77. From Pause to Progress: Navigating Life's Unexpected Halts without Fear

Pause, Don’t Quit: How to Stay Consistent When Progress Feels Slow

How often have you abandoned your goals when the journey got hard, unclear, or just painfully slow? You’re not alone. A staggering 92% of people never reach their goals—not because they lack talent or vision, but because they give up when it stops feeling easy.

In this powerful episode, Hazel dives into one of the most overlooked success strategies: learning to pause without quitting. Whether you’re building a business, navigating your career, or healing personally, this is your reminder that slow progress is still progress.

Success isn’t about perfection. It’s about consistency, grit, and the courage to keep going when no one’s clapping yet.

In This Episode, You'll Learn:

• Why consistency beats talent every time—and what psychological science says about grit
• How to reframe “slow seasons” as essential building blocks of success
• Real talk about silent seasons, stagnation, and staying in the game when results aren’t instant
• Simple but powerful ways to keep your momentum and confidence alive during life’s “paused” chapters
• The 8% mindset: what separates dreamers from doers (and how you can join them)

Keywords for Search (SEO):

goal setting, personal growth, how to stay consistent, slow progress motivation, mindset for success, why people give up, how to not quit, resilience tips, grit psychology, how to keep going

Quote from Hazel:

“Your consistency is your superpower. You're not just surviving—you're becoming.”

This Episode is For You If:

• You’re feeling stuck or questioning your path
• You’re an entrepreneur, professional, or dreamer needing a motivational reset
• You’re ready to shift from frustration to quiet confidence
• You’re committed to your growth, even in the silence

Share this episode with someone who feels like giving up but needs to hear that they’re still in the game.

Join the 8% who don’t just dream. They decide. They do.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome and Consistency Challenge

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hey, hey, hey. Welcome back to the it's the Human Experience podcast. You already know this isn't just a podcast. It's a space where we don't just talk about becoming. We live it, we breathe it, we honor every step and we even do it when it feels like it's slow. We're going to talk more about the process in this episode, but before we do that, I need to make sure that you're following the podcast. Let's go scroll on up to the top and hit that follow button. If you're tuning in from Apple, no matter where you're tuning in from, make sure you're following the podcast.

Speaker 1: 0:34

Share the episodes with your besties, with your friends, with your goal getters, who you know need to hear it and need to level up as well. Let me hit you with this 92% of people never achieve their goals. What 92% of people never achieve their goals? And that's because they quit when it gets uncomfortable, when it gets rough, when it looks like it's not going to work out. Not because they're not capable, not because they didn't want to go further, but because their consistency felt too hard. Maybe they didn't have someone reminding them that sometimes, slow is still progress. If you've been comparing your crawl to someone else's highlight reel, I'm going to need you to pause, just like I did in episode 74. Sometimes life lives and when it does, it is okay to pause. Just don't stop because you're not behind. You're just in build mode, and sometimes build mode causes you to have to take a pause. Look at where you are, reflect on where you are, you've been and who and whose you are, and in order to do that, that requires a pause or stillness. It doesn't mean you have to stop or give up and get this. 45% of people supernores, specifically give up within five years. But the ones who stay, they build seven figures, and they build seven figures by staying through the silent season, through the times where it's slow.

Speaker 1: 2:08

It really brings me back to the last episode, 76, where I talked about how important it was to crawl first before you walk. Because when you think we all want impact, we want influence, we want the income, but no one wants to crawl the late nights, the no's, the failed attempts, the it ain't working out the way we want it to work out or as fast as we want it to work out. But guess what? That crawl builds your capacity, it teaches you discipline. It's not just about desire, it's can you stay when the going gets rough, when things are slow, when people are saying no, what do you do? Do you fall?

Speaker 1: 2:49

It's absolutely crazy because as I started to do more research, I came upon the fact that psychological science, researchers listen, all those stuff they found that grit and consistency are more predictive of success than intelligence or natural ability. Y'all what happens if you combine your intelligence and your natural ability with consistency and grit? We would be unstoppable. I think what that teaches me and you is that it is not what's happening to us. It is the way we are reacting to the things that are happening, because if we remain consistent, we have the grit and resilience we can absolutely do the things that we need to do to accomplish our dreams and live our lives.

