And this is how to update them.

Linear Growth vs. Quantum Leaps

This is something I’ve learned fairly recently in my life. I have experienced it multiple times in my life, but I didn’t learn my lesson until I read about it in a blog post. It is very counterintuitive and it makes sense when I look at my life experience.

Expectation of Linear Growth

I’m talking about linear growth vs. quantum leaps. Until I learned this concept, I used to expect linear growth of results. That was my logic. If I didn’t see that linear growth, I got discouraged and gave up.

Investing

Here’s an example. Suppose that I buy a stock at $100 USD and I expect it to be $120 USD in a year. In the past, I’d expect its price to appreciate $0.40 USD every week and to reach the $120 USD mark at the end of the year. That’s not how it works in the stock market and in life.

The stock fluctuates around $100 USD most of the time. It even declines slightly, which is even more discouraging. Then after a few quarters, some positive unexpected news hit the market, and the price surges to $120 USD within a week or two. This is exactly what happened to the cryptocurrency Ripple, after I sold it.

Blogging

I observed the same phenomenon with my blog as well. At the beginning, there was little to none interest to my blog for a few months. Then someone reached out to me to include my posts in their Medium publications. I accepted and realized that it was possible to submit my posts to publications.

I started to submit my posts to Medium publications from then on and that was a quantum leap for my blog. I kept publishing in small size publications for a while. Then the Startup reached out to me to include my posts in their publication, which is followed by 200K+ people. I gladly accepted and that was another quantum leap.

Careers

This is exactly how it worked with my career as well. I stayed in the same position for a few years. Then suddenly an opportunity showed up and I was in a new job. This happened multiple times in my career.

Relationships

The quantum leap concept applies to any area of life. If you’re single, you might date a lot of people without being able to connect with any of them for a long time. And one day, you meet someone you click with and you start a relationship.

The Catch

There’s a catch though.

In order to benefit from the quantum leaps, you have to stick to your guns even if you don’t see any results for a long time.

In case of investing, it’s sticking to your investments. In case of your business, it’s sticking to your business, taking steady action every day, even if you don’t see any results in return. In other words, you have to add value every day, but don’t expect any results proportional to your efforts.

Sticking with your investments, business, or any other endeavor without seeing any results for a long time can be very depressing. You might be tempted to give up, but you might be just a few inches from the gold, so keep digging.

What’s even more depressing is to quit and then see someone else succeed with the same investment or a similar business just a few months after you quit.

Disclaimer

This post is for information purposes only and not intended to be business or investment advice.