Resolution and appreciation are lost when limits are reached.
I
Rust is just getting into bouldering and progressing quickly. He's already on V3 problems that some people who have been bouldering for much longer still have trouble with. A video shows up on his YouTube feed of a V6 problem at a local gym and he decides to head out there the next day to try it out. It can't be that difficult.
Rust can't even get off the ground. He tries to lift his feet but his grip immediately fails. A $20 day pass for nothing. He hangs his head in shame and heads back to his home gym, back to those lame V3 problems.
It's been a year and Rust is now on V6 problems. A video shows up on his YouTube feed of a V7+ problem at a local gym and he decides to head out there the next day to try it out. It can't be that difficult.
Rust can't even get off the ground. He tries to lift his feet but his grip immediately fails. This all-too-familiar feeling refreshes his memory to a year ago, when he grossly underestimated the difficult of the V6 he can now climb successfully most of the time.
II
Maggie is an intermediate lifter and can deadlift 100 kg for a few reps. She's hungry for success and has a goal of pulling 150 kg in the next two years. The first year passes and she's added 20 kg. The first half of the second year passes and she's added an additional 5 kg. The second year passes and she's at 132 kg for one rep. Meh, this took a bit longer than expected. She chalks it up to not training hard enough and adjusts her 150 kg goal out another year.
The third year passes and she's at 140 kg, despite training harder than ever.
III
Marty has an 1800 ELO rating and loves chess. He practices for two hours a day: one hour of free play against other online players and one hour of studying theory. He doesn't have a goal set—he just wants to be a solid chess player, so around 2300-2400 or so. But progress begins to wane. The same input of two hours per day doesn't match the output of earlier days: learning is more difficult, the strategies more complex, the opponents less forgiving. He increases practice to three hours per day with a marginal improvement.
Marty's read about it taking five or more years to reach 2400 and another few to reach 2500, but he didn't think it applied to him.
IV
Lisa is a new engineer at a semiconductor fab working on photolithography tools. She works long hours alongside her group's senior engineer, taking diligent notes and asking insightful questions. Based on her progress, she predicts that she'll be at his knowledge level in a couple of years. Her fourth year passes and the rate of questions hasn't slowed down; in fact, it's sped up! She is astounded at the complexity of the equipment and the process, at the fact that she continues to learn something new every day.
Years later, Lisa is now the senior engineer and is mentoring an energetic new hire who is just as excited as she was to learn. She overhears them in the hall telling a colleague that "it'll only be a couple of years before I'm performing at Lisa's level".
Dunning-Kruger effect states that "people with low ability, expertise, or experience regarding a certain type of a task or area of knowledge tend to overestimate their ability or knowledge". The examples above relate to the Dunning-Kruger effect, in that the individuals don't overestimate their ability, but rather underestimate the difficulty of achieving high levels in their disciplines.
And it's incredibly easy to underestimate. When first starting out in a discipline, only the high-level, foundational concepts are seen—the more complex, nuanced concepts are often hidden lest they confuse or frighten the newcomer. This is arguably the best way of going about introducing someone to something: start easy and basic, then gradually ramp into more challenging topics, then finally let the full force of complexity blow them away. Timelines vary and depend on interest (does the person really care about this?), requirement (does the person need to know this?), and overall complexity of the topic (some topics may require more time building a base of knowledge and practicing it before moving on to more advanced topics).
The other factor contributing to poor estimates is lack of experience. It's incredibly easy to predict how challenging something will be when it's never been attempted before; it's another thing altogether to attempt something, fail horribly, then make an estimate. The latter is obviously much more telling. Progression vs. time curves generally hold the same logarithmic curve, with the coefficient of the log term and the coefficient of the independent variable changing based on the discipline. More specifically, the independent variable's coefficient is often much larger than one, promoting faster progression in the beginning but still gradually leveling out. Predicting future progress based on this outrageously quick progression makes for a harsh wake-up call when the curve starts to flatline and incremental progress has to be clawed and fought for.
Underestimation happens despite some glaring data that can help sway the prediction the other way. First, the number of individuals performing at higher levels gets exponentially smaller as the ability requirement increases. This should be especially telling when there are a large number of practitioners: with so many people trying to get better but only a select few achieving it, maybe it is really challenging (genetics and non-merit-based advantages aside). Second, the top performers discussing their training that a) got them to where they are and b) keeps them where they are. Training doesn't stop when the top is reached—it keeps going at the same or an even more aggressive pace. The only ones that can assert this with confidence are the top performers or their coaches, who were more likely than not also top performers.
Shared experiences, especially when misery is involved, create a unique appreciation for the other person. No words need to be said—each person knows what was endured to achieve said goal. Beginners at the start of a long road don't realize how long it is until they're in the suck, and because of that they lack appreciation for what the weathered traveler has accomplished, leading to a level of mistrust as discussed in the previous paragraph: "it probably wasn't that bad", "it couldn't have taken that long", "they're exaggerating". The reasons are endless and the words ignorant.
Appreciation of difficulty is lost after one's limit is reached, especially when the progression curve is logarithmic, because the person is blind to what happens after and generally extrapolates based on their experiences. It's up to the experts to pop balloons and force dues to be paid.
Experience reigns supreme over most other qualities, albeit intelligence is a close second (see Intelligence Is Knowledge Is Experience). Listening to those with vast experience can quickly calibrate the expected trajectory from a fast track to expert to a slow, steady, rocky grind. Ask questions, take notes, be humble, and settle in for the long haul to the top.
Try to understand the nuances of the discipline, and if available, dive into the literature. Explore just how deep others (who, again, are experienced) are going into said topic and how difficult it is to achieve a thorough understanding of it.
Purposefully underestimate the progression timeline so expectations aren't shattered when the self-imposed deadline passes with no end in sight. Add a couple of months to the expected completion date, then double it. It will take that long, if not longer, and there are no shortcuts.