How do I know whether I am actually making progress?

Last but not least, we need reflection. But that's not reflection after a week. That's a reflection after six weeks or three months or six months. And then we need to see what's working and not working, what is bringing the results and what isn't bringing the results. The best thing that we can do is have guidance. Somebody who's been before us, who helps us make progress. Whether that's weightlifting, whether that's financially, whether that's in our relationships with other people. We have a spiritual father to guide us in the spiritual life. All of this guidance is such a net bonus for helping us to understand where we're going. Because sometimes, and I see this, people will come to me in confession and say, Father, I don't feel like I'm making much progress, I've been doing the same thing for six months. But I hear their confessions every week, and I go, no, no, no, you're fine, you're actually doing better. It may not seem like it, but you are. That's the reflection part. In business, that's following metrics, watching what you're doing and what's yielding the right results, and what are the activities that you need to do that bring about the most financial gain to the business. And last but not least, we have course correction. If after we've realized that this pace isn't working, it's not bringing forth the fruit that I wanted to and I'm not reaching my goals in the timeline that I want, we can modify it. But the big thing is, you want to have a very stable schedule. You want to be consistently week after week after week putting yourself in a certain flow that the body acclimates to. So when you go to bed one night at 10:00 and then the next night at 2:00 a.m. and then the next night at 3:00 and then the next night at 11:30, and you wake up at different hours every single day, you're in a constant state of fluctuation. There's no stability, both physically or mentally. You want to create something that is sustainable over the long term. So that is, I have a time when I go to bed, I have a time that I wake up, I have my prayer rule laid out, I know exactly when to do it and how long it takes, I know what time I need to be at work, I know what tasks I need to do during the day, I know what days of the week I lift weights, I know those workouts in advance so I don't show up at the gym and have no idea what I'm doing. Everything needs to be structured and planned. And then as we begin to execute on this and we find it isn't working, yes, we can work with course corrections. It doesn't mean that we get everything right the first time. That's okay, that's the nature of life. It's all right. You can make lots of mistakes along the way. It's totally normal.