As I sit on with an elevated leg, I write this as a reminder about doing what you are told.
One year ago, when I was writing about pain and patience, I was struggling with lots of physical pain. My sciatica had gone full crisis mode on me after 2 months on the road with my camper. I was visiting the physiotherapist for clinical exercises weekly and seeing almost no progress from day to day and week to week. It all felt like a Russian roulette of pain, out of my control, out of anyones control.
I asked my physiotherapist many times when I would see progress, and whether or not we should think about going for surgery. He asked me for patience, and reassured me that, with consistency, progress would come. I crawled (sometimes literally) through weeks of discomfort and pain, following the exercises at home, showing up to all the appointments and about 6 weeks in, the first progress showed up. A slightly better week, a walk to the supermarket without pain, small wins that mean a lot to me. Four weeks later I was doing deadlifts, recorded the whole thing in disbelief.
Then it clicked, for long time I had more than one problem where, even with the solution at hand I ended up not following it, the kind of thing you know you should do and end up not doing, the message is clear. Sometimes, you just need to do what you are told to do blindly, set your own mind aside and obey. Results will come later.
I wish I could say after that realization I have been consistently applying this on my own life. Far from it. But this will serve as a good reminder.