Speaker 1: 3:39

Now Let that sink in. It's you versus you for real. Your consistency is your power. This is your moment. So I want you to ask yourself what's the key difference between those who keep going and those who quit? It's not motivation. It's those systems, the accountability, the routines, their mental toughness, the way that they build through their hardest moments. It's the system that you decide to put in place or you decide to ignore. The routines that you decide to keep in place or you decide to ignore the mental toughness that you decide to tap into to remind yourself who you are and what you're capable of. You got to build in those hard moments. You have to embrace the duality of life and you right now, listening to this, this is your moment to decide. Will I give myself a real chance to see what's possible or will I decide that it's not for me? You don't need to know everything every step of the way. You don't need to know the next step. God will provide the next step to you. You just need to know that you're in alignment and that you're doing what is coming from your gut through intuition, the Holy Spirit, and you just need to stay in the game. Stay in the game.

Speaker 1: 4:57

I want you to think about this, because we all done quit some things. Listen, I done quit some jobs, aside from the one I got laid off from the little mass layoff. I done quit some jobs. Listen, I remember quitting. When I was in high school, I used to work in retail jobs. Specifically, I worked at Kmart one time, and Christmas season's coming over, we're going to have all those go-backs, those returns, nasty shoppers who mess up everything. I'm like you know what? Yeah, we quitting right before Christmas season.

Speaker 1: 5:27

The point is, I've tapped out and quit in seasons of my life where I didn't need to quit. I could have absolutely kept going and, aside from my little layoff, our little mass layoff that we're not going to talk too much more about, we're not going to let that take up any kind of precedence in the fact that God is intentional and things happen in the way that they're supposed to, so that you can live the life you are destined to live. But I want to make sure we remember that you haven't given your full, consistent energy when you give up. If you give up, I want you to also answer this like what would shift if you stopped expecting speed and started honoring the season you're in Like for real, I know for me, I literally after I said I wasn't gonna talk about it, but I'm gonna talk about it.

Speaker 1: 6:13

After I got laid off from my job and I stood up the January event and I stood up the March event, I'm like, okay, job, come on, god, give me my job back. And then, when he didn't and started throwing opportunities my way, I started making it very clear that he wants me to focus in this next season on entrepreneurship, I was like, what God, I got all these degrees, I got all these experiences. I have so much knowledge for corporate Like, are you seriously telling me that this is a shift that I need to really continue to move forward with? And so, within that, I'm like, okay, well, hurry up and drop a meal in the bank account. So you know, I'm listening.

Speaker 1: 6:54

But what would that shift look like if you stopped expecting speed and start honoring the season you're in? Because the more that I decided to stop trying to run, to stop trying to walk and simply crawl in the season that I'm in and pull myself up and look at all of the opportunities he's providing me, look at all of the destiny helpers he's sending my way, look at the fact that he is continuing to show up for me, as opposed to wanting it to happen faster. That is when you start to embrace your gifts, use what's in your hand and really step into your next level. These moments are so important because these are the moments you realize that you're becoming. You're not broken, you're not behind, you're just in the wrong room, and you've got to trust that becoming. You got to know that when fear comes, it comes before the breakthrough. So it's okay to feel like, oh my goodness, is this going to work out? But I need you to continue to remember that you are in alignment, you are doing his work and it is absolutely going to work out.

Speaker 1: 8:04

Listen, every step matters your pause, your pivot, your crawl. Stay consistent, even when it's not cute or public or fast. When you're building, you're becoming, you're rising, while others are quitting, and I need you to know that you are already enough. You're exactly where you're supposed to be and I need you to think about the fact that your future self is rooting for you and you can't give up on him or her. Aside from that, I want you to think about the fact that if 92% of people are quitting and you're a part of the 8%, that pause is imperative. It's imperative to get back up because 92% of people are not going to get back up, which means your chances of greatness has increased every time you stand back up I'm going to let that sit in your chances of success increases every time you stand back up.

Speaker 1: 9:11

If the statistics are true that 92% of people give up, be a part of the 8% that don't by simply getting back up. If only 8% of people actually achieve their goals because they don't dream. They decide. They get back up again and again and again you decide do you want to fall off? Because you're going to fall off if you keep doubting yourself, if life has knocked you down more times than you can count.

Speaker 1: 9:43

Get back up, because every time you do, you move closer to that 8%, you step into the version of yourself that doesn't just survive, but you soar, you live, you rise. You are not average. You are not done and your crawl is proof that you're still going strong. You're still in the game. So let's rise, not just for the win, but for who we're becoming in the process and the fact that you are living now.

Speaker 1: 10:14

You are living while you have life and you are choosing to be the best version of yourself. You're choosing to see just how far you can go and grow if you keep going. So I don't know who this message is for, but I need you to keep going. Share this with your besties, those that you know are betting on themselves and they might just be experiencing the problems of life, but that doesn't mean that they can't be a part of the 8% simply because they're going to keep going. They're going to be consistent. They're going to know that they can do hard things and they're deserving of living the life that they're destined to live. Now go get it, go, make it happen, keep growing and glowing.