Shortcuts
When I started teaching on Maven.com, the team sent me an email before my class suggesting I speak faster because “people usually listen to podcasts or audio books at 1.5x or 2x anyway.” That email gave me pause. Does listening to a book at 2x speed really help you learn twice as fast or enjoy it twice as much? Of course not. And yet we keep trying to speed things up.
That push to accelerate everything—from how fast we speak to how quickly we fix our problems—reveals a deeper issue: we’re waiting too long to begin the work that truly matters. By the time we finally start, we’re already desperate for results. Instead of methodically preparing, we rush to apply “hacks” or short-term fixes because we feel urgent pain.
I’ve seen this pattern in different forms:
A manager who’s told they’re too rigid in communication feels pressured to transform completely—by next week.
A job seeker who’s been searching for months wants to end burnout and land a position with just two coaching sessions.
A parent realizes they’re not present with their children and expects to fix that ingrained habit overnight.
In each scenario, the person isn’t looking for a process—they’re longing for a shortcut that delivers fast relief. They’re so hungry for change that they can’t bear the time it really takes. But lasting growth isn’t an on/off switch.
I was reminded of this when thinking about how we used to do things in my village growing up. Dinner was always at 7pm sharp, so around 5pm our mothers and sisters started cooking—even when no one was hungry yet. They understood that to serve a delicious meal on time, the process had to begin early. Meat needs time to become tender, rice needs time to get perfectly sticky, and vegetables need to be cooked just right. We didn’t wait for our stomachs to growl before starting to prepare.
That same principle applies to every meaningful challenge, including raising my children. All my kids have eczema, so we keep steroid cream at home for flare-ups. It works like magic—often overnight—but it also thins their skin with repeated use. The real solution is to apply lotion multiple times a day on clean, damp skin. Day after day, consistently. When life gets hectic and we skip that regimen, we reach for the steroid shortcut and get temporary relief—only to face the same flare-ups later. We can’t just slather on 5x the lotion in the morning and then ignore it the rest of the day. A shortcut never addresses the root cause.
That’s the problem with prioritizing speed over process: we sacrifice depth and sustainability. Instead of healing wounds, we simply slap on a bandage and hope for the best. We might feel productive because we’re “doing something,” but often it’s really just avoiding the tougher truth that real change takes time, patience, and consistency.
There’s nothing wrong with seeking best practices—so long as we’re willing to do the work. But when we look for shortcuts, we’re chasing immediate reassurance that we’re moving in the right direction. We desperately want to believe our actions are valid and our intentions are good. Yet true progress doesn’t happen at 2x speed; it happens step by painstaking step.
So the next time you feel tempted by a shortcut, ask yourself: Am I starting dinner at 5pm, or am I already starving? Real growth, healing, and meaningful change happen in their own time—not at the speed of our impatience. If we can accept that, we might discover that taking the slower route is the only way to arrive where we truly want to be.
