough

Results begin to appear. Not all at once, but unmistakably. The audience grows. The habit holds. The business moves. Everything built during the valley starts paying off. At this point you realise the breakthrough was never a single moment, it was the accumulation of every small action you took when nothing seemed to be working.

The Reset Trap

There is a version of the valley that the diagram doesn't show.

It is the one where you don't quit. Where you keep going, keep working, keep believing. But instead of moving forward through the valley, you loop back to the beginning and start again on something else entirely.

It feels like initiative. It looks like resilience. But it is actually the most comfortable form of giving up. Because it comes with all the excitement and energy of a fresh start, and none of the discomfort of sitting in the valley long enough to climb out of it.

This was my pattern for nearly four years.

Drop shipping. Etsy. Social media. Funnels. Advertising. Each one promising so much. Each one abandoned after two or three months when the results didn't come fast enough. Each time I told myself I was pivoting to something better. What I was actually doing was resetting the clock and trading the invisible climb for the familiar rush of beginning again.

The cruel truth about the reset trap is this: you never accumulate anything. Every restart is a return to zero. The compound effect that only comes from staying in the valley, the slow building of skill, audience, trust, understanding, gets deleted every time you begin again. And because each new thing feels like progress, you don't realise you are standing still.

I even had a mentor. A personal tutor worth thousands of dollars a month, available to me for just fifty. I dropped him like everything else. Why? Because I couldn't see the progress. Because his teaching wasn't producing the results I wanted fast enough.

But here is what I know now, years later... I still find myself reciting the things he taught me. His words are in my thinking every day. The knowledge didn't leave, it waited. It waited until I was ready for it.

You see, I wasn't ready then. I was too focused on making money to hear the truth about what marketing actually requires. I was still looking for the shortcut that doesn't exist, still believing the lies I wanted to believe rather than the truths that were right in front of me.

Sometimes the growth is happening in you long before it shows up in your results. The investment wasn't wasted. It was just early.

The reset trap is seductive precisely because it feels productive. But if you find yourself regularly excited about something new, regularly disappointed that it isn't working yet, and regularly starting over... you are not in the valley. You are circling the entrance, never going in.

The only way through... is through.

The Inner Journey

There is something that nobody tells you about the valley.

You can persist through it and still fail.

You can stay the course, avoid the reset trap, keep showing up every day... and still find yourself going nowhere. Because persistence alone is not enough if you are building the wrong thing, for the wrong reasons, in the wrong direction.

This was the last lesson I had to learn. And it was the slowest one.

Looking back across four years of platforms and pivots, there is a thread running through all of them that I couldn't see at the time. Every single thing I tried was chosen because it promised me money. Not because I was good at it. Not because I enjoyed it. Not because it gave anything to anyone else. Purely because someone, somewhere, told me it would make me rich.

Some of those things I actively resented doing. I just didn't admit it to myself.

The classes I attended kept teaching me the same truth, over and over, in different ways. I heard it. I nodded. I moved on and kept doing exactly what I had always done. The truth didn't register because I wasn't ready for it. I was still too focused on what I could get to hear what I needed to give. Giving is the secret to growing. Giving is about other people. When I was focused on getting, it was all about me.

This shift didn't come as a lightning bolt. It came slowly, the way most important things do... accumulated over time until one day it was simply obvious. I needed to do something that flowed from me, that was part of who I was, so I could help others in a consistent and long-term way.

I am a writer. Blogging is something I can do long term, something I will not resent, something that draws on who I actually am, rather than who I was trying to become for the sake of a paycheque. But writing by itself was never going to earn me anything. However, writing in service of other people, sharing what I have lived and learned, helping others navigate what I have already been through, now that was something different entirely.

The question that changed everything was a simple one:

How is what I am doing actually helping someone else?

The focus is not: will this make me money? Not, is this growing fast enough? Not, should I try something new?

It is: who does this help, and how?

And: can I do this long term?

When that became the filter for every decision, everything changed. Not overnight. Not dramatically. But the direction became clear in a way it had never been before. The focus shifted from chasing a result to serving a person. And somewhere in that shift, the work became something I could sustain. That I enjoyed.

This is the inner journey. It runs underneath the platforms and the pivots and the valley diagram. And without it, none of the outer work lands where it needs to.

The most important question you can ask yourself right now is not how do I get through the valley faster.

It is who am I actually here to help?

Answer that honestly, and the valley becomes something you can walk through. Because you finally know why you are walking.

The Slight Edge

There is a concept that changed the way I think about every single day.

It comes from a book by Jeff Olson called The Slight Edge. The idea is simple enough to dismiss and profound enough to build a life on.

The actions that lead to success are simple. Easy to do. And equally easy not to do.

That is the whole idea. And it is more dangerous than it sounds.

Going for a walk today will not make you fit. Missing it will not make you unfit. Writing one blog post will not build an audience. Skipping one will not destroy it. Taking your supplements today will not transform your health. Forgetting them will not ruin it. None of these actions feel significant in the moment. The consequences of doing them, or not doing them, are completely invisible today.

