Lesson Eight: Progress in Maintenance
Every stock chart that finishes high or low looks chaotic when you zoom in. My goals feel the same way. If I obsess over yesterday’s metrics, whether the pace on a run, revenue in a side hustle, or word count on this blog, I only see jagged noise. When I step back, I notice the steady tilt upward.
Accepting the Plateau
It took years to admit that maintenance blocks are part of the climb. In my twenties I chased a personal record in every workout. Whenever progress stalled, I doubled the volume, flamed out, and lost weeks of training. More than once, I wished I had simply protected the strength I already owned instead of watching it drain away. The same pattern showed up in my career; a year without promotion felt like a failure, so I piled on projects, burned my team, and did more harm than good. It’s a feeling that I feel so many can relate to. An honest reflection of our past often leaves us stating, “If I just kept doing that, I’d be so much further along.”
Entrepreneur Alex Hormozi says, “The only shortcut in life is being consistent.” Consistency requires showing up during the plateau, not just on peak days. Doing so isn’t always fun; it’s often mundane. Yet those days where you continue the grind not to gain but maintain progress are crucial to the overall trend toward your goal.
Why Maintaining Is Strategic
Fitness: Holding my bench at a certain weight while cutting weight once felt like spinning wheels. Looking back, that stall protected muscle through a fat-loss phase, and I was technically stronger when I quit looking at things with such a narrow mindset.
Career: A year devoted to documenting processes with no real wins looked like lost momentum until those documents led to success in various inspections the following year. The grind without the reward for months was the key to success.
Finances: Practicing restraint leading up to a potential job change allowed for an easier transition without stress from money. Saying no and delaying gratification allowed me to take advantage of an opportunity.
The Hidden Tax of Endless Growth
Hormozi (if you can’t tell by now, I’m a fan) offers another reminder: “Myth: working too much leads to burnout. Reality: not being able to manage emotions leads to burnout.” My worst burnouts arrived when I labeled every sideways week as a failure. The stress of feeling behind triggered the very backslide I feared. Embracing maintenance phases removes that emotional landmine. I recognize that the wins I see online in my social media algorithms only show the high point. People LOVE to celebrate your wins but are often absent to celebrate your progress throughout. The sad thing is we’ve become so conditioned to seeing the mountaintop that when we get there, it often comes with a dissatisfied feeling of, “Wow, that’s it.” The path to the mountaintop is what we’re likely to look back on and recognize as the most rewarding part of any journey.
Tracking the Long Arc
Some of the things I’m starting to implement in my own life to reshape my thoughts behind success and goals are:
1. Quarterly scorecards: I self-reflect on my progress in ninety-day windows so a flat week, or even a flat quarter, no longer wrecks my mood.
2. Rolling averages: I now look at my cycling splits or run pace average over the last five efforts. It’s easier to see your true improvement, maintenance, or even loss of fitness when you look at an average and remove the scrutiny on your best and worst days. Being a second faster each day doesn’t seem like much. However, when you look back at the previous quarter and see improvement in minutes instead of seconds, it reshapes your perspective.
3. Scheduled deloads: This one will hurt those obsessed with Goggins, thinking he breaks his body daily. Hint - he doesn’t; he’s even said so. Deliberate low-intensity weeks turn maintenance into a planned tactic instead of an unwelcome surprise. That’s with fitness and in life. Sometimes, taking less on allows the capacity to take more on in the future. That doesn’t mean stopping all activity and regressing for a month. However, there is real value in recovery. Anyone at the peak of their chosen venture will agree.
4. Celebrate “unchanged” metrics: If sleep, lifts, or savings hold steady during a crunch period, I mark that as a win. Or, if I can maintain fitness or weight during a maintenance period, that’s a huge win. Because I’ve said too many times how I wish I would have just done enough to backslide. I’ve intentionally maintained my weight for around three months while enjoying life and training. The fact that I haven’t changed on the scale is a huge win, allowing me to increase my base strength and fitness.
Long-term goals require patience because compounding is fragile.
Closing Thought
Progress feels less like an escalator and more like a mountain range. I have spent enough time sliding down peaks I climbed too quickly. When the altimeter stops rising, I pitch a tent, guard the elevation, and breathe. Holding the line today keeps me high enough to push again tomorrow. Maintenance is not settling; it protects the trend that will carry me higher in the seasons ahead.