A few weeks ago in the gym I overheard a conversation that sounded very familiar.

Two guys were standing by the dumbbell rack discussing their latest training plan. One of them had started bulking about a month earlier and looked slightly concerned.

“My abs are disappearing,” he said.

The other guy nodded immediately.

“Yeah. That’s why I stopped bulking. I’m cutting now.”

A few minutes later they were discussing something completely different. One of them had read about recomposition. Maybe that was the real solution. Build muscle and lose fat at the same time.

It was a very typical gym conversation.

If you spend enough time around training you begin to notice this pattern everywhere. Someone starts with a clear goal. Bulk. Cut. Recompose. For a few weeks the plan feels convincing.

Then something small changes.

The mirror shows something unexpected. Strength drops slightly. The scale refuses to move. The results take longer than expected.

And the plan begins to drift.

Anyone who has trained for several years has seen this cycle repeat itself endlessly. Diets swing wildly. One day someone eats 3000 calories, the next day barely 1500. Training programs change every few weeks. A new method appears that promises better results and suddenly the entire strategy shifts again.

Effort is rarely the problem.

The people doing this usually train hard.

What they rarely give the body is time.

Every serious training phase eventually reaches the same unsettling moment.

Progress slows down and the work becomes monotonous.

The scale refuses to move. The mirror barely changes. The workouts feel exactly the same week after week.

Weeks pass like this.

That is usually when people start adjusting things. A little less food. A bit more cardio. A different training split someone recommended.

The search quietly begins.

Then something strange often happens.

Just when frustration peaks, the body finally adapts.

The weight begins to drop. Strength starts moving again. The breakthrough arrives almost overnight.

The irony is that this moment often comes right after the long plateau that convinced people nothing was working.

And that is exactly when many people abandon the plan.

They start looking for something new.

The next shiny thing.

Gyms see this pattern every year. Memberships surge in January, yet roughly 50 % of new members disappear within 6 months. Motivation is rarely the problem in the beginning.

The real difficulty appears when progress becomes slow and repetitive.

At some point you begin to realise that this behaviour is not really about training.

It is something more human.

The chase for the next shiny thing

We are naturally drawn to novelty. A new idea always feels cleaner than the messy work already in progress. The future version of a plan always looks more promising than the imperfect reality we are currently struggling with.

A new strategy feels hopeful.

The existing one feels heavy.

So the mind begins drifting toward the next solution before the current one has even had time to work.

After many years inside large organisations I have seen a strangely similar moment appear again and again.

A leadership team launches a transformation initiative. Energy rises quickly. Budgets are approved. A 3 year roadmap is presented. Across the organisation people feel relief because finally something important is happening.

Then reality arrives.

The problem turns out to be more complicated than expected. Technical obstacles appear. Organisational friction slows execution. After the first year it becomes obvious that the dramatic results promised in year 3 are nowhere close to appearing.

That is usually the moment when something else enters the room.

Another idea. A new strategic direction. A different technology that suddenly looks more promising than the messy work already underway.

The next shiny thing.

I have worked in organisations where a 3 year transformation quietly lost momentum after 18 months when leadership discovered a new strategic priority.

Sometimes the original initiative simply shrinks. Budgets are reduced. Teams move on to something else. The transformation slowly fades into maintenance mode.

Sometimes something more subtle happens.

The initiative itself is reframed. A new narrative appears. The same transformation suddenly receives a different emphasis or a slightly different destination. The intention is to generate fresh energy around the work already in progress.

Many experienced transformation architects know how to do this. Organisations often need renewed momentum in order to continue moving.

It can work.

But it also comes with a cost.

Each shift in narrative introduces instability. People begin to wonder which direction is actually permanent. Teams hesitate. Energy fragments. The organisation keeps moving, yet the ground never quite settles.

Over time a pattern emerges.

A sequence of ambitious starts.

A trail of partially completed transformations.

Research reflects the same reality. Studies often cited in Harvard Business Review suggest that roughly 70 % of organisational transformations fail to deliver their intended results.

Inside these companies it rarely feels like failure. People are busy. Meetings are full. Energy constantly flows into new initiatives.

But if you step back and watch the organisation over several years something else becomes visible.

Movement everywhere, stability nowhere.