The Plateau of Latent Potential: Why you should stop freaking out about having nothing on your LinkedIn profile.
After completing my first year of university studying Design Computing, I spent some time at the end of 2022 reflecting on what my goals should be for the coming year. This is when I thought about branching out of my comfort zone and gaining valuable experience and knowledge alongside my studies. So, my sister suggested I should create a LinkedIn account, and I thought, sure, why not? Ultimately, it turned out to be both a blessing and a curse. I was able to begin networking and was constantly updated on new opportunities, but it made me realise how much I was supposedly “far behind” other peers. This planted a small seed of insecurity, as although I believed I had achieved my own personal goals for the year — I still fell into a toxic thinking pattern that I could have been doing so much more. In the summer break, I was also able to read Atomic Habits, a non-fiction international bestseller by author James Clear. This book shed light on a new perspective that helped me escape some negative thought patterns and reassured me on the path I’m on, so I wanted to share some particularly thought-provoking ideas that hopefully help you feel encouraged as well, because being a student is stressful!
The plateau of Latent Potential
In Atomic Habits, Clear regards the “Plateau of Latent Potential” as the common response humans have to stop or give up reaching their goals because they fail to see immediate results. It is innate in human nature to desire for our hard work to pay off immediately. This is primarily because, in the early years pre-Homo sapien evolution, we lived in an immediate-return environment. The behaviour of animals that roamed Earth was narrowed down to concerns over avoiding predators and finding food, a mate, and a safe habitat. But in the modern context, it is rare that the significant choices we make — such as the direction we want to steer our career — will benefit us immediately. If you work on that assignment now, it still may be years before you’ll gain the skills and experience required to land that dream job. This is what we call a delayed-return environment. Because our brains didn’t evolve in this type of environment, we still desire instant gratification. The world has progressed, but human nature has not.
This is precisely why we expect progress to be linear and to come quickly in succession as we plan: After I work hard and get a distinction in these units, it should help me boost my overall WAM. With my boosted WAM, I can demonstrate my dedication, time management and skillset when applying for initial design roles to gain some workplace experience. With these roles, I’ll be able to gain myself some internship opportunities, which will directly benefit in landing a graduate role once I’m finished with university.
Simple, right? Although this plan can be 100% possible, at times the reality of a delayed-return environment may defer us from truly committing to achieving our goals. We may feel motivated when thinking about our end goal, but the sheer amount of hard work and consistency that is required to follow through such an extensive plan eventually plants a seed of anxiety — which often translates to procrastination — which often leads to us forfeiting our carefully constructed “plan of success” and feeling lost in our purpose and sense of fulfilment.
This is what Clear calls the “valley of disappointment”, where we start to feel discouraged after putting in weeks or even months of effort without any clear signs of improvement or success. During this period, we may even experience failure. For example, spending so much time generating a design solution for a given brief — going through the processes of user research, understanding needs, generating ideas, and developing prototypes — just to realise much later that you’ve focused on the wrong topics, when something else needed greater focus. When we spend so much effort but don’t see the results we expect, we have a tendency to give up because we fear wasting any more time. The certainty of the reward of watching Netflix to procrastinate the stress you feel from that assignment means more to us now than the mere possibility of a good mark in the future.
But to relieve our anxiety, it would help to understand that our hard work is not wasted but stored, like a battery. We won’t realise much later when the full value of our previous efforts is revealed. As designers, we need to undergo failure to gain a greater understanding of what is significant and what is not, and to shift our approach and mindset which will benefit us in adapting to similar situations in the future. The design process is iterative, not linear — just like life itself. We need to endure the scary valley of disappointment by experiencing failure and rejection, to foster growth and improvement. Not just for a high quality and viable design solution, but also for a healthy relationship with our passion as designers, so we can extend beyond our comfort zone and persist to grow and learn without being trapped by complacency and anxiety. Perhaps it’s good to balance out thinking about future you, the designer — who wants to make a difference by impacting the lives of other users — with present you, the learner, who wants to feel entertained, satisfied and rewarded all the time.
And once we overcome that barrier, your achievement to the outside world will feel like overnight success. This is what we may often feel towards other peers who have ten different experiences listed on their Linkedin profile, while you have none. Everyone’s journey is different, and so is how each of us define success. We all experience obstacles, hardship and the need to give up regularly when we’re forced out of our norm. Everyone has their own insecurities, but if we focus on ourselves and what we truly want in the future, our fear of failure and disappointment can do little to stop us!
Some things to remember
- 💪 We may be studying the same degree, but that doesn’t mean we all have the same goals. Focus on your own journey and travel at your own pace.
- 📈 Try not to expect immediate results but endure and stay consistent to anticipate it. In other words, trust the process!
- 💭 You are capable for anything you can imagine. Not trying guarantees no failure, but it also guarantees no improvement.
I highly suggest grabbing your own copy of Atomic Habits as the whole book is worth the read! Additionally, I was motivated to write this due to my internal struggles from my own personal experiences. As a fellow peer, I wish to shed light on the importance of maintaining a healthy mental wellbeing, but without any intention to replace professional help. I do suggest reaching out to a specialist if you are truly struggling with finding motivation.
About
Purvi (Pu-r-vi) is a second year Design Computing/Advanced Studies (Biodesign) student at USYD. She is passionate about exploring innovative ideas to create meaningful experiences for users in the context of mental wellbeing, social impact, and the environment. When she’s not researching user needs or designing interfaces, she’ll be reading, painting, learning embroidery, creating content on TikTok or streaming BTS music videos.
૮ ˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶ ა
SUEDE is a society driven by students passionate about designing everyday interactions, services, and experiences. SUEDE aims to bridge the gap between theory-based education and practical industry-based learning. We help students be better prepared for the workforce while also creating a community centered around design.
If you’re an interested SUEDE+ member with an upcoming design-focused side hustle or a UX/UI-centered project, we would love to hear about it! Fill out this form to let us know if you’re keen to write your own blog.
