Anatomy of a Breakthrough

adam alter.

anatomy of a breakthrough.

how to get unstuck when it matters most.

it's very easy to look back on someone's life and imagine it was all smooth sailing.

but more often than not, even the most inspiring success stories feature a period of struggle wherein the artist or entrepreneur had to get unstuck.

legends like jackson pollock or pablo picasso both faced significant creative blocks marred by uncertainty and frustration.

but we tend to overlook their struggles and treat their work as though it came freely and easily.

the author, adam alter, surveyed hundreds of professionals for anatomy of a breakthrough and the results showed that nearly everyone, from all walks of life, have felt stuck in one area or another.

not only that, but the feeling comes with a heavy emotional toll, including anxiety and a sense of isolation.

in these situations, you'll find your usual strategies of coping often don't work.

to get unstuck, you need a mix of emotional, mental, and behavioral tools, which is precisely what we'll get into in the sections ahead.

the facts of life getting stuck is inevitable.

whether it's career goals, a relationship, or a creative endeavor, hitting roadblocks is a fact of life that we should all get used to.

getting stuck isn't even limited to human life, either.

researchers who work with rodents and mazes have shown that lab rats move fast at the beginning and end of a task but tend to slow down in the middle.

people do the same thing.

this quick, slow, quick pattern is common, and yet humans have a tendency to feel hopeless when we're stuck in the middle.

so much so that it often reaches a point where we'll seriously consider cheating or compromising our morals in order to get unstuck.

now, getting stuck can be the result of both internal and external factors.

on the external side of things, it's common for people to have major events in their lives that leave them reeling, keeping them stuck in neutral for months or years waiting to get back on track.

it could be a medical diagnosis, losing a job, or the death of a loved one.

the writer bruce feiler calls these events lifequakes.

he's met and recorded the life story of hundreds of people over the years, and most everyone has experienced a lifequake that has left them feeling stuck.

that's life.

due to its unpredictability, we need to have a flexible toolkit for managing change.

plateaus are another frequent reason people get stuck.

plateaus happen when you're following a path that led to good results early on, but those results have diminished over time.

this is a common occurrence.

whether it's in losing weight, building muscle, or learning a new language, sticking to the same methods leads to diminishing returns.

our bodies and minds adapt, so when you fail to add new challenges to the program, it's normal for progress to halt.

the solution is to vary your approach regularly.

add new components to your workout regime.

challenge yourself and keep the levels of interest and engagement up by keeping variety in mind.

when dealing with being stuck, whatever the cause may be, you can keep two things in mind.

to break down your tasks and goals into smaller chunks, and to manage your energy by staying present and focused on the here and now.

think of the marathon runner.

like anyone else, a marathon runner would hit the wall at the halfway point if they just saw the race as one long obstacle and tried to keep the same pace throughout.

instead of doing that, the marathon runner will manage their energy by breaking the course down into smaller segments, and focus on getting through each one section by section.

this approach of finding sub-goals within your larger goals is called narrow bracketing, and you can do the same thing to get you through your midway slump.

by focusing on the immediate task rather than the entire journey, you can avoid burnout and keep your progress steady.

let's say your goal is to save money for a big purchase.

split the total amount into smaller chunks and reward yourself as you hit each mini-goal.

this strategy keeps motivation high by creating frequent milestones instead of just one finish line off in the distance.

getting stuck is a natural part of life, but with the right strategies, we can navigate through it.

in the three sections that follow, we'll look at how breakthroughs can happen through a mix of thinking, doing, and creating new habits.

persevering and preventing when we talk about making breakthroughs and overcoming the obstacles that life throws in our way, we're often referring to perseverance and persistence.

there's a good chance you know the iconic 1985 song, take on me, by the band a-ha.

it was a huge hit in its day, with a massive popular video that played constantly on mtv.

what you probably don't know is that the song had a long and winding road on its way to becoming a success.

take on me took nearly 10 years of tinkering and re-recording before it topped the charts.

the melody went through numerous revisions before becoming the catchy hit we know today.

each step of the way, however, was a chance to give up and move on to something else.

but they didn't.

they stuck with it and learned from what wasn't working.

this is what success often looks like.

it follows a bumpy path, littered with discards and failures.

we often hold ourselves back by adhering to the wrong standards.

we think creativity should be swift and effortless.

we believe that the best works are born from moments of pure inspiration, perfect from the start.

