We’ve all said it. You’re three weeks into a new gym routine, or maybe you just launched a messy side project, and someone asks how it’s going. You shrug, give a half-smile, and mutter, "so far so good." It feels safe. It’s the ultimate verbal placeholder. But honestly, if you look at the psychology of high performance and how we actually process momentum, those four words might be the most dangerous thing you can say to yourself.
They imply a sort of passive observation. Like you’re watching a movie of your own life and the plot hasn't gone off the rails yet. It’s fine. It’s okay. But "okay" is where growth goes to die.
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The Problem With Staying in the Safe Zone
When things are going so far so good, we tend to stop auditing our process. We get complacent. Think about the classic "Optimist's Falling Man" joke. A guy falls off a skyscraper, and as he passes each floor, people hear him say, "So far, so good!" The problem isn't the status of the fall; it's the inevitable sudden stop at the bottom.
Most of us treat our careers and personal habits exactly like that fall. We ignore the structural flaws because the immediate results aren't catastrophic. If you’re a manager, you might see a project that’s hitting deadlines but burning out the team. You tell your boss it’s so far so good because you’re hitting the KPIs. But you’re ignoring the friction building up under the surface. Real experts in systems thinking, like the late Donella Meadows, would tell you that the "state" of a system (the "good" part) often masks the "rate" of decay happening behind the scenes.
Complacency kills.
Actually, it doesn’t just kill; it erodes. It’s like a slow leak in a tire. You don't notice it while you're parked. You only notice it when you’re doing 70 on the highway and the steering starts to wobble.
Why "Good" is the Enemy of "Great"
Jim Collins famously started his book Good to Great with that exact premise. He spent years researching why some companies stagnate while others explode into legendary status. The common denominator? The "good" companies were comfortable. They had a so far so good mentality that prevented them from making the radical changes needed to become exceptional.
When you’re "good," you have something to lose. You become risk-averse. You stop experimenting because you don't want to break the "good" streak. This is particularly true in tech and gaming development. Take the story of "Duke Nukem Forever." For years, the development was reportedly "going well" in spurts, but the insistence on perfection and the refusal to adapt to changing engine standards meant that "good enough for now" eventually turned into a decade of delays and a mediocre release.
The Psychology of the Phrase
Psychologically, saying so far so good acts as a cognitive dampener. It’s a way of self-soothing. According to researchers like Dr. Gabriele Oettingen, who developed the WOOP (Wish, Outcome, Obstacle, Plan) framework, positive thinking alone can actually drain our energy. When we tell ourselves things are going well, our brain sometimes tricks us into thinking we’ve already reached the finish line. We lose the "edge" required to tackle the obstacles that are definitely waiting for us around the next corner.
It’s a false sense of security.
You need a bit of healthy paranoia. Not the "I can't sleep" kind, but the "what am I missing?" kind.
Breaking Down the Momentum Myth
We think momentum is a straight line. It isn't. Momentum is a series of tiny pushes that overcome massive friction. The moment you say so far so good, you usually stop pushing quite as hard. You coast. And physics tells us that anything that is coasting is eventually going to come to a stop.
- In Business: It looks like ignoring customer feedback because sales are up this quarter.
- In Health: It’s skipping a workout because you lost five pounds and "feel fine."
- In Relationships: It’s stoping the deep conversations because you haven't fought in a month.
How to Pivot Away from Passive Success
If you want to actually ensure that things stay "good," you have to stop using the phrase as a shield. You need to replace it with active inquiry. Instead of telling your team—or yourself—that everything is so far so good, start asking "where is the hidden friction?"
Identify the "Yellow Flags."
In Formula 1 racing, engineers don't just look at whether the car is winning. They look at telemetry data. They see if a component is vibrating 2% more than it should. To the driver, the car feels so far so good. To the engineer, that 2% vibration is a catastrophic failure waiting to happen on lap 50.
Practical Steps to Audit Your Momentum
Don't wait for the wheels to fall off. You need to run a "Pre-Mortem." This is a technique popularized by psychologist Gary Klein. Imagine it’s six months from now and your project has completely failed. Now, work backward. Why did it fail?
Usually, the reasons for failure were present back when you thought things were so far so good.
- Kill the Cliches: Stop using "fine" or "good" in status reports. Use metrics or specific emotional descriptors. "We are on schedule, but the technical debt is increasing" is a thousand times better than "so far so good."
- The 5% Rule: Every week, find one thing that is "working" and try to improve it by 5%. This prevents the stagnation that comes with comfort.
- Invite Dissent: If everyone in the room agrees that things are going great, someone isn't paying attention. Find the person who thinks the project is a disaster and listen to them. They might be wrong, but their perspective will highlight the cracks you’re ignoring.
- Shorten the Feedback Loop: Don't wait for the end of the month to check in. If you’re trying a new diet, how do you feel today? Not "how have I felt for the last two weeks?" Today. Right now.
The Reality of Sustained Progress
Real progress is messy. It’s loud. It’s often uncomfortable. If you’re actually pushing boundaries, things should probably feel a little bit "not good" most of the time. You should feel the strain of the growth.
The phrase so far so good is for people who are watching from the sidelines. It’s for the audience. But you aren't the audience. You’re the one in the middle of it. You don't need things to be "good" in a static, frozen way; you need them to be evolving.
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Actionable Takeaways for This Week
Start by auditing your most common "stable" projects. Pick the one thing in your life where you feel most confident that everything is under control. That’s your danger zone.
Look at your bank account, your fitness tracker, or your project management software. Look for the plateaus. A plateau is just so far so good in visual form. To break a plateau, you have to introduce stress. You have to change the stimulus.
- Switch your routine: If your workout feels easy, it's no longer changing your body. Increase the weight or change the movement entirely.
- Audit your spending: If your budget is "fine," find the $50 a month you're wasting on a subscription you don't use.
- Challenge your assumptions: If your business strategy is working, ask yourself what would happen if your main lead source disappeared tomorrow.
Moving forward requires a rejection of the status quo, even when the status quo is pleasant. True "good" isn't a state of being; it's a process of constant correction. Stop settling for the absence of disaster and start reaching for the presence of excellence.
Get rid of the phrase. Start looking for the friction. That's where the real work begins.