The Dip, Our Emotional Investment, & The Authentic Self
Wednesday Wisdoms for August 14, 2024
Welcome to Wednesday Wisdom, our 3x3 Newsletter where I distill worldly advice for better living with 3 quotes, 3 observations, and 3 questions.
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The Dip
🤨 Quote
“All of us who do creative work… you get into this thing, and there's like a “gap.” What you're making isn't so good, okay? It's trying to be good but… it's just not that great.”
Ira Glass
Source: So Good They Can’t Ignore You (by Cal Newport)
Observation 🧐
Within any endeavor we take on, there is bound to be a learning curve.
Sometimes the learning curve is small and we can quickly connect with what we’re trying to do. Other times, it is a long and arduous curve that requires dedication and persistence to learn and master.
Seth Godin calls this gap the dip, the moment where we go from excitement to the dip of anxiety, frustration, resentment, and dispassion for the task we’ve taken on.
“The Dip is the long slog between starting and mastery,” he writes.
But the Dip isn’t a drop off, it is a dip in a curve, with the other side going back up.
This dip period is what the entrepreneur and investor Paul Graham calls the trough of sorrow—the pain of the mistakes and the learnings that come with them.
Every endeavor requires learning and that means being comfortable making bad things with the understand that, with time, hard-work, and dedication, they will improve.
“Extraordinary benefits accrue to the tiny minority of people who are able to push just a tiny bit longer than most.”
🤔 Question
How do you handle the moments of doubt in your endeavors? What can you do today to strengthen your resolve during those times?
Our Emotional Investment
🤨 Quote
“We become more invested as we pour effort into different activities, and with it experience greater love for what we have created—our creations become part of ourselves and our identities.”
Dan Ariely
Source: Payoff
Observation 🧐
While starting a new venture or creative pursuit can be fun and exciting, it can also be scary and nerve-wracking. In fact, we may find ways to talk ourselves out of the excitement right from the beginning.
Our inner dialogues play a huge role within how we approach the world. If we’re constantly reinforcing that we’re frightened, we’re going to approach the situation from a position of nervousness and timidity.
But we counter this through actually pushing forward and doing the work, showing ourselves what we’re capable of.
By remembering there will be periods of struggle and times of learning, if we can believe in the process and stay with it, seeing incremental improvements daily, we reinforce within ourselves our own ability.
And from this, we can move the needle from being nervous to once again being excited and seeing our growth each and every day.
🤔 Question
What are some small things you can setup as ‘wins’ to achieve excitement and momentum for long-term pursuits?
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