How do things change over time? Often our intuitive expectation is that growth will continue as it has gone. Often that the change that we experienced at the beginning of our career will continue all the way through to the end of our career. And often the jarring feeling of that change changing can lead us to believe that we don't know what's going on. It can be disorienting. Think about this for a second. Imagine that you had a graph that could explain. The rate of change. You are accumulating change over time. Maybe it's learning. Maybe it's a change in your salary. Maybe it's an accumulation of acquaintances, of connections in your network. Whatever it is, there is some accumulation of change. And there may be portions of that that look linear or even exponential. But the way that change occurs over time. Is almost never infinitely linear. Or in fact it is never infinitely linear. And usually it rolls out. In other words, the rate slows down. The slope changes negatively over time. This would be a logarithmic curve. In the vast majority of cases. Especially in human experiences. There is. A logarithmic rounding out. Eventually kind of. Leveling off. This is a kind of theoretical maximum. Your network of friends or your network of acquaintances is going to level off. Your skills acquired is likely going to level off. Now that's not to say that that's a hard and fast rule. You may have periods where it actually increases again. You pick up some new skills. Maybe. You have some opportunity or some inspiration. Maybe you have a trigger and. It kickstarts some kind of learning or changing process again. But you can expect that on that kickstart. Eventually it will level off again. But here's the problem. We very rarely plan for the level off. And this level off is often responsible for. What has become known as the Peter principle. That we rise to the level of our incompetence. In other words. As our competence increases. Everyone else sees that increase. And they expect it to go. Further on. But eventually. Our promotions outpace. The level of learning. The level of change that we're doing. The level of competence. Increase over time. So when you are doing your goal setting. Your planning. Your goalsetting. You should be asking yourself. I understand what the level of change is today. But can we expect it to continue? Now the important thing is that. The leveling off doesn't happen. As a result of you asking this question. In other words. For the period of time that you're planning for. You may see an increase. You may continue to see that linear growth. But by asking this question. You begin to bring into view. The kinds of things you should be considering. How do you determine. When the level off is likely to happen. You can use external references. To try to figure that out. Maybe you can use essential logic. To figure it out. Maybe there's some limitations. That are well known. About the domain that you're working in. Whatever it is. Try to imagine. What is the curve going to look like? When will this level out? Or how will it level out? Is it going to be a violent and abrupt leveling? Or is it going to be a gradual? Will I see it coming? Another great example of this. Is the ability to improve velocity. Over time for a team. Velocity in this case. We're just talking about. How much work can a team deliver? How productive can you ultimately be? And aside from. Whatever best practices. I might be breaking. By talking about it this way. There is not. An endless treadmill. Of improvement. When it comes to delivering work. There will be a limitation. Eventually that velocity. That amount of work delivered. Will hit a ceiling. It will level off. And so it's important to recognize. And plan for. The change. Of change. So now you can plan. For your level of competence. Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. Of Developer Tea. If you enjoyed this discussion. I'd encourage you to continue it. You can do that in a bunch of different ways. One is just to listen to this episode. With another engineer. Send it to them. Comment back and forth with it. Have your own private conversation. That's a wonderful way. To engage with this content. Another great way. Is to join the Developer Tea Discord community. You can do exactly what I just said. But in a space where you know. That people are actually interested. In what we talk about on this show. That's developertea.com. Slash Discord. Thanks so much for listening. And until next time. Enjoy your tea.