Guest Post: Successful blogging, The Hockey Stick and Exponential Growth

This guest post was written by Sid Savara, author of Analysis Driven Personal Development. Stay tuned for the podcast featuring Sid Savara coming up tomorrow.

It’s not that I’m so smart , it’s just that I stay with problems longer
-Albert Einstein

Question: What is the number one factor is in determining mastery in a particular field?

Answer: Hours invested. †Malcolm Gladwell in Outliers has estimated it takes approximately 10,000 hours. Raw talent and a burst of motivation will carry you at the early stages towards any goal, but in order to be successful you’ve got to put in the hours in the long run.

This may discourage some people, but it gives me hope.

I know that if I can stick with something long enough, past the point where everyone else has lost hope or failed, I will eventually reach my goals.

I know that moving forward there will always be less competition.

I know that the longer I stick with it, the better my odds of success are – they improve every day.

Sticking With It In Personal Goals – Blogging

“Eighty percent of success is showing up.”
- Woody Allen

One example where it really pays to just stick with it is blogging.

All bloggers start out equal with one reader – their mom. In time some go on to attain enormous success, and when we read their stories we imagine that they were successful right from the start. We might assume that someone who takes a year to attain 50,000 readers had linear growth and attained 25,000 in six months, and 4,000 in the first month. That’s usually not the case however. What actually happens is they struggle for their first 10, 20, 100 and 1,000 readers just like everyone else does . It might take them 6 months to earn the first 1,000 of those 50,000 readers – but at some point, something clicks. Blogging feels easier for them. The links, visitors and subscribers come with less effort – and their growth starts to rapidly increase.

And this rapid growth isn’t just theory – we’ve seen it in blogs, websites, startups, business – and I believe in personal goals as well. Why does this happen? Why isn’t growth strictly linear? I recently had a discussion with Srinivas about this exact issue and the reason this happens: hockey stick growth.

Hockey Stick Growth

For those unfamiliar with the term, hockey stick growth refers to the phenomenon where for a long period of time a company’s growth, or website traffic, remains linear and rises steadily. At some point however, a tipping point occurs – and growth skyrockets exponentially, resulting in a graph that looks like a hockey stick. Sometimes this happens because a company releases a killer features. Sometimes it is all about timing. Sometimes a writer will release a certain blog post, and strike a chord with a number of people. Whatever it is, it happens suddenly, and often without warning. What was once difficult seems easy, and what once appeared impossible and unlikely now seems probably.

I believe this metaphor applies in many areas of our life. In attempting any goal, I have a burst of motivation, and may in the beginning actually make fairly rapid progress. Over time, my progress slows until it is fairly predictable and linear – and this is where we see if I have what it takes. If I am truly committed, I’ll stay with my goals even when times are tough – and even when I feel like my progress is too slow. In time, as we improve our skills, better understand the domain we are competing in, and perhaps clarify our goals and motivation, our progress rapidly increases. Just as a blog experiences hockey stick growth in subscribers, we experience internal hockey stick growth as we notice ourselves improving faster and with less effort over time.

When Will I Hit My Exponential Growth?

“I’m an overnight success. But it took twenty years.”
-Monty Hall

The catch here is we don’t know when that growth is going to happen. We don’t know when we’re going to hit that sweet, magical spot where the pieces finally fall into place and everything turns effortless. Until we get there, it’s going to be a slog. This is why we do our goals a great disservice when we compare ourselves to people who are far more accomplished than we are, and get discouraged because our progress is not as fast. What we may not be taking into account is they’ve hit their stride, and are have paid their dues to reach their exponential growth – but we’re still at the bottom of the hockey stick.

For every moment you see others who have accomplished great things, they have, just like anybody else, struggles through dozens, hundreds, thousands and tens of thousands of hours striving as a relative unknown.

So embrace your journey. Pursue your goals with passion. Pay your days, and one day, with the right mix of luck, timing and hard work you’ll get your hockey stick.

Sid Savara is the author of Analysis Driven Personal Development, a blog where he discusses personal development, lifehacking and personal productivity. For more inspiration, sign up for his newsletter and receive a free copy of The Little Book Of Big Motivational Quotes.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!