The Principle of Exponential Growth

When beginning any major artistic endeavor, expect that you will experience more setbacks than what you initially bargained for. Expect that your goal will take longer than you initially calculated to achieve. Through creating this expectations, you will minimize the desperation and fear that arises during the dry spells, when you don’t feel like you are making any progress.

Everyone arrives at these hurdles in the beginning – plateaus where you aren’t getting any results. Many reach these impasses and choose to give up. Those who push through and persist, discover something magical along the way: the principle of exponential growth.

The principle of exponential growth looks like this:

In the beginning, progress is slow, and you seldom get to enjoy much success or many breakthroughs in the work you are creating. If you keep practicing, experimenting, revising, and editing, you can expect (as the graph shows) that you will keep experiencing little to no results.

Then, one day, unexpectedly, you will experience an avalanche of growth within your creative process. Your artistic skill will suddenly catapult and you will stare down at the canvas, amazed at what you’ve created.

I promise that, if you persist, you will reach a threshold where your path transitions from the horizontal to the vertical.