Success Advice
Overcoming Plateaus: 6 Powerful Strategies for Breakthrough Success
A plateau is not a full stop; it’s a comma that allows you to pause, reflect, and shift gears

In the pursuit of personal and professional growth, plateaus are inevitable. They appear when progress seems to halt, despite your continuous efforts. But remember, a plateau is not a full stop; it’s a comma that allows you to pause, reflect, and shift gears. This article provides six powerful strategies to overcome plateaus and achieve breakthrough success.
1. Find Out the Root Cause
When facing a plateau, there is likely something causing you to sabotage your progress. Identify the root cause. What is sabotaging your progress? Examine your daily routine and how you spend your time. Are you wasting time on unnecessary activities? Or are you taking on too many tasks that you can’t handle?
Often, adding more tasks overloads your already tight routine and distracts you from focusing on the most important tasks. Therefore, often eliminating unnecessary activity will work to overcome plateaus. However, be cautious of not doing things right, such as tasks you have not yet undertaken or missing something. What actions do you need to take or improve to achieve your goal? Are you avoiding them, or have you not started yet?
2. Never Tolerate Problems
Once you’ve identified the root cause, never tolerate problems. If you tolerate them, you’ll end up staying stuck. You get what you tolerate. Once you recognize the problem you’re facing, never tolerate it. Instead, address and improve the situation.
3. Focus on a 100% Solution and 0% Problems
To overcome a challenge, it’s essential to plan how to get through it. Yet, people often find themselves asking, ‘Why is it bad?’ or ‘What is wrong with it?’ Questions of this nature limit our thinking, leading our brains to generate responses like ‘Because you’re not good enough’ or ‘Everything is wrong with you.’ These limited answers tend to resonate with the situation and drag you down further.
Instead, ask empowering questions without limits, such as ‘What is not perfect yet, and how can I turn things around while making a more positive impact?’ By asking unlimited empowering questions, you’ll shift your focus from the problem to the solution. Additionally, you will also notice that asking empowering questions can expand available options and allow you to see from an angle you couldn’t see before.
Focusing on problems rarely yields positive outcomes. The key to positive results lies in concentrating on the solution. The next time you face adversity and notice getting caught by unresourceful thoughts, snap out of it and direct your focus to a 100% solution and 0% problems.
“Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.” – Henry Ford
4. Cultivate Success-Driven Traits
Identify the traits you need to have and get rid of to become the person you aspire to be. Consider your specific goals – for instance, attracting positive relationships. To achieve this, note down the traits you need to embrace, such as being open-minded, gentle, healthy, and treating others the way you want to be treated.
Cultivate a positive mindset. Simultaneously, get rid of traits like criticizing others, having a short temper, and engaging in unhealthy habits like taking drugs.
Learn from individuals who have achieved similar goals. Study their traits, both the ones they have and those they’ve consciously avoided. Implement these traits to align with the person you want to become.
Once you have your lists of traits to embrace and eliminate, diligently follow them. Place the list on your desk or the door of your room, ensuring you read it at least once a day to reinforce your commitment to these traits.
5. Track Your Habits
Carry a notepad to track your habits throughout the day, especially those contributing to plateaus, as well as your new habits or traits aligned with achieving your goals. For instance, if your root cause is excessive internet use, record instances of mindless scrolling on social media. Note when you engage, the emotional state prompting it, and the approximate duration.
Calculate the total minutes wasted at the end of the day. This habit tracking makes you aware of the emotions triggering these behaviors (stress, boredom, and frustration) and the time wasted.
Additionally, track positive new habits, like reading good books and exercising. Document what you’ve learned from the book and the time spent exercising. This practice helps you build new positive habits by enabling you to compare today’s results with those from yesterday or a week ago.
Moreover, consistently sticking to new habits for around 18 months transforms them into lifelong habits. Even if you take breaks, you will find yourself naturally returning to those habits.
6. See Obstacles as Opportunities
Every obstacle can be an opportunity to turn things around. If the economy is in a downturn, it’s time to recognize it as an opportunity to thrive while everyone else is struggling and focused on the problem. If someone makes fun of you or causes you trouble, ask yourself, ‘What can I learn from this experience?’
Alternatively, consider that the person underrating you is setting low expectations, which are easier to exceed. If your business receives a bad review from a customer, see it as free feedback that guides you on how to improve and take your business to the next level.
Always try to see different angles that others may overlook. This perspective can reveal aspects you might be missing. When you view a problem as an opportunity, it has the potential to foster growth.
In the journey toward success, plateaus are just temporary pauses, not dead ends. So, keep moving, keep growing, and make your breakthrough.
Success Advice
Why One-Size-Fits-All Leadership Will Always Fail (and What Works Instead)
The surprising truth about leadership styles that can make or break your team’s success.

