The Tipping Point

Photo by Piret Ilver on Unsplash

The Tipping Point is a term that's been around since the 1800s but gained popularity in the 1960s as the precursor to the racist white flight, bringing it into the general vocabulary. Later, in the 2000s, it had a resurgence with the publishing of Malcolm Gladwell's book, The Tipping Point. Now, the term is commonly used to indicate the point of no return. We talk about our own tipping points with our patience - the moment we just can't take it anymore - and we talk about it in organizational change as the moment when enough people are supporting an idea that the desired change is inevitable.

"Research from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute suggests that when just 10% of the population holds an unshakeable belief, their conviction can lead to the majority eventually adopting that belief." -Forbes

So how do we get 10% of a population to hold an unshakeable belief that the change we are making is the best course of action? We work at it by communicating, training, and inviting people into the process of change. Even though 10% seems like a small number, it can still take significant effort by many people to reach the tipping point. These are the kinds of things I think about when I’m forcing myself to go out for a run.

The day I wrote this post, I was not feeling like exercising, like not at all. I did not sleep well the night before and so I could’ve easily made excuses to work instead of exercise. But I’ve learned over the years that my body needs exercise. It's an outcome I want to see and yet getting there takes work. I have to force myself to put on my running clothes. I have to force myself to walk past my office, past the kitchen where a cup of coffee is much more appealing, and out the door. I need to force myself to start walking because I know that if I put in that work, if I force myself to just get out there, then at about 1.5 miles in, I reach my tipping point. Once my body starts to feel the benefits of exercise, I’m sold; sometimes I even have to force myself to go back home because I just want to keep moving.

Often when people look at others who are successful, they assume that whatever they’re doing comes easy to them. But sometimes that’s not the case, at least not for me. Most of the good habits I have are a true struggle to start, but I’ve learned for each of these things -  for my writing, for my running, and for other good things in my life - I need to figure out the formula that helps me reach my tipping point because only then do I have enough momentum to get me to whatever outcome I'm hoping for.

For exercise, it’s 1.5 miles.

For writing, it’s about 5 minutes.

For work, its checking something off my to do list.

So what change are you trying to implement in your life? What activity are you hoping to accomplish today? Remember that sometimes even the things we really want, the things we know we need, are still not easy to start. But we all have our tipping point, we just need to put in the work long enough to reach it.