Living in the Plateau

Have you ever heard that if you practice something consistently, you will improve every day? When I was growing up, I heard it constantly. Parents, teachers and PE coaches all kept reiterating that every time you practise a sport or a musical instrument or any other skill, you will get better. It sounds very obvious and rational and it is something I believed in as well and never really questioned. Growing up, I fell in love with football and started playing it regularly when I was in 6th grade. I used to play almost every day and also attended a few training camps with coaches. Within a few months to a couple of years I got very good compared to how good I was when I started. I was very happy and I also got into the school football team. But after that, though I continued to play as regularly as before, nothing seemed to change. I did not notice any improvement for months and felt that I was kind of stuck. As soon as this happened, I began doubting myself and what I was doing. Had I reached my peak? Did I need to find new methods or ways of training or seek out new coaches? I did not know what the problem was. If I had improved so quickly and consistently in the beginning, how come I wasn’t improving and growing now? It was only logical to think that I was doing something wrong.

What I did not know at that time was that I had reached a “plateau”. A plateau is when you hit a stage in the process of learning something where no apparent progress occurs despite constant practise. I got frustrated, as though I was playing and practising, I did not seem to be improving every day or even every week or month. I lost a bit of my interest in football and as I got into University and got busier, I slacked off and played less and less of it. This happened again when I got into learning Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and also when I first started lifting weights. In both these activities I improved a bit and then seemed to stop improving. The general advice when someone hits a plateau is to change or tweak your training methods. This works well especially when it comes to fitness, weight loss and exercise. The body needs a different kind or level of stimulation to produce changes again. However, in terms of other skills, it gets trickier as despite changing your methods and tweaking your learning strategies, it sometimes does not get you out of the plateau.

The fundamental problem is the moment we stop seeing growth we view it as a sign that something is wrong. Hitting a plateau sends alarm bells ringing and we feel that we need to do something as soon as possible to change this and ensure that we are seeing some growth and progress again. I was very much like this, every few days or weeks I needed to see and feel that I was improving or getting better at whatever it was that I was doing. The moment I felt there was a slowing down in the trajectory of my growth, I would panic, consult various sources trying to change my method of training or the instructor I was following etc. However, this would not really lead to any improvements and within a short period of time I would be considering whether I had already maximized my potential and whether it was really worth pursuing this any further as there seemed to be no visible traces of improvement. There were many a project that I quit at this stage. However, George Leonard in his amazing book “Mastery” explains how this flawed idea and attitude we have towards plateaus is what prevents us from mastering a skill.

According to Leonard, the fundamental flaw is in the widely used statement that if we practice something consistently, we improve at it every day or in a steady manner in proportion to the effort we put in. This is not true, growth and progress occurs in spurts and not steadily and in a constant manner. Usually when we start something new, depending on the level of difficulty of the task, we experience some progress or see some improvement after a few days or weeks/months of practice. Then we reach a stage where this progress stops or slows down and this is where our frustrations begin. This stage signifies that we have reached the first plateau. During this period it seems that we do not make any progress despite putting in the same amount of effort or practice. Sometimes, it may also feel like our skills have deteriorated a bit from the initial growth spurt that we experienced. Since we are no longer improving consistently and our initial expectation is to see constant progress, things start going downhill and many of us quit at this stage. However, the road to mastery looks like this:

As you can see most of our time in the journey towards mastery is spent in the plateau. The progress occurs in short burst or peaks and then it is inevitably followed by a plateau. The aspect that alarms us the most is that dip in our level of skill that tends to occur after a burst of progress and the ensuing plateau. According to Leonard, when one chooses to master any skill, one must make peace with the fact that most of his time will be spent in plateaus. This removes the negative feelings associated with hitting and being in a plateau and in fact he advocates that we love and embrace the plateau. With constant practise and refining our training when needed we will inevitably see another burst of progress before settling into another plateau. But the most important thing that can be seen from the Mastery Curve and that we must remember is that our level of skill during every plateau is always higher than the last plateau and with this we can always remind ourselves of the progress we have made. So next time you guys are stuck in a stage where you feel that you are not making much progress despite constant practise don’t be disheartened or give up, instead recognize that you are in an inevitable stage in the journey towards mastery and embrace the plateau while continuing to practise and the next spurt of progress will be around the corner!