Improvement requires ups and downs. Downs especially.
I started focusing on this pattern in my journey to mastery, and it's so stark that I can often pinpoint the exact moment I stand in the cycle: going up, plateauing, going down.
This is the map I observed tracing any road to mastery, in anything 🗺️
Satisfaction is perceived progress
In a long journey (multiple years) to real mastery, you soon realize that goals and achievements are not the fuel. They may mark a direction, but they don't sustain a long journey.
What makes you strive day after day is perceived progress 🚶♂️➡️
I noticed that my periods of highest satisfaction come when I personally/internally/subjectively perceive a significant improvement in my output.
Even simpler than that, sometimes the conviction that a new tool or discovery will lead to improvement is enough to spark a high motivation period.
Perceived progress is not the same as actual progress 🤔
In fact, there is no measure of relative improvement that predicts high satisfaction. It may be a thin or even not existent/visible improvement.
As long as you perceive yourself getting better, it's fuel.
Up and downs are a feature, not a bug
Fixing a problem requires finding it.
Finding a problem requires failing, reflecting, and overcoming.
Downward periods act as a spring for a new breakthrough 🏗️
The cycle goes:
- You try something new
- You fail since you don't know how it works
- You research the details of why you failed
- You apply these personal fixes to reach a new higher level
This directly maps to:
- Plateau
- Down
- Down
- Up
And the cycle then repeats as you reach a new plateau.
Three details to notice:
- Up requires a period of Down
- Entering Down is an active choice during Plateau
- Solving a problem is still in the Down period
Easy enough. The problem is the intensity and duration of each cycle 👇
Failure is a constant most cannot tolerate
Ups are fleeting, most time is spent in plateau and down.
In fact, what's even more daunting: Down has not timeline.
The down period lasts as long as it's needed for you to adapt, which may be long and requires active effort against failure 🙌
Furthermore, the "perceived progress" principle acts also in reverse. The beginning of a down period is when you perceive actually getting worst.
Quitting is a consequence of a perceived lack of progress 🤔
Quitting happens on a misunderstanding of the improvement cycle above, causing beliefs such as:
- “If I were suited for this, it would be easier”
- “Effort should correlate linearly with results”
- “Plateau means I’ve reached my limit”
People quit not because it’s hard, but because the meaning of hard feels threatening 🫠
In fact, what people don’t tolerate is not the "hard work" itself, but instead:
- Loss of competence feeling
- Ambiguous feedback
- Temporary identity damage (“I thought I was good at this”)
Mastery is granted only to people that don't quit 🫵
Some practical takeaways:
- While you are still learning, run away from plateaus as fast as possible (i.e. try new stuff)
- Look forward for your next failure
- When you reach some Up, reflect on what Down brought you there, and how you overcame it
Everyone should be on a journey to mastery of some kind. A few other references for you:
See you next 👋