Atomic Habits’ Plateau of Latent Potential: Why I Check My Workout Log When Nothing Changes

Atomic Habits' Plateau of Latent Potential: Why I Check My Workout Log When Nothing Changes

I've been working out every morning for a year now.

Every day, I run about 2 to 2.5 miles (3 to 4 km) and do push-ups between 70 and 100.

When I first started working out in the mornings, just getting out of bed was really hard.

But I still went out to the field, ran, and did my push-ups.

A few days in, though, my body didn't look any different.

I was making time for it every single morning, and sometimes I'd catch myself thinking:

"How much is this really going to change anything?"

Of I know exercise is good for me. But I was putting in real effort, and I wanted something back as a reward. I wanted to feel like something had changed.

What kept me going was the habit log I left in MOAVO Habits after each workout. Every time I finished, one dot was left behind, and those days started stacking up on the calendar. Even if nothing big had changed yet, the work I'd done didn't just disappear.

While I waited for results, my log at least showed me what I'd done today.

1. Even before ice melts, the temperature is rising

In Atomic Habits, James Clear describes ice melting. If you warm a block of ice one degree at a time from below freezing, nothing seems to happen on the surface. Then, the moment it hits 32°F (0°C), the ice finally starts to melt.[1]

It's a way of saying that small efforts don't always show up as visible results right away.

James Clear calls this stretch the 'Plateau of Latent Potential'. And the disappointment you feel in the gap between the results you expected and the results you can actually see, he calls the 'Valley of Disappointment'.[2]

Reading that, I thought about all those mornings when I was working hard and it felt like nothing was changing.

2. What kept me going were the dots on my calendar

What I felt as I kept up my morning workouts was much simpler than that.

When I finish a workout and log it, one dot appears on my MOAVO Habits heatmap.

If I do it again the next day, another dot appears right next to it. Once a few dots lined up in a row, I didn't want to leave a gap between them. One day, I found this line in my own MOAVO Habits log:

"Once one dot builds up, I want to turn it into a line. Once lines build up, I want to fill in the whole space."

That was exactly how I felt. I didn't keep going because I saw some huge result. I just wanted to keep going today with what I'd kept up until yesterday.

As I kept at it, getting up and heading out for a workout definitely started to feel more natural than it did at first. Of course, it still isn't easy every day. But now that it's been over a year, I can really feel that my body has adjusted and it's become a habit. It's so much easier now.

3. I could take a second look at "I haven't really done anything"

When the results you want aren't here yet and you can't see them, at some point even the effort you've put in starts to feel like nothing, and you start beating yourself up.

But when I feel that way and open my stats and logs in MOAVO Habits, the days I actually worked out are still there.

No matter how frustrated I feel right now, those days when I made time and moved are real.

Of course, those dots don't explain every change in my body.

But "I haven't done anything" and "I'm doing it, I just haven't gotten the results I want yet" are completely different stories.

4. It calmed my urge to check for results every day

After a workout, I want to find something that's changed right away.

But you can't tell what this morning's workout meant just by looking in the mirror or stepping on a scale.

What I could do right away was log it. I wrote down what I did today and watched that entry show up as a dot on my calendar. James Clear also says that tracking your habits lets you see proof that you did the work, and that seeing it is a small satisfaction on its own.[3]

That was true for me as I tracked my habits. Instead of grinding on with no sense of reward until some big result showed up,

I could feel the small satisfaction of "I did what I said I'd do today," every single day.

5. Even after resting or missing days, I had somewhere to come back to

Not wanting to leave a gap sometimes helped. But if filling in dots becomes the goal itself, that's a problem.

Some days you need to rest, and some days things don't go as planned. Missing once doesn't erase everything you logged before. So these days, even when there's a gap, I look at the records that came before it. I remind myself that I've already done this before, and I think about how I'll start again.

On days like that, you could write something like this:

Your log doesn't always have to be positive.

It's okay to write that you're worn out, or that you're not sure.

6. Instead of "How much longer can I hold on?", try asking this

If there's something you want to keep doing, go back and read a few of your recent notes, wherever you've been keeping them.

If you don't have any, it's fine to start with something short today.

Write down what you did and how it felt afterward.

Then pick a day to look back at it. About a week later, check whether it's gotten a little easier to start, and whether you were trying to do too much. Think of that week not as a deadline for results, but as a day to check in on your plan.

If it's still hard then, change your approach or do less.

And if it's hard to figure out on your own, it's okay to ask someone for help.

What morning workouts gave me wasn't some moment where my life suddenly changed.

It was the experience of slowly fitting something that was hard at first into my day.

And because I kept a record of it, even on frustrating days, I could look back at everything I'd done.

7. Log your good days and your hard days in MOAVO Habits

I keep a short habit journal in MOAVO Habits. I look back at the days I showed up through the dots on my calendar, and reread my notes to see what I was thinking at the time. You can also get comments and reports from AVO, the AI coach.

A paper notebook or a notes app is a fine place to start too.

Write down one line about what you did today and how you're feeling right now.

"Finished today's habit. I can't tell if much has changed yet, but I'm keeping a record of what I did today."

That's enough to get started.

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References

1. James Clear, official quote page on the ice cube analogy.
2. James Clear, Atomic Habits (2018), Chapter 1. "Plateau of Latent Potential" and "Valley of Disappointment." Official book page.
3. James Clear, The Ultimate Habit Tracker Guide.