In a day and age where everybody wants the quick fix, the shortcut, the easy way out, the power of process has never been more forgotten and discarded.

It’s important to remember the power of process because it counters all the harmful byproducts of forgetting it.

It encourages long term perspective, teaches you to make the most of what you have right now, and teaches you how to build on each step you take.

People want to skip the process but forget that the process is the very thing that will get them to where they want to be. The most important thing to remember is that everything you’re doing now contains all you need to go on to the next step. You can’t jump from the beginning to the end without going through the process.

People like to skip the process because lets face it, it’s long. Really long and it’s true. It’s long, but only in the beginning. As time goes on, you can leverage everything you’ve picked up along the way to help get you to your goal faster - knowledge, contacts, resources, etc. You can’t get that leverage without going through the process.

People also skip the process because they just like to focus on getting to the end result, of experiencing all the pleasure that lies at the destination. As a result, they don’t focus on everything in between and how important it really is to go through the process correctly to get to where they want to be.

In that vein, that’s probably the biggest reason why people want to skip the process – it requires too much “work” and they don’t want to put that kind of work into it. Look at the whole subprime debacle that has put the United States into a recession. People on both sides, the borrowers and the lenders, as well as everyone else in between wanted to skip the process.

Borrowers didn’t want to go through the hassle of the traditional process of buying a house - saving for a 20% down payment, building and maintaining a good credit history, paying down their other debts, etc.

Lenders and brokers didn’t want to go through the process of being thorough in terms of checking borrowers’ income levels, credit scores, debts, savings, etc. Some went so far as to forge borrower income levels on documentation just so that they could get them signed. They just wanted to make quick money off the deals so they were offering mortgages to people who could not afford it, telling them that their homes would appreciate and that they could always refinance in the future.

Both sides wanted to skip the process that served as the checks and balances of the real estate market and as a result, the bubble has burst sending the economy into a downward spiral.

Without going through the proper process needed, there is nothing of value that gets created.

It’s important to accept the idea of process, to embrace it, and if you do, it will help filter out any get quick rich schemes, illegal activities, shady deals, etc., because the catch is that those kinds of things always want to skip the process.

I know what some of you are thinking right now, that this is all definitely common sense, but it seems like common sense isn’t so common anymore in the world we live in today.

So if what you’re doing is taking time and you’re going through the process and making progress, know that you’re on the right track. Remember, the whole process in general looks like an exponential curve - it’s slow in the beginning, but eventually turns into explosive growth near the middle and the end, so long as you stick to it.

People like to skip the process because they view everything about it so negatively.

It takes too long, requires too much work, and you don’t magically get what you want and that’s just the immature way of thinking.

Mature thinking involves being grateful for the work that you must do, grateful that the end results are not so immediate, and grateful for the fact that there is a process set in place to teach you everything you need to get to where you want to be so long as you have the courage and patience to go through it.