The Trick to Reaching a Breakthrough
Whether we’re making art, starting a business, or trying to forge a career path, success almost always means differentiating ourselves from the crowd. But how do we reach that breakthrough? James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, suggests a surprisingly simple strategy: Stay on the bus.
On his website, Clear shares what he calls the Helsinki bus station theory. In this scenario, all the buses start off at the same station and travel more or less the same path for the first bit of their journey. If you gave up on the ride and got off your bus early, you wouldn’t be that far away from all the other riders. It’s only after a certain point that the buses veer off onto their own paths.
It’s the same with creative work, Clear notes: For example, if you’re starting off writing realistic fiction and you’ve been reading a lot of Hemingway, you might find that your first few stories are unsatisfactory Hem-lite knockoffs. The key is to keep going. Get past the place where the routes diverge. Keep working and reworking — your work will get better and fresher and more unique as you go — but whatever you do, stay on the bus. Stay on your path.
It’s true of business plans and new technology and fine art—anything you want to master and put your own imprint on. “By staying on the bus,” Clear writes, “you give yourself time to rework and revise until you produce something unique, inspiring, and great. It’s only by staying on board that mastery reveals itself.”
