There is one bad thing about being at the top of your game: at one point it ends. But then there is also one good thing about being on the low side of your game: at one point, it also ends.
So the worst thing that can ever happen is not really to be on top, or to fall with your face flat on the ground. In both cases you end up with a sort of self-discovery, learnings, new perspectives and abilities.
The worst thing is to be in between, to plateau; to be neither here nor there, to neither fly nor die.
But first, let me define plateau. Plateau, in my opinion, does not necessarily mean a lack of growth. It is very subjective in fact. A person who is advancing steadily can be experiencing a plateau if she thinks that her abilities should allow her to advance 10x. A person who is advancing 10x and seems to be at the top of her game on the outside can still be experiencing a plateau, if she thinks that there may be other ways to use her time so that she can acquire the abilities to allow her to advance exponentially.
Sounds complicated? It isn’t. It’s as simple as this: to plateau is to experience a disconnect between one’s actual growth versus one’s desired growth.
It is a “first world problem”, as social media would put it. It is a privilege in itself to have this problem at all.
But then again, the more privileged you are, the more responsibility you have. The more you don’t have any excuse to keep on expanding yourself and redefining your limits. The more you don’t have any excuse to make the next top of your game, higher than the last.