A plateau in life is not somewhere anyone wants to be. A “plateau” is a relatively level high ground. A plateau in life is exactly that, a position in which you are no longer growing, increasing, or developing and where things start to seem flat and stagnant. I read a book about the plateau in learning a language. As you start to learn the language, you start growing immediately and drastically, but at some point it seems that you have hit a “ceiling” in your learning (or a “plateau”) and you seem to take a detour from the road to fluency. There are plateaus in life too, it is just a part of it. So how do we push through the plateaus? I can think of a few thing I have learned and am learning to help us through these hard times.

• Don’t quit. Sometimes when we think we are in a “plateau”, we are just in times where things are going slower. We shouldn’t give up, on the contrary we should push harder, trusting Jesus as we continue on.
• Read books. I am in the middle of a book now and it is challenging me. It is addressing things that are lacking in my life, things I often don’t give attention. Now that I am reading about it, I am confronted with a topic in which I must make changes. This type of challenge helps me to grow. Read books often that will help you grow.
• Spend time with strong Christians. The past few days I have had the opportunity to spend time with a friend of mine. My fiend is an influence in my life (as all friends, good and bad, are). But this friend is a positive influence. He is always growing, always serving others, always ready to help, always reading books to grow (see above about reading books), always challenging me to live more for Jesus. He is humble and builds others up instead of trying to build himself up by putting others down. The truth is this type of influence is a needed influence. We all need friends like this to help us push ahead. The man who doesn’t have Christian friends who are growing and challenging others to grow is a man that is on the verge of a large, never-ending plateau.

There are many other things that can be said about this topic. I think these three things will help us to push on through and break out of the plateau.