Have you felt frsutrated and disssappointed that you are trying your level best to learn but there is no visisble change. Don’t feel disheartened. What we experience at this moment is called the ‘Valley of Disappointment’. Most of the time, our efforts don’t make a visible change unless they cross a critical threshold.

If you’re struggling to improve but don’t see any effective changes yet, it’s because you haven’t crossed the Plateau of Latent Potential. This concept was introduced by James Clear in his book Atomic Habits.

You might be making tiny changes for years before they pay off, but just because progress is invisible doesn’t mean it is not there; The effects of good habits remain unnoticeable until their weight becomes significant enough to tip the scale. This plateau is the lagtime between what you expect and what really happens. The progress is not visible.

It is necessary for an individual to cross this plateau. When you cross the plateau, you have made progress, learnt something that you have been trying to.

The Chinese Bamboo is a suitable analogy to explain this concept. According to legend, the Chinese bamboo tree takes five years to grow. During the first four years, it barely grows at all, staying underground and seemingly doing nothing. It is only in the fifth year that the bamboo tree suddenly shoots up, growing as much as 80 feet in just six weeks. But in the time that the bamboo growth was not visible, it was busy spreading its roots so that it can bear the weight of the bamboo and its rapid growth.