Life Lessons By Buying A Puzzle

I Bought a Puzzle I Didn’t Want

And It Showed Me Why I’ve Walked Away From Things That Mattered

I was guided in a meditation to buy a puzzle.

Which is ironic, because I don’t like puzzles.

I like the idea of puzzles.
The finished image.
The beauty of something coming together.

But the actual process?
The sitting.
The searching.
The not-knowing.
The time it takes?

No thank you.

And yet… I bought one anyway. A 1,000-piece puzzle.

I trusted the guidance.

The Frustration Came Faster Than the Insight

I did what everyone does at the beginning.

I started with the edges.
Created the frame.
Felt productive.

And then I moved into the middle.

That’s when the irritation kicked in.

Why did I buy this?
This is ridiculous.
This is going to take forever.

I could feel the impatience rising, that familiar restlessness that shows up when something doesn’t move at the speed my mind thinks it should.

I laughed out loud when I caught myself.

Because suddenly, the puzzle wasn’t a puzzle anymore.

It was my life.

Seeing the Vision Has Never Been the Problem

I have always been able to see the big picture.

The potential.
The outcome.
The beauty of what’s possible.

Whether it’s a business, a body of work, a program, or a life vision — I can see it, I can feel it.  Clear as day.

What I’ve been less honest about…
Is how much patience the process requires.

Somewhere along the way, I picked up a quiet belief that if something is aligned, inspired, or guided, it should come together quickly.

Magically. Effortlessly.

And then when it doesn’t?
When it takes longer than expected?
When the middle feels messy or slow?

That’s usually where I’ve walked away.

Not because I didn’t want the outcome.
But because I didn’t like the process.

Quitting Doesn’t Always Look Like Quitting

Here’s the part that landed for me as I stared at that puzzle.

When I’ve quit things in the past, I rarely called it quitting.

I called it:

“I’ve outgrown this.”
“This isn’t aligned anymore.”
“Now’s not the right time.”
“I’ll come back to it later.”

And sometimes those things are true.

But sometimes — if I’m honest — they were elegant excuses for impatience.

For perfectionism. For underestimating how long real creation actually takes.

The Middle Is Where Commitment Is Revealed

A puzzle doesn’t ask for brilliance.

It asks for consistency.

One piece at a time.
Often without visible progress.
Often without certainty.

And I realized something important:

I don’t need to finish the puzzle today.

I don’t even need to love the process.

I just need to keep showing up.

So I made myself an agreement.

What if I didn’t try to do the whole thing in one sitting? Or five sittings?

What if I did 10 pieces a day for 100 days?

No pressure.
No drama.
No heroic push.

Just commitment. Not to myself, not to the process but commitment to the creation, to the end result. 

This Is How Creation Actually Works

At the exact same time of this experience, I’m building a new program.

And for the first time ever, I decided to track the hours.

Not to rush myself.
But to be honest.

Between structure, refinement, writing, and building — I’m already over 80 hours in.

And I’m not done yet.

If I tell myself this should be finished in a day or a week, I get resentful.

Exhausted.
Cranky.
Disconnected.

But when I look at my current reality:  my actual capacity, my actual life and I work in focused, consistent windows?

Everything changes. I look at what is doable? What is sustainable for me in the moment. Not easy. Sustainable. Regardless if I FEEL like doing the things that are necessary. 

I became aware that the outcome doesn’t disappear just because the timeline stretches.

Clarity Isn’t Lost When You Slow Down

Here’s the piece that feels most important.

Being clear about the end result doesn’t mean forcing the timeline.

It means holding the vision without abandoning my current reality in the process.

The puzzle taught me this:

You don’t stop believing in the picture just because you’re still working on the middle.

You don’t quit because it’s taking longer than you imagined.

You adjust how you relate to time.

I Can’t Put the Puzzle Away Now

That’s the funniest part.

Once I saw the metaphor, I thought I’d be done with it.

Lesson learned.
Message received.
Puzzle boxed back up.

But no.

Now I can’t walk past it without placing another piece.

Not because I’m forcing myself.

But because I’ve made peace with how things are actually built.

If You’re In the Middle of Something…

If you’re building something meaningful — a business, a body of work, a new way of living — and you’ve hit that moment of:

“This is more than I thought.”
“This is taking longer than I planned.”
“I don’t know if I can see the progress yet.”

You’re not broken.

You’re just in the middle.

And the middle doesn’t require motivation. It requires commitment, honesty, and grace.

One piece at a time.