Success is a funny thing. People tend to want to believe that it's directly related to effort--"If I put in a little effort, I get little success. If I put in a lot of effort, I get a lot of success." And for many situations that seems to be true, but success does something funny when you start to reach a certain level--it becomes non-linear.
Sure, when you were trying to learn something simple, the more you put in, the more you get out, but what happens when you're reaching the extent of your capabilities? What happens when your mind or body or spirit (or all of those) is strained and putting in more effort takes more effort? Then your Success-Effort curve starts to flatten out. You put in more and more effort, but you get the same level of success. It's frustrating. It's disheartening. It's what happens. You set a goal, you start moving towards that goal and as you get closer to reaching it, it seems to get more difficult to get to.
At this point, many people give up. The success that they wanted was too much for their patience given the Success-Effort curve they were on. Things get tough. People get tired. People lose interest...People let go...
But, like I said, success is a funny thing. Not every goal you set has the same Success-Effort curve. Some have curves have larger linear regions--you get the same proportional amount of success for your effort for longer. Some have steeper curves--you get just plain more success for your effort. Some force you to achieve levels of success that you wouldn't have otherwise--they pass through previously frustrating levels of success on a kinder curve.
So, if you find that you are hitting some threshold where accomplishing anything becomes discouragingly difficult, instead of giving up on the pursuit of that level of success, change your goal. Aim higher, further out, or just plain differently, and you might be surprised where the curve will take you.
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