Plateaus

“Energy and persistence conquer all things” – Benjamin Franklin

This is something I have come to realise is very boring to do. Hence the title of this post.

For a long time, my progress had stalled. Be it reading, chess, fitness, anything I was doing just seemed to be heading nowhere. Stagnant. Boring.

To add to this, I felt I was not only stagnant, but in a state of decline. For over a year, my chess rating kept either being flat or falling. I did not see any increase in strength in my push or pull abilities when attempting to go forward with my fitness goals. I would keep having to read and re-read the same books in order to fully grasp the ideas.

This was the entirety of my 2025. A slow, constant, agonising journey, that made me want to quit everyday. Especially after a long streak of losses in my chess games. I think I lost 6 or 7 in a row for 3 or 4 months. Absolutely nothing was going my way. I’d get into completely winning positions and manage to lose or draw. Or worse, defend the entire game from a worse position only to blunder at the very end. And there was no solace in the quality of the games either, it was simply bad play.

Similarly, no matter how many exercises I did with perfect form and composure, it did not move the needle. Week after week, I was stuck in the same rep range or weight range, despite doing everything right. Sleeping on time, eating right, taking protein on time, but constant disappointment.

And the entire duration of this, I was either searching for a job or working long hours. I even got laid off before I settled into my current role.

So why am I writing about this and why does the title make any sense?

It’s simple. I was on a plateau. It was simply, the year of accumulation. Just not in the way I imagined it would be.

I expected consistent, steady progress. I did not prepare myself for stagnancy. But, I showed up everyday. When I was sick, tired, unhappy, I kept showing up. Doing whatever I could, however I could. And then, came along 2026.

Now it’s been 2 full months into the year, and I can confidently say that everything has been on the up and up, by leaps and bounds. Progress that I never imagined.

I am playing far better chess than I ever have, seeing and analysing a lot more than I ever could, and everything that didn’t make sense a year ago, suddenly does. Not just from the perspective of personal progress, but simply my ability to play more universally and have more versatility, and able to navigate complex positions.

It used to seem impossible that I would ever unlock the one-arm pushups and weighted pullups. Now I’m able to do both more convincingly than ever before, and progressing towards muscle ups.

Reading clicks a lot better. I’m more focused, more attentive and am able to comprehend all kinds of ideas and store them more efficiently as they make a lot more sense, and able to pull a lot more from various sources and connect them.

In retrospect, this all makes sense. But going through the motions? It’s pure pain. If anything, I kept going due to inertia.

This post is simply to remind anyone else out there going through the same things, that it does pay off. I cannot tell you how, or when, or in what form it pays off, all I can tell you is that it does.

For anyone reading this, and going through any similar journey and doing all the right things and still not seeing any results, keep going. If nothing else, do it out of inertia. And just be that persistence. I promise you, when everything does click, you’ll be more than prepared to grab that opportunity. You won’t just hit the ground running, you will be soaring.