Ice Cubes and Progress

As I mentioned last week, I’ve been spending some of this time around the house flipping through books I’ve already read, trying to gain some new insight. When I was thinking about what to write today, I reached for Atomic Habits, it’s been awhile since I shared any ideas from this game changer of a book.

The ice cube metaphor may feel like a punch in the face if you think you’re not making any progress.

Imagine you have an ice cube on a table. This room, where you ice cube is sitting, is temperature controlled. Starting at 20 degrees, we’re going to raise the temperature of the room 1 degree at a time.

After a while, we’re up to 25 degrees. No change on the ice cube, it’s still just sitting there, frozen. Fast forward a little longer, we’re at 30 degrees. Still no change to the ice cube. Once we hit 31 degrees, our ice cube is there, unchanged and apparently unfazed by the increasing temperature.

Finally, we hit 32 degrees. The ice cube starts to change, it’s melting. 

What made the ice cube melt? The 1 degree change from 31 degrees to 32 degrees? Or was the the compounding of the temperature change to get there? We saw no progress from 20 degrees all the way to 31 degrees. Now, just because we couldn’t see the progress, doesn’t mean it isn’t there.

You might be going through something similar now. It feels like your turning your wheels, not getting any traction. You could be making progress and adapting now, it just isn’t visible yet. Remember the ice cube, you could be making change without even knowing it, small actions add up to big changes.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain