What does real progress look like

Assume you have an ice cube on the table in front of you. You can see your breath in the frigid room. The temperature is currently twenty-five degrees. Slowly, the room begins to warm up.

It's 26 degrees outside.

Twenty-seven.

Twenty-eight. - The ice cube remains on the table in front of you.

The temperature is 29% - Thirty - Thirty-one.

So yet, nothing has changed.

Then it's 32 degrees. The ice starts to melt. A one-degree shift, seemingly unrelated to previous temperature increases, has triggered a massive change.

Breakthrough moments are frequently the consequence of several earlier actions that have accumulated the potential needed to release a great transformation.

This design can be found all over the place. Cancer spends the first 80% of its life undetected before taking over the body in months. Bamboo is barely visible for the first five years as it grows huge underground root systems before erupting ninety feet into the air in six weeks.

Similarly, habits frequently appear to have no effect until you cross a critical threshold and unleash a new level of performance. There is typically a Valley of Disappointment in the early and middle parts of any mission. You want to see results in a linear approach, and it's discouraging how ineffective improvements can appear in the first few days, weeks, or even months. You don't seem to be going anywhere. The most powerful results are delayed, which is a hallmark of any compounding process.

This is one of the main reasons why it is so difficult to form long-lasting habits. People make a few minor modifications, fail to see a measurable benefit, and decide to discontinue. "I've been running every day for a month, so why can't I see any change in my body?" your reason. When this way of thinking takes hold, it's easy to let healthy habits go. However, in order to make a significant difference, habits must continue long enough to break through this plateau - can be called as the Plateau of Latent Potential.

If you're having trouble forming a new habit or breaking an old one, it's not because you've lost your potential to grow. It is frequently due to the fact that you have not yet crossed the Plateau of Latent Potential. Moaning about not gaining success while working hard is analogous to complaining about an ice cube not melting when heated from 25 to 31 degrees. Your efforts were not in vain; they are simply being archived. All of the action takes place at 32 degrees.

People will call you an overnight success when you eventually burst through the Plateau of Latent Potential. The outside world just sees the most dramatic incident, not all that came before it. But you know that the effort you performed a long time ago, when it looked like you weren't making any progress, is what allows you to make the leap now.

Mastery requires patience.

All great things begin with a modest step. Every habit begins with a single, insignificant decision. However, as that decision is repeated, a habit develops and becomes stronger. Roots establish themselves and branches sprout.

Breaking a negative habit is like to uprooting a mighty oak within us. And developing a good habit is like tending to a delicate flower one day at a time.