this belief is known as the creative cliff illusion, and it's completely misleading.

research shows that people tend to be more creative over time, not less.

when facing a creative task, the initial struggle is often seen as a problem.

but in reality, it's part of the creative process.

persisting through this phase, even when it feels especially challenging, can yield surprising results.

experiments have shown that participants who push through initial creative blocks end up producing more and higher quality ideas than they anticipated.

so by simply giving yourself more time than you may have initially thought necessary, you'll be giving yourself the opportunity to overcome creative obstacles.

another misconception is to think of youth as being the source of creative and disruptive ideas.

but many of the most successful entrepreneurs are in their 40s, not their 20s.

and many of the most successful businesses were not the first out of the gate.

one study showed that a founder at age 50 is approximately twice as likely to experience a successful exit compared to a founder at age 30.

this is the case because age equals experience.

when people have learned from their failures and refined their approaches, they perform better.

likewise, when sergey brin and larry page found success with google, it's because they weren't the first search engine.

they learned by paying attention to the mistakes that their predecessors at ask jeeves and alta vista were making.

another common error is failing to distinguish between small, insignificant problems and those that signal more significant issues.

what you want to do is tend to those small problems before they fester and grow to become a major obstacle.

a good metaphor here is the aircraft abc check system.

as you probably know, planes go under routine checks, which largely function as preventative maintenance.

level a checkups happen every 10 days or so and take a few hours to complete, while level b checkups happen around every 6 months and take a few days, and so on.

preventative maintenance in your own life might include making sure you exercise and eat well so that illness doesn't become a setback later.

it might also include making sure you put a certain percentage of your paycheck away every month.

the point is not to fall into the trap of ignoring the warning signs.

so think about how you can develop routine check-ins that regularly address minor issues before they become major setbacks.

we've already covered a few external blocks like lifequake events, but other setbacks can be more internal.

one such block is tied to our fear of failure.

this is a perfectly understandable form of mental entrapment, and it can certainly be debilitating.

fears like this can lead to anxiety, a racing heart, and all kinds of self-doubt.

the trick to overcoming mental paralysis is to reframe things in a more productive way.

modern wisdom promotes boldness and to be constantly on the move, but sometimes this is terrible advice.

instead, try to take the pressure off yourself, give yourself permission to play like you don't know how to play, and embrace radical acceptance.

radical acceptance is a concept made popular by the author tara brach, and it means accepting and living with the prospect of failure.

this can be a game-changing flip of the switch for some people, as it removes the inner perfectionist that can keep us from doing what we want to do.

perfectionists often set paralyzing goals that are near impossible to achieve.

likewise, breaking through mentally can simply be a matter of reframing threats as challenges and relaxing your definition of success.

there's another concept known as satisficing, which combines the words satisfy and sacrifice.

satisficers focus on good enough rather than perfection, which offers a more flexible and forward-focused approach.

while your inner perfectionist may flinch at the idea of lowering your standards, let's think about two more words, revolution and evolution.

we often think that change happens through a revolution, but this is exceedingly rare.

the more common fact of life is that change happens gradually, through evolution.

so rather than worrying about how to produce a revolutionary work, the more important thing is to just keep producing, and to focus on growing and getting better with each effort.

this is the evolutionary approach.

it's about finding value in holding back and knowing that life goes on.

tomorrow always provides another chance to improve.

take it from the soccer superstar lionel messi.

he was once a famously anxious player, so much so that he'd often throw up before a game even began.

he's also known for taking his time.

messi doesn't come out running at full speed.

in fact, he usually doesn't run much at all for the first few minutes of a match.

he walks, calms himself down, and scopes out the opposition.

the lesson?

when you're anxious, don't react.

pause, slow down, and prepare.

tarabrach also advocates for radical pauses, to step back and stop everything until you're calmer.

taking a quiet break will inspire deliberation and quell anxiety, and studies show that this approach can lead to superior outcomes.

sometimes, knowing when to step back or when to step away altogether can make all the difference in staying stuck or igniting a breakthrough.

but anxiety can also be the result of misinterpreting setbacks as threats.

a better frame of mind is to understand that failure isn't just okay, but that it's necessary for success.

there's even a theory out there which suggests that success comes with an optimal failure rate of 15.87%.

people like einstein and mozart succeeded because they embraced quiet and allowed ideas to land in good time.

their laid-back approach accepted that progress involves failure.

