Personal Growth is a Stair Climb

When you do anything new, learn any new skill, you do it with an understanding that it would be easier to do nothing. Or is that true? If you do nothing there is still the challenge of accepting your own mind - your own inner thoughts about yourself not trying. It's difficult to really understand what motivates us, what drives us to do what we do, but there is one dynamic I've always seen play out - and that is that just as there are cycles, growth progress is shaped like stairs.

We always take the stairs.

Adam Indra - Free Climbing El Capitan (what a RISE)

Imaging a stair from the side. When you first start something new, there is almost immediate progress. You feel a sense of 'something new' and an excitement. That immediate progress reinforces a desire to want more. Over time the progress becomes more difficult and the results are more impactful but they don't have that same level of dopamine and lift they once had.

The technical term is the 'rise' over the 'run'. Think of the RISE as the height you wish to reach in your climb for success, and the RUN as the distance it will take you to get there, but in both cases there is effort required. The RISER, is where the real effort and work is put forth, it takes more effort to defy gravity (your current patterns) and the TREAD is where you enjoy the fruits of that labor (you experience the transformation).

What I've realized over time personally is this dynamic isn't linear, in other words the stairs of something new always start out with tiny rises and long runs, and they end with long rises and tiny runs.

A rather crude drawing by the author

I think this is why so many people start so many new things, and rarely finish them. The real 'GOALD' is in the later stages of mastery, but to attain any level of mastery you have to push past that point where they risers get tougher and the appearance is that you aren't making as much progress. It doesn't have to be that Adam Indra level of RISER where you are free climbing El Capitan, but it can feel like it at the time. It is easier to try something else, and enjoy that rush of quick steady progress, while missing the fact that crossing that mid point is critical to really growing personally.

Stick with it, and know there will be another TREAD for you to rest and enjoy the fruits before the next RISE, but stick with it, and don't jump on another set of stairs if you really want to get to the point of very real personal growth.

Don't focus on growing your business, focus on growing yourself... the business can't help but catch up.