Have you ever experienced a time where you feel like you’re working really, really hard, but maybe you’re not seeing the results that you expected?
I’ve experienced that a lot in my life, and when it happens, I’ve got to remind myself of something really important. In the book, Atomic Habits, by James Clear, he talks about this concept of the Plateau of Latent Potential.
When we learn a new skill or we start a new project, we usually expect progress to be linear. But in actual fact, progress is often exponential. What this means is that we’re putting in a lot of work, but we’re not actually seeing the results because we’ve not given it time for those actions to compound and create the outcome that we want. Ultimately, you need to break through this plateau of latent potential, in order to make real progress.
It’s really, really important to be conscious of this when you’re taking on a new project, you’re learning a new skill or trying to set yourself a new habit. So, if you feel like you’re really
working hard at the moment and not getting the results you expected, don’t give up, you’re probably just experiencing the plateau of latent potential.
