Understanding Patterns: Growth

One of the things that fascinates me is patterns. I think it comes from my training as a biologist. When looking at complex systems, it is easy to get lost in details that have no real meaning. Understanding patterns helps to make sense of complexity, and pay attention to what is important.  There are a number of patterns that are good to recognize as you walk into your dream. The pattern that I want to look at today is growth.

Figure 1

Many people think that growth looks like the straight line in Figure 1.  They believe that results will increase as soon as they put effort (time, energy, resources) into their dream.

Figure 2

In fact, growth is more like the drawn out 'S' in Figure 2.  You may notice some things that are different in this curve.  First, results do not appear to increase much  in response to effort at first (A). Second, over time and with consistent effort, the rate of results begins to increase until there is a rapid growth (B). Finally, there is a levelling off (C) where additional effort does not produce much more results.

There is a lot to talk about here, but I want to focus on two things at the beginning of the growth curve. If your idea of growth is a straight line like Figure 1, you will tend to make two mistakes:

1) You will invest too much too early

2) You will give up too soon

By changing your idea of how growth actually works (Figure 2) you can avoid these two mistakes.  Instead you will learn to invest with steady effort at first and avoid committing unnecessary resources that you will need later on when the results start to increase.  

And even more importantly, you will expect that there will be a delay to the effort you put in. You will anticipate and plan for the period of slow steady growth that is a healthy foundation for the impact that your dream will have.