When mastering any discipline, you’re bound to run into the Plateau Effect from time to time. For awhile, your mastery increases steadily through training or studying, but then you begin to experience diminishing returns. The slope of mastery versus time evens out, until you reach the plateau point, when it seems like further investment just doesn’t have much effect. For example, if you’re weight training, you might reach a stage where you can’t seem to increase the amount of weight on the bar. It’s like your muscles have decided all on their own that this is it, this is as strong as they’ll grow. Or if you’re trying to lose weight, your weight might decrease for awhile and then get “stuck”.
There’s a natural urge to feel disappointed when you run into the plateau, but in fact it’s a sign that you’re on the right track. Plateauing should actually be encouraging, not discouraging. This is an area where our instinctive feelings are a bit obsolete. Throughout the millions of years while mankind evolved, there were no gyms or diet plans. Our apish ancestors didn’t play chess, they didn’t do karate, there were no sports or Olympic games. There wasn’t any need at all to specialize, and what skills were needed, were trained naturally without conscious effort or intent. Therefore our brains were never programmed to deal with the flat stretch of the development curve. That’s why we get discouraged, sometimes giving up completely when it feels like no further progress will come. Fortunately, we aren’t totally constrained by our basest instincts, and we can learn to associate those barriers with progress rather than stagnation.
So now you embrace the plateau as an indicator that you’re on the right track, but what can you do to get yourself over the bump? Besides just sticking to it and faithfully putting in the hours, time, and sweat, there’s a better way to invest your effort when you recognize you’re plateauing: mix things up. If it’s your bench-press which seems stagnant, then go do dumbbell bench instead. Diet running into a wall? Try switching to a different one. Not making any progress at chess? I’ve heard good things about that exotic Chinese board game Go. Not only will you make a lot of progress in these related areas, which will contribute toward the frozen area anyway, you’ll also feel a lot better about the process. When your dumbbell benching also hits a wall, then return to the regular bench press and you’ll be pleasantly surprised to find you can suddenly push through the old obstacles 
In a certain sense, our primitive ancestors were really onto something. It isn’t all that natural for human beings to focus too narrowly on any one thing. You wouldn’t want to eat the same meal every day, so why do the same exercise routine, or study the same books? The long flat plateaus are kind of like nature’s way of pushing you to try new things. Switching from treadmill to yoga, you’ll meet new people and discover new things in life. A little casual boxing might be exactly what the karate redbelt needs to go black. Absolute worst case scenario, even if the new goals and activities don’t pan out, you’ll still strengthen your body and mind, making it that much easier to kick open the gates to greater mastery in the original area.
The coolest thing about the plateau effect is that once you do manage to push past the blockage, you’ll suddenly find yourself moving forward and progressing very fast. You can catch up with and even overtake the plans you made based on how things were going pre-plateau. It’s like your brain and your body were resting, and suddenly they wake up energized and ready to stride.
This effect is one I’ve experienced time and again in my mathematical studies. For the longest time, I couldn’t understand quadratic equations. I read lots of other math, even skipping ahead and studying things I wasn’t “ready” for, according to traditional ordering. Soon, the process of completing the square “clicked”. I got it, and after pushing through that limit, my mathematical maturity had grown enough that I was able to blast forward at full speed, quickly mastering all of single-variable calculus before splattering into the next wall 
You’ve heard the phrase “learn at your own pace” a thousand times over, I’m sure. The reason it’s such great advice is exactly these speed-bumps on the road to expertise. People in general would be a lot better at math and science if they had the freedom that I had when I was self-teaching myself. The big trap in traditional education is, you hit a plateau but the course must go on. People get left behind. Worst part is, they think there must be something wrong with them, like they’re no good at physics or whatever, when the truth is they’re doing just fine. When you teach yourself and you have the patience and flexibility to clear the hurdles, you’ll be amazed how far you can go. Through gradual, persistent improvements, you’ll discover the deepest genius within yourself, your body will be transformed, your very life will flow with mastery.
FURTHER READING
Progressive Training
Mathematical Maturity
How To Take Control Of Life
Boot Camp