likewise, organizations need to give people room to fail in order to manage collective anxiety.

we'd all do better by experimenting more and embracing the difficult terrain as being essential for progress.

in the next section, we'll look some more at experimentation and how we can develop habits that will also help in mastering your emotional response to being stuck.

blast-off and breakthrough have you ever heard of the berkhoff blast-off?

it has to do with swimming, the backstroke in particular.

david berkhoff wasn't an obvious candidate for being an olympic swimmer.

compared to other swimmers who topped off at over 6 feet tall, he was only around 5 foot 9.

but he had something else going for him, an intense curiosity and willingness to experiment.

noticing that swimmers move faster underwater, berkhoff trained himself to stay submerged for as long as possible during races, especially at the moment when swimmers turn underwater and push themselves off the wall.

his hard work paid off at the 1988 olympic trials where he broke the world record twice.

this innovative technique, dubbed the berkhoff blast-off, revolutionized backstroke swimming.

a willingness to experiment can make all the difference in generating a breakthrough.

the keys to successful experimentation are to identify specific problems and to address them with targeted solutions.

but in general, breakthroughs happen when we maintain a general curiosity toward exploring new ideas.

this goes hand-in-hand with having a discipline to hone in on a chosen method and find ways to improve upon conventional wisdom, just like david berkhoff did.

this process can also be described as exploration and exploitation, which are the steps that tend to lead to a creative hot streak.

in short, exploration involves testing new ideas beyond one's usual methods, while exploitation focuses on refining and maximizing the potential of the most successful discoveries.

this pattern was evident in berkhoff's career, as well as in the careers of other innovators like the film director peter jackson and the painter jackson pollock.

both of these artists started their careers with a period of exploration, testing out different styles and approaches.

peter jackson experimented with puppets and special effects in his low-budget early movies, which tend to lead to major breakthroughs in bringing the lord of the rings to life on the big screen.

likewise, jackson pollock experimented with different styles before finding his breakthrough with his famous drip technique.

the key takeaway is the balance between the two phases.

one must be willing to explore broadly and then commit to a period of intense focus and refinement to achieve lasting success.

finally, let's talk about taking action.

one of the worst things that can happen when you're stuck is to feel like you're paralyzed, unable to take even a small step forward.

a lot of these tips, like embracing failure and experimentation, are about getting you to act again, even if you aren't feeling particularly inspired.

when the musician paul simon was on the dick cavett show, he talked about how he could overcome his writer's block by taking action and just picking up the guitar and seeing what happened.

this principle is supported by psychological research, which suggests that actions can often unlock feelings and thoughts, which is key to overcoming creative blocks.

sitting, ruminating, staring at a black screen, these are inactions that often don't result in breakthroughs.

but action, even if it's just going out for a walk, can get the gears of creativity moving.

another musician, jeff tweedy, has written extensively about his approach to overcoming creative blocks.

and once again, it goes back to lowering expectations and embracing imperfection.

by allowing himself to write bad songs, he removes the pressure to create something perfect, which frees his creativity.

this method, focusing on consistent action without judgment, can help anyone struggling with creative blocks to move from being stuck to making progress.

ultimately, the ideal solution is to turn these thoughts and actions into habits.

so the next time you hit a wall or you hit a plateau and find that your usual approach isn't working for you anymore, you won't panic.

rather than responding with anxiety, you'll make a habit of recognizing that blocks are a fact of life, and that all you need is to be both persistent and patient.

give yourself time and approach the issue with a sense of variety and curiosity.

and don't be afraid to fail.

the main takeaway of this chapter-2 anatomy of a breakthrough by adam alter is that the art of achieving personal and professional breakthroughs comes through understanding the interplay between thought, action, and habit.

this starts by recognizing that creative blocks are a common part of life.

the common perception of great ideas coming easily is a fallacy, so we must embrace the reality and necessity of taking time and being persistent.

we can help matters by breaking down goals into smaller sections in order to keep us motivated, while also acknowledging the necessity of curiosity and the willingness to experiment with unconventional methods.

in this manner, we can move from exploration to exploitation, where initial broad experimentation leads to the fine-tuning of successful strategies.

by changing our relationship to failure and feeling stuck, we can move forward with renewed confidence.

okay, that is it for this chapter.

we hope you enjoyed it, and if you can, please take the time to leave us a rating, because we always appreciate your feedback.

see you in the next chapter.

bye!