forever apprentice. It’s what writer and memory champion Joshua
Foer dubbed the “OK Plateau.” He illustrated it with typing. If
practice time were all that mattered, over the course of our
professional careers, with the millions of memos and e-mails we type,
we’d all progress from the lowly chicken peck to 100 words a minute.
But that doesn’t happen. We reach a level of skill we deem to be
acceptable and then simply switch off the learning. We go on
automatic pilot and hit one of the most common ceilings of
achievement: we hit the OK Plateau.
When you’re in search of extraordinary results, accepting an OK
Plateau or any other ceiling of achievement isn’t okay when it applies
to your ONE Thing. When you want to break through plateaus and
ceilings, there is only one approach—“P.”
In business and in life, we all start off entrepreneurially. We go
after something with our current level of abilities, energy, knowledge,
and effort—in short, everything that comes easily. Approaching
things with “E” is comfortable because it feels natural. It’s who we
currently are and how we currently like to do things.
It’s also limiting.
When “E” is our only approach, we create artificial limits to
what we can achieve and who we can become. If we tackle something
with all “E” and then hit a ceiling of achievement, we simply bounce
up against it, over and over and over. This continues until we just
can’t take the disappointment anymore, become resigned to this being
the only outcome we can ever have, and eventually seek out greener
pastures elsewhere. When we think we’ve maxed out our potential in
a situation, starting over is how we think we’ll get ahead. The
problem is this becomes a vicious cycle of taking on the next new
thing with renewed enthusiasm, energy, natural ability, and effort,
until another ceiling is hit and disappointment and resignation set in
once again. And then it’s on to—you guessed it—the next greener
pasture.
coco
(coco)
#1