But compounded over months and years, they are everything.

The person who walks every day is not the person who had one great workout. They are the person who showed up on the days it didn't matter, until one day it mattered enormously. The blogger with a loyal audience didn't write one brilliant post. They wrote consistently, in the valley, when nobody was reading, when nothing seemed to be moving, when every rational voice said it wasn't worth it.

This is why the valley is so dangerous. Not because the work stops working. But because the feedback stops coming. You are doing the right things and seeing nothing. And the slight edge cuts both ways. The same invisibility that hides your progress also hides your decline. Skipping today feels fine. Skipping this week feels manageable. Skipping this month feels like a reasonable break.

Until it isn't.

The reset trap exists because of this. When progress is invisible, a shiny new beginning feels like movement. It has immediate feedback, immediate excitement, immediate sense of possibility. The slight edge has none of that. It just has the quiet, unglamorous accumulation of doing the right small thing one more time.

Jeff Olson puts it this way: you are always on the curve. Every action either takes you up or takes you down. There is no standing still. The question is never whether your actions are compounding. They always are. The question is which direction.

In the valley, this is the only thing worth holding onto.

Not the result. Not the timeline. Not the comparison to someone further ahead.

Just the next small right action. Done today. Without evidence that it is working. Without guarantee that it will.

Because it is working. You just cannot see it yet.

Where Are You Now?

Before you continue, stop for a moment.

Not to assess how far you have to go. But to honestly identify where you are right now. Because the right move looks completely different depending on which stage you are standing in.

Read through the descriptions below and mark the one that feels most true today.

Stage 1 — The Launch

Everything feels possible. You are energised, motivated, and certain this is going to work.

If you are here, enjoy it, but don't mistake the feeling for progress. The real work hasn't started yet. Lay foundations now while the energy is high: systems, habits, consistency. So that when the feeling fades, the structure remains.

Stage 2 — The Grind

The excitement has worn off. You are working but not seeing results. Doubt is present but manageable.

When you are here, know that this is normal and necessary. Do not change direction yet. Change nothing except your expectations. Results at this stage are not the measure of success. Showing up is. Ask yourself: am I doing the right small things consistently? If yes, keep going.

Stage 3 — The Valley

Nothing seems to be working. The gap between effort and result feels insurmountable. Quitting or pivoting feels completely reasonable.

When you are here this is the most important stage to recognise, because it is where everything is decided. Before you change anything, ask: have I actually given this enough time, or does it just feel that way? Is this genuinely the wrong direction, or is this the reset trap wearing the disguise of a good idea? Sit with those questions before you move.

Stage 4 — The Invisible Climb

You are still not seeing results, but something feels different. Quieter. More settled. Less desperate.

As you reach this stage trust the process more than the evidence. You are closer than you think. This is not the time for dramatic changes. This is the time for the slight edge. The next small right action, done today, without needing to see proof that it is working.

Stage 5 — The Breakthrough

Results are beginning to appear. The curve is turning. Things that felt impossible six months ago are starting to happen.

You have made it through, but don't stop. This is where consistency compounds fastest. And remember what the valley felt like, because you will return to it on the next level, and knowing you have been here before makes all the difference.

One final question to sit with:

Is what I am doing today actually helping someone else, or am I still building for me?

Your honest answer to that question will tell you more about where you are headed than any strategy, platform, or plan ever could.

Closing

Four years ago I was chasing a rainbow.

I didn't know it then. I thought I was building something. I thought each new platform was the one that would finally work. I thought the problem was always the thing I was doing, never the way I was doing it, and never, not once, the question of who I was actually doing it for.

I deleted a lot of work in those four years. Businesses, accounts, content, effort... gone, because I couldn't see it working fast enough. I dropped a mentor who was worth more than I knew, because his teaching required a version of me that hadn't arrived yet.

And then, slowly, something shifted.

Not because I found the right platform. Not because I discovered the perfect strategy. But because I stopped asking how I could make money and started asking how I could help people. Because I found something I was actually good at and willing to do for a long time, regardless of how quickly it paid off. Because I finally accepted that this was going to take time, and decided to be at peace with that rather than at war with it.

I am still in the valley in many ways. The blog is young. The audience is growing slowly. There are still days when it feels like shouting into an empty room.

But it feels different now. Because I know where I am on the map. Because I know the feeling of making no progress is not the same as making no progress. Because I know that every post written, every guide built, every person helped, even one, is a deposit into something that compounds.

You are reading this post for a reason. Maybe you are in the valley right now. Maybe you are circling the entrance, restarting for the third or fourth time, wondering why nothing ever seems to work long enough to matter.

I want you to know that the map is real. And the valley is real. And the breakthrough is real too. But only for those who stay long enough, building for others instead of for themselves, doing the right next small thing on the days it feels completely pointless.

That's the slight edge. The inner journey. The only path that leads somewhere.

You are closer than you think. I think I am too.