You’ve been rocking out your prop for weeks or even months. You’ve picked up so many tricks that amaze both you and your friends. You’ve worked hard and have seen so many results from that effort.

But then it all comes to a grinding halt.

Suddenly practice feels like a slog--hard work with little benefit seen. You either can’t find any new tricks you want to learn or those you do seem maddeningly out of reach. Your passion and energy are starting to ebb...it can be only one thing. You’ve hit the dreaded plateau!

We’ve all hit plateaus before in a variety of different skills. It’s that moment when that upward climb toward greatness seems to have been derailed. When it seems like nothing changes for weeks or even months on end, despite continued work. Worse yet, sometimes it results in losing progress--seeming to undo some of your hard work up until that point.

I’ve encountered plateaus many times in my life in many creative pursuits. Hitting them would take the wind out of my sails or worse, make me wonder if I had any talent at all in them to begin with. The good news is that my understanding of the plateau has changed greatly over time and it’s helped me immensely with my practice. I’d love to share what I’ve learned with you!

The Challenge of Plateaus

First I’d like to start with a misconception I held most of my life even though I didn’t know I was holding it. I mistook plateaus for limits--that is, when I hit a plateau it was because that was how far I could get with that skill. Frequently, this took the form of me wondering, “well, maybe it’s just not my thing, then.”

I was working from a belief that to learn a skill or develop a talent, there is some inherent pairing of that skill to myself or my personality like types of entrees with wine. I was looking for something that would be a match for me, but inherent in this belief was the assumption that such a thing existed and that when I found such a thing I’d know it because it would feel natural and easy. In other words, if I had found my “thing” I would know because it would seem almost effortless and I’d easily excel at it.

I was wrong. This isn’t a recipe for finding what you’re good at. It’s a recipe for never being good at anything.

Only a few months after I’d picked up poi for the first time, I was couch surfing on a business trip and one of my hosts recommended a book to me that forever changed my life. The book was called Mastery: The Keys to Success and Long-Term Fulfillment by a man named George Leonard. In this conversation, my host described the lessons he’d learned from the book as boiling down to people who achieve mastery in a given field being those who keep finding new angles and approaches to their particular field. I found the concept intriguing and decided to pick up a copy of the book when I got home.

It was one of the best decisions of my adult life.

Learning How We Learn

The first chapter rocked my world in exactly the way it needed to be as Leonard, after years of watching people attempt new pursuits, had boiled down the four ways that people try to learn new hobbies or skills and the learning curves that go with them.

First, he identified the Dabbler. The Dabbler comes into each new pursuit brimming with enthusiasm. They eagerly purchase all the “right” equipment for a given hobby and assimilate the new lingo and rituals associated with it. They’re in love with the newness of it and eagerly demonstrate their new-found talents to their family and friends with great enthusiasm. Then, after a short while the Dabbler encounters their first plateau and it comes as a shock. Their enthusiasm wanes and they start to miss lessons or practice dates, deciding that this skill doesn’t suit their particular unique needs. Maybe it’s too aggressive, too passive, too physical, not physical enough...either which way, they maintain that this new skill isn’t a good fit for them and move on to the next one. They do this a lot, constantly going through boom and bust cycles of enthusiasm and disappointment and rarely stay with any one thing for terribly long.

Next, he identified the Obsessive. The Obsessive has decided right from the get-go that they are going to be the best there is at what they do. They stay late after a workshop, asking for details on how they can perfect the technique they were just taught. When they hit their first plateau, they refuse to accept it--they will get better! They ask for tips and leads from their teachers and friends, redoubling their efforts in ways that occasionally make their friends and family question their mental health. Rather than wash out when the going gets tough, the Obsessive digs in their heels and redoubles their efforts. Progress does come, but it does so in brief spurts that are followed by inevitable steep drops. Theirs is a stormy ride.

Next is the Hacker. The Hacker, unlike the Dabbler or the Obsessive is perfectly happy to stay on a plateau indefinitely. We all know people who’ve picked up a hobby and continue to do it for years on end without ever making any kind of discernible progress at it or people in older generations who worked steady jobs for decades without any kind of improvement at said job. For them, their pursuit, job, relationship, etc is their refuge from the world--a comfortable place to return to with no attachment to their achievement at it.

At various times in my life, I’ve embodied all three archetypes. But the biggest lesson for me came as Leonard defined the learning curve of people that master their particular pursuits:

For him, Masters are people that understand that mastery itself isn’t a product of learning all the things, being the best in their field, or finding a comfortable groove. Mastery is a product of a lifetime spent going through cycles of progress followed by long periods of plateaus in which they continue to apply themselves not in the pursuit of learning new things but of polishing the things they learned in their last burst of progress. The Master’s journey is a cyclical one with a target that is as far away as their own lifespan, but more relevant (at least to me) was that mastery was the byproduct not of finding a pursuit that suited me uniquely but of a commitment that I make internally to devote myself to it.

This was a huge adjustment for me. When I stopped getting better at something, it wasn’t because I couldn’t get better at it, but because it was my opportunity to refine what I’d learned already up to that point.

I’d been an artist, musician, political activist, computer programmer, graphic designer, and snowboarder in my day. After reading this book, I decided to make the commitment to become a master of poi.

I want to emphasize for a moment how completely arbitrary a decision this was at the time--there was nothing unique to poi that I thought suited me as a person. For the first few years I’d assumed that poi was going to be a creative hobby I’d return to in my spare time. It was so unimportant to me at first that I couldn’t even remember the exact date when I’d started spinning (I still can’t--I didn’t know it would wind up being important!). But because I’d just started a new hobby, I wanted to see for myself if the techniques outlined in the book really worked and so out of the blue I decided I would master poi.

So how is it going?

Learning to Love Plateaus

True to form, I’ve seen a lot of cycles of progress and plateaus in my day. Am I a master? Absolutely not. But I’m on the road to getting there. Becoming a master of poi is not a destination, but a journey. What I’ve learned from approaching my art this way is that the tricks, performances, and lessons are not the reward. The reward is the practice itself. The reward is having several hours to lose myself in this thing--a commitment I have never regretted making and that I always walk away from feeling refreshed and invigorated.

It’s a simple truth that not every moment can be exciting or full of discovery. It is inevitable that most of our time in pursuit of a skill must be spent on a plateau. The best way to deal with plateaus is to learn to love them. Learn to anticipate and welcome them. They are your opportunity to find the beauty and inner potential of all the new things you learned in your last leap forward. Find new ways to do the things you already know how to do. How does it look if I try it this way or that? Eventually, you will find something new you’d never seen before and it will likely lead you to your next great leap forward.

Learn to love the plateau and you’ll find much more fulfillment than you would have chasing the next peak. Now get out there and practice :)

And if you’d like to read the book that changed my life, you can find it here on Amazon:

Leviathan Poi Retreat

I am very pleased to announce that I will be joining Nick Woolsey as a special guest for his Poi Retreat at Leviathan in Vancouver this June 4-18! Nick and I have been friends for years (he is the man who first inspired me to make poi videos and post them on YouTube) but have never had the pleasure of being a part of one of his poi retreats until now.

You can get tickets (which are still available at early bird prices until March 1!) by visiting http://www.eventbrite.ca/e/leviathan-poi-retreat-2016-with-nick-woolsey-and-special-guests-registration-18523259568

This is a rare opportunity to be a part of a meeting of the minds between YouTube’s two most popular poi educators! We’ve met face-to-face only once in the time each of us have been spinning and this promises to be a unique and special occasion. Please join us!