Post 50 – also known as the Plateau Effect.
Today marks 50 posts in Moho. It feels like it should be more of a milestone, but most days it just feels like I’m slugging through. This week, I thought I’d spend some time talking about the mental side of learning something new.
I’ve been listening to this book. Fascinating. Every single part of it so far seems to resonate with my experience of learning Moho (and animation). lol
Things to Know:
✔ The Plateau Effect is a scientifically verified phenomenon where the human body or brain completely stops responding to a stimulus that used to work, causing progress to flatten out entirely.
The Plateau Effect
Sometimes real learning is nonlinear and completely hidden from view before a breakthrough.
I’ve heard several analogies for this: the myth of the bamboo stalk growing underground before it finally breaks through, and the more accurate piñata analogy, where several kids take swings before the piñata finally breaks open. Clearly, that last hit didn’t do it all on its own. It was built on all the swings that came before it.
One thing does seem to be true: you can work incredibly hard at a skill and get to a point where you just aren’t seeing much progress. Which feels a lot like 50 posts into learning Moho. 😅
Why does this happen ?
🧠 Why Plateaus Happen (The Mechanics)
- The Law of Diminishing Returns: When you are a beginner, everything is new, so your brain builds neural pathways rapidly. As you gain experience, those same actions require less effort, and your growth naturally slows down. Think of that easy first 5 lbs. on a diet.
- Acclimatization: The human brain and body love stability (homeostasis). If you repeat the exact same routine, your brain adapts to it completely and stops growing. Think of how quickly you stop smelling the garlic, after that first initial hit, when you walk into a restaurant.
- The “OK Plateau”: This happens when you become “good enough” at a task to perform it automatically. Once something you are doing becomes an automatic habit, your brain switches to autopilot, which completely halts active learning.
🛑 Deception of the Plateau
Now this, this is the resonating part. The most dangerous part of a plateau is psychological: it feels like failure, but it is actually invisible progress.
When you are in a “plateau,” your brain can be engaged in latent learning. It is busy locking in some of the old information, sorting through your thoughts (aka. organizing mental schemas), and ultimately changing how your brain thinks. That’s right, rewiring those old neural pathways. Outwardly, your performance may looks somewhat frozen, um yes, but inwardly, your brain is building the foundation required for the next big developmental leap. Whohoo !
🔨 Tips to Break a Plateau
I love some of these suggestions to disrupt your brain’s comfort zone.
- Introduce Desirable Difficulties: Change how you learn. Do something new, not just the same ole’ way. Forcing some discomfort restarts that neural growth. Maybe it’s time for me to dive into a book, not a learning video ?
- Change the Metrics: The book recommends, switch learning tracks. So if you are working on walk cycles in Moho, switch it up , and work on head turns. However, I would also advocate for changing the metric of how you view your work, as suggested by this article in Medium.
- switch your lens, measure inputs not outputs.
- progress journaling.
- give it the long perspective.
- reward consistency, not breakthrough.
- Rest: and maybe you are just fatigued ? Sometimes when you step away for a bit, it allows your brain to collect itself. leading to bigger gains when you return. Think about those weight lifting “rest” days. Admittedly terrible at this, a beloved family trait of thinking MORE is always BETTER.
“Stop measuring outcomes only. Instead, track inputs.”
— Medium
The Journey Continues
I took an old Procreate drawing I made during my Domestika course Paint Magical Scenes, with Lucy Fleming, and (tried) to turn her into a hand-painted vector character. Using many of the brushes from the Moho Ultimate Brush Pack. Mostly successful, except for the hair, that will have to happen another time. I also, for the first time, tried to reverse-engineer one of the walk rigs Moho provides every time you open the program. Oh man. 😅 One of those weeks I did do a lot, but I’m not sure I have much to show for it.
Post 50 — Afterthoughts
Really thoughtful about how to proceed now that I’m not in a structured class.
I’ve had this hush-hush goal of producing 100 videos on YouTube. Spoken, but unspoken… you know the kind. Anyho’s, producing a Short a week, in the style I’m doing it, is quite a chunk of time. Plus, at some point I want to get better at the story thing, not just talking about the thing. We’ll see how I move forward.
Artistic inputs this week included watching three episodes of The Animator’s Survival Kit. 🤯 Holy wow. What he can do with a bouncing ball. I may have to revisit that next week. I bought the dvd set (I know), but you can also watch it here.
For now…
inputs not outputs 🔨 Nik
