Progress in any field feels super fast at the beginning—skills grow, results improve, and every new step feels like a breakthrough. But the better you get, the harder it is to keep moving forward.
I realized this through my own experience with go-karting. When I first hit what is now my home track, Daytona in Nicosia, my initial lap time was 1:17. Just three practice sessions later, I shaved it down to 1:09. But cutting another couple of seconds to reach 1:07 took way more effort and time.
And now, for over six months, I’ve been stuck trying to break past 1:06, hovering at 1:06.043. At this point, it's no longer about full seconds—now we’re talking tenths and hundredths.
Of course, there are technical limits, physics, and plain old luck. But it’s exactly these “last few seconds” that bring you closer to the top drivers, who finish the same track in 1:04.387. And to bridge that two-second gap, it’ll take a completely different level of commitment and self-improvement.
To sum it up, here are two key takeaways:
1️⃣ If you feel like you're progressing quickly in something, you’re probably still far from mastery. The easier and more noticeable the improvements, the more room you still have to grow.
2️⃣ To get better than 80% of people at something, just practice consistently. But to break into the top 1%, the effort required skyrockets. At that level, the competition is completely different, and just "practicing a little more" won’t cut it. It’s about fine-tuning, thinking outside the box, and obsessing over the smallest details.
I realized this through my own experience with go-karting. When I first hit what is now my home track, Daytona in Nicosia, my initial lap time was 1:17. Just three practice sessions later, I shaved it down to 1:09. But cutting another couple of seconds to reach 1:07 took way more effort and time.
And now, for over six months, I’ve been stuck trying to break past 1:06, hovering at 1:06.043. At this point, it's no longer about full seconds—now we’re talking tenths and hundredths.
Of course, there are technical limits, physics, and plain old luck. But it’s exactly these “last few seconds” that bring you closer to the top drivers, who finish the same track in 1:04.387. And to bridge that two-second gap, it’ll take a completely different level of commitment and self-improvement.
To sum it up, here are two key takeaways:
1️⃣ If you feel like you're progressing quickly in something, you’re probably still far from mastery. The easier and more noticeable the improvements, the more room you still have to grow.
2️⃣ To get better than 80% of people at something, just practice consistently. But to break into the top 1%, the effort required skyrockets. At that level, the competition is completely different, and just "practicing a little more" won’t cut it. It’s about fine-tuning, thinking outside the box, and obsessing over the smallest details.