We expect our life to grow in a linear fashion; the trajectory should a straight line going up with time. It is like if you are putting a certain amount of work then you should get a certain amount of reward. In the west where work is counted in hours then if you are making 20 dollars an hour then if you work 4 hours then you will get 80 dollars, and it will increase in the same proportion for more hours worked. We are most used to this type of routine and we are mostly satisfied with it. But all things in life don’t follow the linear fashion.
Instead our life grows in these types of curves. Let’s see them:-
The concave curve
In this type of curve the initial growth is much higher but with time the growth becomes slower and more difficult with time.
Now let us see where we find this in our life:
Fitness- In fitness and strength training the beginners gain comes quickly but as your fitness increases, then to get incremental gain in fitness becomes more difficult. One of my friend was a sprinter in young age. He told me that for a 100 meter race, if you have talent then you will find many runners doing it in 11 or 11.5 seconds. But to bring that to 10 seconds is the most difficult accomplishment and takes a lot of time and hard work. To close your time from 15 seconds to 13 seconds is done lot easier. He gave the perfect example of concave growth curve.
Education- When children start learning, they pick up things quite easily but as they go to higher classes things get more difficult and the learning gets slower. Now more efforts are required to understand things. Similarly in college things get tougher and those going for PHD have the toughest time in education. That’s why very few have the inclination to go for very high education and would rather take up jobs. Similar is with learning a new language. It is easy to pick up few words and sentences but to master a new language with its grammar is difficult.
Dieting and weight loss – Here also it is easy to shed the initial few pounds or kilograms, but to shed the last 5 kilograms to reach the ideal weight is very difficult. I personally have experienced it and now it seems impossible for me to reach the ideal weight as per BMI.
This curve affects mostly those fields which are skill based like writing, programming, music, carpentry etc.
The convex curve
Here the initial growth is slow but with time the rate of growth increases quickly.
In our daily life we can find some example of this:-
Wealth creation- Here when you start your retirement savings with small amounts in the twenties or thirties, the initial growth is slow but after a decade or two you build up a sizable amount and if you are taking the benefit of compounding then the growth is further magnified with time.
Website traffic- If you build your website then in the beginning there will be few visitors but if your content is good and what others are looking for then within a year you will have high traffic. Here in read cash also initially you had very few subscribers but with time your subscribers increase in a greater rate. Same thing happens in social media also, initially you have fewer followers.
Business – In business and entrepreneurship also the initial phase is the most difficult when you try to make a place for your product. But then slowly you increase your business and when your product is well known then your business flourishes.
It is not that one curve is good and one curve is bad. It is just that when you take up a work then you should know how it will grow, otherwise it will de-motivate you and cause frustration. The growth pattern will depend on the type of task you are perusing. Don’t expect that you will have quick gain when you are dealing with the convex curve. Don’t expect convex growth when you are dealing with concave curve. You are bound to have tough time then.
When you are dealing with concave curve you will enjoy the beginning phase, but you need to brace up for the next phase. To survive the next phase you will require mental toughness. With time things will get tough and you may seem that you have reached a plateau which you are not able to overcome. Here your mental toughness will come into play to overcome these difficulties.
When you are dealing with the convex curve, in the initial phase you will feel that your efforts are not showing the desired results. This will sap you motivation. You will require patience and perseverance and a sustained effort to overcome the initial phase. In some big cases the wait for success can be as long as 10 years.
It is important for you understand what type of curve you are dealing with and set your expectations according to it. Very few things will be linear in life.
You are a absolutely right brother...