Worse First, Then Better
Inspired by on Lenny's Podcast
Sleep training night one is going to be horrible. That's not a sign you're doing it wrong - that's a sign you're doing it.
Graham Weaver, whose PE fund is one of the world's most successful, drops a truth bomb: "Everything you want is on the other side of worse first."
Want your kid to sleep through the night? The first few nights of any change will be awful. Want them to eat vegetables? The first twelve attempts will be rejected. Want a consistent morning routine? The first week will feel like you've made everything harder for no reason.
"If I'm optimizing for tomorrow and I just want to have a great day tomorrow, I'm going to stay exactly where I am," Graham explains. That's why most parenting improvements stall. We start, it gets worse, we quit, we stay stuck.
The plateau is comfortable. The plateau is familiar. The plateau requires no screaming.
But if you're asking what the five-years-from-now version of yourself would want you to do today? They'd say: push through worse first. The breakthrough is on the other side.
This doesn't mean everything worth doing is miserable. It means the start usually is.
PM Theme: Change management and persistence
Parenting Theme: Pushing through hard transitions
“Everything you want is on the other side of worse first... If I'm optimizing for tomorrow and I just want to have a great day tomorrow, I'm going to stay exactly where I am.”Graham Weaver · 00:01:07
“So many people I see have this happen, where they hit a plateau and they never move past it, because they're not willing to have that hard day, month, week, year.”Graham Weaver · 00:01:35
