Melting Ice Cubes and Progress

The following analogy is from Atomic Habits by James Clear.

Imagine an ice cube sitting out on a table. This room where the ice cube is located 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 29 degrees. Still no change to the ice cube. Once we hit 31 degrees, our ice cube is there, still 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 compounding of the temperature change to get there? We saw no progress from 20 degrees all the way to 31 degrees. 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 you’re turning your wheels, not getting any traction. You could be making progress and adapting, it just isn’t visible yet. Remember the ice cube, you could be making change without even noticing it, small actions add up to big changes.

Justin Miner

@justinminergain