Leadership has always been as much about people as it is about performance. Ken Blanchard, in his influential book, “The One Minute Manager”, put it simply: different strokes for different folks. (more…)
Success Advice
What Every New CEO Must Do in Their First 100 Days (or Risk Failure)
Your first 100 days as CEO could define your entire legacy, here’s how to make every move count

When Tim Cook took over from Steve Jobs at Apple, the world watched with bated breath. Jobs wasn’t just a CEO; he was a visionary, an icon, and a legend of innovative leadership. (more…)
Entrepreneurs
The Leadership Shift Every Company Needs in 2025
Struggling to keep your team engaged? Here’s how leaders can turn frustrated employees into loyal advocates.

In workplaces around the world, there’s a growing gap between employers and employees and between superiors and their teams. It’s a common refrain: “People don’t leave companies, they leave bad bosses.”
While there are, of course, cases where management could do better, this isn’t just a “bad boss” problem. The relationship between leaders and employees is complex. Instead of assigning blame, we should explore practical solutions to build stronger, healthier workplaces where everyone thrives.
Why This Gap Exists
Every workplace needs someone to guide, supervise, and provide feedback. That’s essential for productivity and performance. But because there are usually far more employees than managers, dissatisfaction, fair or not, spreads quickly.
What if, instead of focusing on blame, we focused on building trust, empathy, and communication? This is where modern leadership and human-centered management can make a difference.
Tools and Techniques to Bridge the Gap
Here are proven strategies leaders and employees can use to foster stronger relationships and create a workplace where people actually want to stay.
1. Practice Mutual Empathy
Both managers and employees need to recognize they are ultimately on the same team. Leaders have to balance people and performance, and often face intense pressure to hit targets. Employees who understand this reality are more likely to cooperate and problem-solve collaboratively.
2. Maintain Professional Boundaries
Superiors should separate personal issues from professional decision-making. Consistency, fairness, and integrity build trust, and trust is the foundation of a motivated team.
3. Follow the Golden Rule
Treat people how you would like to be treated. This simple principle encourages compassion and respect, two qualities every effective leader must demonstrate.
4. Avoid Micromanagement
Micromanaging stifles creativity and damages morale. Great leaders see themselves as partners, not just bosses, and treat their teams as collaborators working toward a shared goal.
5. Empower Employees to Grow
Empowerment means giving employees responsibility that matches their capacity, and then trusting them to deliver. Encourage them to take calculated risks, learn from mistakes, and problem-solve independently. If something goes wrong, turn it into a learning opportunity, not a reprimand.
6. Communicate in All Directions
Communication shouldn’t just be top-down. Invite feedback, create open channels for suggestions, and genuinely listen to what your people have to say. Healthy upward communication closes gaps before they become conflicts.
7. Overcome Insecurities
Many leaders secretly fear being outshone by younger, more tech-savvy employees. Instead of resisting, embrace the chance to learn from them. Humility earns respect and helps the team innovate faster.
8. Invest in Coaching and Mentorship
True leaders grow other leaders. Provide mentorship, career guidance, and stretch opportunities so employees can develop new skills. Leadership is learned through experience, but guided experience is even more powerful.
9. Eliminate Favoritism
Avoid cliques and office politics. Decisions should be based on facts and fairness, not gossip. Objective, transparent decision-making builds credibility.
10. Recognize Efforts Promptly
Recognition often matters more than rewards. Publicly appreciate employees’ contributions and do so consistently and fairly. A timely “thank you” can be more motivating than a quarterly bonus.
11. Conduct Thoughtful Exit Interviews
When employees leave, treat it as an opportunity to learn. Keep interviews confidential and use the insights to improve management practices and culture.
12. Provide Leadership Development
Train managers to lead, not just supervise. Leadership development programs help shift mindsets from “command and control” to “coach and empower.” This transformation has a direct impact on morale and retention.
13. Adopt Soft Leadership Principles
Today’s workforce, largely millennials and Gen Z, value collaboration over hierarchy. Soft leadership focuses on partnership, mutual respect, and shared purpose, rather than rigid top-down control.
The Bigger Picture: HR’s Role
Mercer’s global research highlights five key priorities for organizations:
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Build diverse talent pipelines
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Embrace flexible work models
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Design compelling career paths
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Simplify HR processes
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Redefine the value HR brings
The challenge? Employers and employees often view these priorities differently. Bridging that perception gap is just as important as bridging the relational gap between leaders and staff.
Treat Employees Like Associates, Not Just Staff
When you treat employees like partners, they bring their best selves to work. HR leaders must develop strategies to keep talent engaged, empowered, and prepared for the future.
Organizational success starts with people, always. Build the relationship with your team first, and the results will follow.
Entrepreneurs
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