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Why it's often difficult for us to stay on track - and how we can still make it happen

Writer's picture: Christian SchorppChristian Schorpp

"If I take 30 steps linearly, I get to 30. If I take 30 steps exponentially, I get to a billion.."

Ray Kurzweil

Tracks

You know what helps you master things you want to change. But you keep stopping yourself from implementing these things. Why is that? How can you stay on track?

One reason we often observe in coaching is the misconception that success develops linearly.

As humans, we have evolved in an environment where many things seemed to progress from our perspective in a linear way. Those who gathered roots twice as fast also had twice as many roots as a reward.

Linear thinking is intuitive because it follows a predictable pattern. Cause and effect have a direct, proportional relationship. We assume that if we put in twice the effort, we will also get double the results. Working for an hour and receiving an hour's wage makes it difficult to come to terms with the not-so-intuitive nature of exponential curves.

Exponential curves start slowly, seem to have minimal growth, then abruptly shoot upwards, growing at an increasingly faster pace - like a snowball rolling down a hill.

When you intensely focus on a project, the results accumulate exponentially over time. This is like compound interest.

So, if you invest time in change, you will not see results now or tomorrow. But through the many small activities you dedicate to your personal project, the results will develop exponentially over time.

The danger is that we often give up because of this and look for other projects or fall for cheap marketing campaigns promising quick successes.

The answer is awareness. Awareness that success rarely occurs linearly, but the reward is greater the more patience we invest.

You can support this patience by setting motivating goals. How this can work will be explained in one of the upcoming blog posts.

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