Process vs Progress 🧠

When we first hear the words "process" and "progress," these two not only sound alike, but in their Latin translations, they also have a fairly similar meaning. So now you may ask, what is the difference between process and progress?

This question is fairly simple to answer, but more complicated to fully understand. When we talk about the process, we talk about a journey, or like the Latin origin of the word process "processus," we refer to the process as "a going forward."

The process is the journey we take to achieve our goals, and progress is the continuation of how our journey has helped us in our path to achieving them. Progress originates from the Latin word "progressus," which, just like process, means "a going forward, an advance."

Progress is the advancements we make in our journey through our process. However, progress is not achieved easily; there is a need for commitment, a drive towards building up our progress through the process.

To give you an example, let's say I want to start going to bed early: The process involves those adjustments I need to make to be able to go to bed early and ultimately wake up early. The progress, however, is how consistent we are in our pursuit of our new wake up early habit.

Process and progress are crucial to achieving established goals. Process is the work we put in to achieve them, and progress is the shown improvements we make in our journey to achieve our goal.

“Ultimately, it is your commitment to the process that will determine your progress.” – James Clear, *Atomic Habits*