This Is What Progress Looks Like (Even When You Can’t See It)

(mouse clicking) (gentle music) Headspace Studio. (gentle music) Hi, my name's Dora, and welcome to "Radio Headspace." I'd be curious to see how many new hobbies TikTok ignites every day, like globally, how many people try something they've seen on TikTok per day? On my end, I bet I try something new at least once a month. Last fall was crocheting. The tutorials were so comforting to watch, and I thought, "Okay, I'm in." So I bought some yarn, queued up my TikTok tutorial, and got started, and wow, was it ever a disaster. The stitches were too tight, then too loose. I kept getting knots where there weren't supposed to be knots. After an hour, I had successfully crocheted a tangled triangle, which would be a good first attempt if the tutorial wasn't labeled "Easy granny square for beginners." I wanted to quit, but I had all this yarn, so I kept going, and I wish I could tell you I miraculously got better, but I pretty much stayed the same, same mistakes, same lopsided outcomes. Then one night, I was sitting on the couch, mindlessly crocheting while watching TV, half paying attention, when my hands just knew what to do. Without thinking, I was forming stitches smoothly. The movement felt natural. I had been improving the whole time, I just hadn't noticed because I was so busy looking for instant results. We like instant results. If we're putting in the effort, we wanna see the change. If we start working out, we expect to feel stronger immediately. If we start meditating, we expect to be calmer by the end of the week. If we learn something new, we wanna see progress fast, or we assume we're just bad at it. But in reality, most growth happens beneath the surface first. There's a beautiful Buddhist teaching that captures this perfectly. In Buddhism, the lotus flower is a symbol of enlightenment and transformation, but what most people don't realize is that before the lotus blooms, it spends weeks, sometimes months, growing in the dark, murky water. At first, there's no sign of progress, just a seed buried deep in the mud, but slowly and visibly, it pushes upward, building strength, developing roots, and then one day, seemingly out of nowhere, it breaks through the surface and blooms into one of the most beautiful flowers in the world. The growth was happening the whole time. You just couldn't see it. And we all have lotus moments, times when we're doing the work, but it feels like nothing is changing. Maybe you've been showing up every day, practicing, learning, pushing forward, but you still feel like you're stuck. Maybe you're trying to be more patient, more mindful, more present, but you keep falling into old habits, and it's easy to think, "Well, what's the point? I'm not getting anywhere." But here's the thing: just because you don't see progress yet doesn't mean it's not happening. You're building roots, you're gaining strength, you're...