When Progress Seems Nonexistent, Not Just Nonlinear

From the Archives, Part 4: How shifting the way we think about progress can keep us moving forward.

Have you ever hit a plateau? Maybe in a skill you’ve been learning, your place in your career, or a hobby you pursue: you’ve been working hard, seeing progress, and all of a sudden the progress stops even though you’re working just as hard. If you’re anything like me, a hitting a plateau like this just deflates you of all the drive you had to keep working at improvement. My friends, I have hit a plateau, and this is one of the realest-time of the real-time lessons I’m learning.

If you’ve been around my Substack for very long, you know I invest a great deal of time and mental energy into my powerlifting hobby. It has brought me much joy, taught me many valuable lessons about discipline and patience and doing difficult things, and brought me dear friendships. Yet, right now, it’s not going too well. Since I started powerlifting right about two years ago, I’ve been fortunate to have made pretty significant progress on all of my lifts. Until recently, when the numbers are showing marginal, if any, growth. I’m realizing it was easy to enjoy the sport when the wins were more frequent and the progress was obvious. Now, with rare and few measurable wins, my love for the sport is being tested.

What do you do when you hit a plateau? Do you give up? Keep going? Change your approach? As I’ve been reflecting on this more challenging season, I looked back to the below post I wrote on self-love and self-improvement, and I’ve been wrestling with what it means for me right now. Yes, I believe I have unfulfilled potential as a lifter; but, how long will I have to train through seasons with no measurable progress to fulfill it? Should I show myself some love instead by pursuing other areas where growth is easier to see?

Even as I write these words, I see the flaw in my thinking: since when were we called to pursue only those things in which we know we can win or where progress comes easily? Are not the most valuable things in life often those which are hardest to achieve? Maybe I’m not called to make progress in the powerlifting itself, but to train through it to make progress in who I am as a human as a result of the training.

In the post below, I wrote:

…humans are happiest when we make meaningful progress towards a goal (even more than the goal attainment itself), not when we pat ourselves on the back for spending another day in our comfort zone.

Where I’m struggling right now is in how I measure “meaningful progress;” I’ve been so focused on the numbers, even though, deep down, I know it’s not actually about the plates on the barbell. It’s about who I’m becoming through my training. And, perhaps there’s not a measure for that, and perhaps that’s okay. In fact, most of the things we do that are worthwhile are likely not measurable at all: things like the quality of our friendships, the service we do for our neighborhoods and communities, and the way we treat our loved ones.

So, instead of trying to measure my improvement in any specific area of life—powerlifting or otherwise—by some tangible metric, I’m starting to shift how I think about progress. I’m aiming to simply be more aware of the type of person I am: noticing how I treat my husband, my attitude when I start my day, how well I listen to my customers, and how I handle disappointments. Do I lose hope after one setback, or do I zoom out and look at the big picture? Do I snap when I’m stressed or do I take a deep breath and remember what really matters? Do I practice gratitude for the gifts of my life or do I constantly focus on what I don’t have?

If you’re anything like me, you’re not nearly who you want to be, yet; but, you believe you can become so much more than you are. Instead of being frustrated with the plateaus in our lives, what might happen if we saw them as an opportunity to learn yet another lesson about how to get one step closer to that person we want to be? It’ll be a long road, but it’s one worth traveling.

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Journal Prompt of the Week

In what area of your life have you experienced a plateau? What has it taught (or is it currently teaching) you?