Love The Plateau

In the quest for Mastery in any domain, there are times where you do all the work, but it doesn’t feel as if any progress is being made. 

• You are a start-up pitching your ideas to many customers, but the elusive scale-up is not happening.
• You exercise every day, but it doesn’t feel like you are getting stronger or more flexible.
• You are working hard to be on top of your academic routine, but it feels you are always behind no matter what you do. 

In one of my favorite books Mastery, author George Leonard introduces the idea of a plateau and says to attain Mastery of any sort, we all need to love the plateau. Goals are essential, but they are always imagined and exist in the future beyond our sensory realm. On the other hand, practice is the runway to growth and Mastery and is always in the present moment. You can see, feel and do it. So to love the plateau is to love the process of the practice in the present moment instead of getting distracted by the goal’s objectives.  

The idea is to stay the course doing the work even though you may feel like progress is not happening or results are not apparent. We always imagine progress to be linear, but in reality, it is lumpy and happens in spurts.

Therefore, you can stay the course without worrying about the progress or the outcomes only if you learn to love the present moment of practice, routine and sweat. If you can value the plateau and do the work, you will encounter the spurts of growth that push you to a higher level of performance.

Mastery is always in the Practise, and Practise is always in the present. When we practice, learning is happening all along. We just don’t see it.