Imagine for a moment that you’re a musician. As you work on a new piece, you hope to get it ready for a concert. If you want to play in front of a large audience, you practice for a few days, a few weeks, and slowly you start playing half of the song, then 70%, then 90%. Although there are still some parts of the song that are quite technical, that you struggle with, that you haven’t mastered yet, so you continue to practice. Despite months of practicing, you have not been able to master these yet. After 7 months of practice, let’s say you still have the same problem.
You have a problem with a little section of the song. Taking a step back, you might say, well, at the beginning, I couldn’t perform the song in front of an audience or at a concert and I still can’t perform it at a concert now after seven months. There is a sense in which reality hasn’t changed and this can be a frustrating situation. It occurs with other habits and behaviors as well, isn’t it?
There’s something that’s happening throughout this process, right in your building, what is called a plateau of latent potential, what we keep working on but still aren’t able to accomplish, in this case playing in front of a concert audience.
It’s a process of building up. There is a need to release this energy, this ability, this progress. It takes a while, but eventually you master the last technical section while you practice. When you master the last 1% of the song, it opens the whole thing, doesn’t it?
Suddenly, the whole bottleneck is gone and you’re able to play in front of an audience. As a result, progress sometimes appears to be nothing, like reality has not changed because for seven months you slogged along and suddenly you jumped to the next plateau and were able to play the new song. To get to the plateau of lasting potential, it is not just a matter of spending a little time, but actually spending a considerable amount.
Read more from this Atomic Habits
We often don’t think of how important it is to realize that reality might not change even if you work long and hard and George Leonard, an Aikido master as well as a martial artist, states that to make any meaningful change, you must learn anything substantial. To achieve success, you must be willing to spend the majority of your time on a plateau. This means that you must be able to spend most of your time hammering away at the same Stone on a daily basis. It results in exactly the same result, time after time, even if the rock only looks the same after a hundred blows. What happens when it breaks free?
Think of this concept of building leading potential as an ice cube on the table, right? There’s a room you walk into. There’s a chill in the air. It’s like you can see your breath. It’s 28 degrees and goes up to 29. Ice Cube still there at 30 degrees, 31 degrees, 32 degrees and then you get to 33 degrees and all of a sudden it melts. Phase transition, you know. You moved up one degree, just like any other degree before it.
The pattern here is similar to what happens with habits, isn’t it?
Think Tank
One small shift in your environment changes everything. One small change in your culture changes everything. One small change in how you measure yourself changes everything. Suddenly one small adjustment brings the difficulty of the habit down and everything seems to fall into place and you seem to be able to stick to it. 1James Clear Atomic Habits An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones
Thus, this idea you have to spend a lot of time on latent potential plateau.
It is essential that you hold on to that philosophy and concept throughout the course, because that level of consistency, mental toughness, and grid will be essential to making any habit stick. Long-term commitment is key.
What do you Think?