How to Create Your Exponential Breakthrough Point

In my last post, I suggested that asking “who am I?” is the wrong question and that we should instead be thinking about “who am I becoming?”.

I ended that article with the following invitation:

“Keep doing those things on a consistent basis, unattached to the outcome, with a clear view of the desired result, until one day, when you least expect it, you hit the Breakthrough Point where your previous stories are torn up, new ones are written, and true reinvention occurs.”

Today I want to talk about that Breakthrough Point a little more.

Or, as I like to call it, the Exponential Breakthrough Point (more on that a little later).

In his book Prison Break, Jason Goldberg describes it as Activation Energy. Here’s how he describes it:

“Activation Energy is the point at which a chemical (or any other transformative) reaction occurs, resistance is overcome, and momentum and results are accelerated.”

Pretty awesome. But here’s where things really get interesting. JG continues:

“It can come from steady improvement and also from intense bursts of purposeful, creative, and focused action.”

In other words, there are two ways to create your Breakthrough Point.

1. Taking the small actions day in and day out.
2. Occasionally diving deep and going all in on something for a brief period (while still satisfying number 1).

So why do I like to call it the Exponential Breakthrough Point as I mentioned above?

Well, the way this all works is when you focus on doing what needs to be done right now, unattached to how or when it all falls into place, building momentum as you go, until one day you hit the Breakthrough Point where things take off.

If you think about an exponential curve on a graph, things look pretty boring and unsexy for most of the time (doing the small things consistently), until suddenly there’s a rapid spike upwards.

If you’re standing at that point, your progress looks slow and uneventful looking backward, but impossible to see the top/limit/potential looking forward, almost as if you were standing at the bottom of the Burj Khalifa trying to see the very top.

With that in mind, and provided that you’re putting in the work consistently, the worst thing you could do is to quit too early. Doing so would prevent you from hitting the Breakthrough Point and cause your entire journey to look flat.

Keep showing up, occasionally throw in some intense bursts, and trust that the Breakthrough Point is on its way. You’ll enjoy the view from the top.