Trust the Climb: Why Your Progress Looks More Like a Zig-Zag Than a Straight Line

Ever feel like you’re spinning your wheels? 😫 You’ve been hitting the gym for a month, but the scale won’t budge. You’ve been practicing guitar every single day, but you still can’t nail that F chord. You’re putting in the work, but the results are nowhere to be found.

It’s at this exact moment—the frustrating plateau—that most of us throw in the towel. We think, “This isn’t working,” and we quit.

Why? Because we’ve been sold a lie. We’ve been taught to believe that improvement is a straight, upward-sloping line. Put in X amount of effort, get Y amount of results. But reality looks a lot messier. Real improvement is gradual, non-linear, and often invisible for long stretches. To navigate it, you don’t just need grit; you need faith in the process and the mastery of persistence.

The Myth of the Straight Line

We live in a world of highlight reels. We see the successful entrepreneur, the virtuoso musician, or the chiseled athlete, and we assume their journey was a smooth, rapid ascent. We see the “after” photo, but we miss the thousand unglamorous “before” moments.

This creates what’s often called the “plateau of latent potential.” You start a new habit, and your expectations soar. But in reality, your initial progress is often so small it’s imperceptible. This gap between what you expect to see and what you actually see is the “valley of disappointment.” This is the danger zone. It’s the place where dreams go to die because people lose faith that their efforts are compounding beneath the surface.

“It’s not about perfect. It’s about effort. And when you bring that effort every single day, that’s where transformation happens. That’s how change occurs.” - Jillian Michaels

Think about a bamboo tree. For the first five years, you see almost nothing above the ground. You water it, you care for it, but there’s no visible growth. Is nothing happening? Of course not. Beneath the soil, it’s building a massive and complex root system. Then, in its fifth year, it explodes, shooting up to 90 feet in just six weeks. Your progress works the same way. The work you’re doing today is building the root system for a future breakthrough. http://googleusercontent.com/image_generation_content/0

Faith in the Process, Not the Immediate Outcome

So, how do you survive the valley of disappointment? With faith.

This isn’t blind, wishful thinking. It’s a deep-seated trust that your consistent, focused actions are adding up, even when you can’t see the evidence yet. It’s the belief that every rep in the gym, every page you write, and every difficult conversation you have is a vote for the person you want to become.

“Patience, persistence and perspiration make an unbeatable combination for success.” - Napoleon Hill

Faith shifts your focus from the outcome (which you can’t directly control) to the process (which you can). You can’t control whether you lose 10 pounds this month, but you can control whether you go for a walk today. You can’t control getting a promotion, but you can control the quality of the work you submit this afternoon.

This faith is what fuels the single most important behavior for success: persistence.

Mastering the Behavior of Persistence

Persistence isn’t just about “not quitting.” It’s an active skill. It’s the art of showing up when you’re bored, frustrated, and uninspired. It’s about decoupling your actions from your feelings.

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” - Winston Churchill

Here’s how you can cultivate it:

• Track Your Effort, Not Just Results: Instead of obsessing over the scale, track how many workouts you completed. Instead of agonizing over your follower count, track how many times you posted. Seeing a streak of consistent effort is a powerful motivator in itself.
• Embrace the “Suck”: Understand that plateaus and setbacks are not signs of failure; they are a normal, unavoidable part of the process. A hiker climbing a mountain sometimes has to walk downhill to get on a better path leading to the summit. It’s all part of the climb.
• Shorten the Feedback Loop: Find ways to get small, immediate wins. If you’re writing a book, celebrate finishing a paragraph, not just the whole chapter. If you’re learning to code, rejoice in solving a single tiny bug. These small dopamine hits make the journey more sustainable.
• Focus on Identity: Don’t just “do a workout.” Be an “athlete.” Don’t just “write.” Be a “writer.” When your habits are tied to your identity, you’re more likely to stick with them because it feels like a natural expression of who you are.

“It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.” - Confucius

The journey to any meaningful goal is long and winding. There will be days of incredible progress and weeks where you feel stuck in the mud. Don’t be fooled by the illusion of overnight success. Your real strength is built in the quiet, unglamorous moments of showing up.

Be faithful to the process. Master the art of taking one more step, especially when you don’t feel like it. Because the roots you’re building today will lead to incredible growth tomorrow. Keep watering the bamboo. 🌱