You know what feels crappy? 3% improvement. You busted your ass for a year, trying to get better at dating, at being less of an introvert, at self-soothing your anxiety – and you only managed to get 3% better at it.
The fact that 3% a year feels a bit too long is precisely the point. It’s never going to feel good. If the change was visible day-to-day or even month-to-month, people wouldn’t have trouble sticking with it. Part of the thing with 3% improvement is that for the first year or two, you just have to trust in the process and what you’re doing. Only after a couple of years you start noticing results, and then you become motivated and keep the habit for life. But getting through the first year for just 3% is the hardest part.
The psychology is the same for investments, where you probably shouldn’t expect a lot more than 3-4% a year. Some people see no difference between $10,000 now and $10,300 next year. Other people start investing when they’re 25, and are a lot richer than the first group when they’re 50.
Accomplishing worthwhile things isn’t just a little harder than people think; it’s 10 or 20 times harder. Like losing weight. You make yourself miserable for six months and find yourself down a whopping four pounds. Let yourself go at a single all-you-can-eat buffet and you’ve gained it all back.
So, people bail on diets. Not just because they’re harder than they expected, but because they’re so much harder it seems unfair, almost criminally unjust. You can’t shake the bitter thought that, “This amount of effort should result in me looking like a panty model.”
It applies to everything. America is full of frustrated, broken, baffled people because so many of us think, “If I work this hard, this many hours a week, I should have (a great job, a nice house, a nice car, etc). I don’t have that thing, therefore something has corrupted the system and kept me from getting what I deserve, and that something must be (the government, illegal immigrants, my wife, my boss, my bad luck, etc).”
From the OP:
The fact that 3% a year feels a bit too long is precisely the point. It’s never going to feel good. If the change was visible day-to-day or even month-to-month, people wouldn’t have trouble sticking with it. Part of the thing with 3% improvement is that for the first year or two, you just have to trust in the process and what you’re doing. Only after a couple of years you start noticing results, and then you become motivated and keep the habit for life. But getting through the first year for just 3% is the hardest part.
The psychology is the same for investments, where you probably shouldn’t expect a lot more than 3-4% a year. Some people see no difference between $10,000 now and $10,300 next year. Other people start investing when they’re 25, and are a lot richer than the first group when they’re 50.
Ah, yeah I managed to forget the key line in the article. :P
Also relevant is this oldie/goodie: How The Karate Kid Ruined the Modern World.
Yo, the Karate Kid post is awesome. You buried the lede.